It’s nice to see that Schwarzenegger is finally on the correct side of an issue (re the California court’s homeschooling decision). The court’s opinion is grounded in the proposition that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting “ITS children” (that’s for the benefit of any of you who still cling to the antiquated idea that these might be YOUR children and not the state’s).

Assuming we are going to be stuck with a government-run court system for at least the near future, the solution to such nonsense is to return to the practice extant during my youth: have judges – even state appellate and supreme court judges – be subject to popular election and re-election. This practice was ended during the late 1950s and early 1960s by the adoption of what was known as the “Missouri Plan,” which effectively turned the ownership and control of the state courts over to lawyers (i.e., for state bar associations to pass upon the judicial credibility of prospective judges). This new system is grounded in the delusive thinking that “we are a society of laws, not men” and, therefore, that lawyers are the most adept at determining – as though in some imagined “objective” fashion – the competency of judges to discern “the law.” It is as if one was assessing the competency of people to solve math problems: you either got the right answer or you did not. There is no “science” to the practice of law. Indeed, there is no “law” – at least in the political sense – in the absence of a few people proposing subjectively preferred rules of conduct to be imposed upon the many.

If the California appellate court judges had to take into account the public response to their decision, it might very likely have taken a different turn. Of course, when you imagine yourself to be a philosopher-king, the response of your subjects becomes irrelevant.