Prop. 187 un-American

California's political profile has often been distinguished by flights of extremist fancy. Aside from that weird Ronald ReaganJerry Brown gubernatorial sequence from 1966 to 1982, there was, of course, 1978's infamous Proposition 13.

Howard Jarvis' landmark "taxpayer's revolt" initiative awarded massive tax cuts to homeowners and made up most of the difference by cutting social services. The effect was a boon for haves and a bust for have-nots.

This year another sweeping, protectionist initiative has aroused statewide controversy Ñ Prop. 187. Like Prop. 13, its very appearance on the ballet says much about this state's inclination for naked greed and narcissism.

Prop. 187 would do three major things: make illegal aliens ineligible for public education at the pre-collegiate level and public health care (except in cases of emergency); require various state and local agencies to verify the citizenship of persons suspected of being illegal aliens; and make it a felony to manufacture or distribute false citizenship records.

Supporters of Prop. 187 include Gov. Pete Wilson, and, according to a recent Los Angeles Times poll, about two-thirds of the state's voters. The argument for Prop. 187 is based on the fallacy that the presence of large numbers of illegal aliens has placed an intolerable burden on California's already beleaguered economy.

More accurate, however, is Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Brown's recent comment that Prop. 187 "will make a bad situation worse."

Indeed it would. Imagine the prospect of public school teachers, already overworked and distracted by too many noneducational issues, forced to verify the citizenship of every student "suspected" of being an illegal alien. Worse, imagine the emotional toll such thoughtless procedures would take on the children being singled out among their classmates merely for having strange faces and brown skin. Imagine the sick being turned away from potentially vital medical assistance because they can't prove their citizenship.

Now Imagine all those children and sick people wandering the streets with nowhere to go, because Prop. 187 doesn't do a thing to relocate illegal aliens.

Besides, according to the Legislative Analyst, Prop. 187 "does not set out any specific requirements as to how verification of citizenship would be done." So imagine all the red tape, and ask yourself how increased (and increasingly vague) bureaucracy is going to help the illegal immigration problem. Too much bureaucracy is surely one of the reasons some people choose to bypass legal immigration in the first place.

Revulsion at Prop. 187 is not limited to liberals. Brian O'Leary Bennett, former chief of staff for none other than Robert K. Dornan, recently composed a scathing indictment of Prop. 187 in a LA Times Op-Ed. piece. Of the initiative's educational provisions, Bennett wrote, "the damage to innocent children will be incalculable in its permanent harm to them and to this state's economic and social future."

And former Republican Cabinet Secretary Jack Kemp (R-New York) said Wednesday that he "could not, in good conscience, support it (Prop. 187), even though I know it will probably pass."

Illegal aliens are hardly the cause of California's economic woes. They are mostly hard-working people with strong family values, who end up taking menial jobs that pay less than minimum wage and whose only crime is an excessive desire to be Americans. Remove the flimsy economic arguments and Prop. 187 is scary. It is a frightened, knee-jerk yearning for a murky, homogenized past that never truly existed.

This has always been a nation of immigrants. Black, brown, yellow - they are some of our proudest faces. Together, they are the face of America.