Happy 95th Birthday, Justice Stevens!

Today is the 95^th birthday of retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and I am writing in honor and appreciation of his long, fruitful life.

Stevens, who was born in Chicago in 1920, was nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ford in 1975. He served in that position for 35 years, retiring in 2010.

(It is interesting to note that when he was appointed to the Supreme Court, he was one of eight Protestants among the nine Justices. When he retired and was replaced by Elena Kagan, a Jew, there were no longer any Protestants on the Court.)

In spite of retiring at the age of 90, Justice Stevens has continued to be active. The picture on the left was taken last April 30 as he was testifying before the Senate Rules Committee on Capitol Hill.

It was also just last year that his new book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” was published. While all six of Justice Stevens’s proposed amendments are significant, I am most interested in four of them.

Those four would do away with political gerrymandering, would make it possible for the U.S. Congress or states to limit the amount of money that could be spent in election campaigns, would do away with the death penalty, and would change the Second Amendment to read, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.

Since I wrote about the latter issue previously (here), I will not say more about that at this time.

With regard to the first issue mentioned above, gerrymandering, as you know, means manipulating boundaries of electoral districts so as to favor one party or group. Justice Stevens’s proposed amendment would address the seriously flawed boundary lines for U.S. representatives which have been drawn in many states across the nation.

The highly controversial 5-4 “Citizens United” decision of the Supreme Court in January 2010 was strongly criticized by Justice Stevens. He wrote a 90-page dissenting opinion, setting forth his unhappiness with the majority position.

It is not surprising, therefore, that one of the six amendments to the Constitution that he proposed in his 2014 book is about that decision.

In his talk to the Senate Committee last year Justice Stevens said, “While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.” So Stevens’s proposed campaign finance amendment would essentially overturn Citizens United, allowing Congress to set “reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in elections.”

In 1976, the year following his appointment to the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens voted to uphold the death penalty. When he retired 34 years later, he said that decision was the main one he regretted.

In his 2014 book, he says that retribution is the only legitimate justification for preserving capital punishment—and he doesn’t think that is a good or sufficient reason.

So Justice Stevens now advocates amending the Eighth Amendment to include the words “such as the death penalty” as an example of “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is currently prohibited.

At the time of his retirement in 2010, J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and a member of the Supreme Court Bar, wrote, “Justice Stevens has been a thoughtful, diligent jurist who has served the Court and this country admirably.”

The retired Justice has continued his meritorious public service by his book advocating significant Constitutional amendments.

Happy birthday, Justice Stevens—and thanks for all you have done!

Fascism--Then and Now

Eighty years ago was a very significant time for the faithful Christians of Germany. At this very time, on May 29-31, 1934, members of the Confessing Church were meeting in Barmen, a part of the city of Wuppertal, Germany. There they approved The Theological Declaration of Barmen.

Theologian Karl Barth was the principal author of the Barmen Declaration. In addition to Barth, the best known signers include Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller.

The Barmen Declaration was primarily drafted in opposition to the fascism of Hitler, who came to power in 1933 and who was supported by the Nazis (those who belonged to the National Socialist German Workers Party).

Hitler became the totalitarian leader (Führer) of all segments of German society—including the Church as he co-opted the support of the “German Christians.” But Pastor Niemöller declared, “Not you, Herr Hitler, but God is my Führer.”

That was the sentiment of all who signed the Barmen Declaration.

Our situation in the United States today is much different than that of Germany in the 1930s. There are those who, ludicrously, try to link the policies of the President with Hitler.

However, in this country now the movement toward fascism is not political but primarily economic.

Interestingly, in an April 29, 1938, message to Congress, President Roosevelt warned that the growth of private power could lead to fascism. He declared that

the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

It seems evident today in the U.S. that large corporations raise and spend huge amounts of money on the political campaigns of the Presidents and congresspeople. They also spend huge amounts of money hiring former government officials to lobby Congress to pass laws that mainly benefit their interests.

These corporations are not an organized group plotting to control the country. Nevertheless, even though acting independently, the wealthiest corporations seem to have considerable control over what takes place in the halls of Congress and even the White House.

The power of the corporations has been abetted by the “Citizens United” Supreme Court ruling in 2010 saying that corporations are people, having the right to funnel unlimited amounts of cash into political elections anonymously.

Back in December 2010, outgoing Congressman John Hall (D-N.Y.) warned that the massive changes to campaign finance law prompted by the “Citizens United” decision could lead to fascism. (Check it out here.)

Others are suggesting that the country is becoming a “fascist corporate state.” One such person is Ray Pensador, who until earlier this year regularly wrote for Daily Kos. On April 18 of last year he wrote,

The fascist corporate state, like the one rapidly ascending in the United States today, focuses on extracting the maximum amount of profit from the citizenry, and from the environment (natural resources) for the benefit of a tiny ruling elite.

In June of last year Ralph Nader was interviewed on Democracy Now! He is quoted as saying,

It is not too extreme to call our system of government now “American fascism.” It’s the control of government by big business, which Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined in 1938 as fascism.

Faithful Christians, and others, today need to declare much more definitely their staunch opposition to this kind of fascism: government unduly influenced by a “tiny ruling elite.”