Reading Wonkette on Monica Goofling - err, sorry, I mean Goodling, I get the impression that she was homeschooled. She has that certain lack of familiarity with the principles of English grammar and spelling that is the hallmark of children taught by non-professionals. Apparently she was also taught by non-professionals at law school, too, since what we’re learning about her work product suggests a less than basic familiarity with the Constitution and CFR.

By all means read through Wonkette’s essay and then return. I can wait; I’ve got a great deal of patience.

I don’t know who’s writing Wonkette these days; laughing at the Monica Goodling home page is not the best thing to do. We should rather be paying close attention to this woman because her pending self-immolation points out serious vulnerabilities in our educational, legal, and political systems.

I tried to do some research about homeschooling. Just about all first- and second-tier references to the subject makes copious references to “G-d” and “Jesus,” plainly implying that these two topics take a major part in the syllabus and cultural/educational matrix of homeschooling. While I personally have very limited use for organized religion, millions of people in this country think it’s the only way to live your life. Since we live in a democracy, I think they should be allowed to let someone else deal with any putative deity if they‘re to stupid or too intimidated to speak to that deity themselves. But the fact is that getting G-d thrown in with your geography or quadratic equations probably isn’t utilitarian because it sends the message that G_d is everything.

That’s wrong because G_d won’t do your income taxes for you, nor buy your groceries (unless you’re in the G_d business, and collect your paycheck every Sunday morning.) Go ahead. Check me out. If you haven’t done your taxes yet, just leave your Form 1040 and all your receipts out on your desk. Tomorrow is Sunday, the day those folks at Ms Goodling’s law school say is G_d’s day. Maybe he’ll do our taxes for you like Santa Claus leaves presents for you, and eats those cookies on the day he comes around. If your taxes aren’t done, well, maybe you understand an important lesson.

Likewise, learning law as expressed by people in the G_d business is probably not a good idea because you’re most likely going to get a misimpression about Constitutional law. There are about 150 graduates of a certain religious law school currently in the Justice Department and they seem to not quite understand the role of law in a free society. It appears they somehow developed the idea that the law exists to benefit only one small portion of the citizenry, and that’s a bad thing. (Presently, that small portion seems to poll out at around 28%.) When we see things like that in other countries we’re usually quick to cry out that it is a “dictatorship.” And what they’re doing is actually illegal.

There are certain strictures within the Constitution, and they exist to prevent the very sort of things we’re learning now about our Justice Department. Ignoring those strictures, and serving only that 28% minority breaks another law. Something about rendering Caesar’s due unto G_d, I believe. When you disregard that law you’re actually utilizing something called moral relativism, which heretofore we were told was the sole province of President Clinton.

Another point on Regent University. It was founded in 1977 as CBN University, which is the name of Mr Roberston’s TV cash supply business. In 1990 the name was changed to Regent University “to honor a reference of God as king, while the university's name speaks of a regent, who is someone who exercises the ruling power in a kingdom during the minority, absence, or disability of the sovereign.” The last time I checked our country doesn’t have a sovereign, so maybe that’s something peculiar to Virginia. The law school was opened “during the mid-1980s” – they seem to be vague about the date. A key point here is that it wasn’t accredited by the American Bar Association until 1996. A degree from a non-accredited law school isn’t well-regarded among real lawyers, though.

There has been much written about Ms Goodling, but this commentary is very informative.

My emphasis on Regent is important because it is a key player in the change within the Justice Department from an administrator of law to an administrator of political activism. When the law is subverted to the furtherance of the domestic, economic and political goals of one small minority a nation loses its freedom.