First, let me reiterate my detestation for all ideologies and labels. To the extent that I use them in this post, it seems necessary and is for the convenience of the reader.

The imminent retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens highlights the problems caused by both. Stevens is commonly referred to as the most liberal Justice on the Supreme Court. He hates being so described.

Stevens was, and remains, a lifelong Republican. He was nominated by a Republican president, Gerald Ford in 1975. But, he and his retirement are just the impetus. This post is about far more.

Why is a Republican called the most liberal member of the Court? Well, it seems that terms such as liberal, conservative, left, right, capitalism, socialism, even populism are thrown around willy-nilly by people who think they know what these words mean.

The right of privacy is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or its Amendments. However, through the years the Supreme Courts have firmly stated and reconfirmed that it is such a basic right that many other protections that are included would be meaningless without it. They have ruled that it is an implicit right.

Justice Stevens followed that tenet in his opinion in re the Patriot Act. The ‘conservative’ members of the Court just ignored their own claims of conserving the Constitution.

In the recent decision to give corporations free speech, Justice Stevens did something almost unheard of. He not only dissented; he actually read his dissent aloud in the courtroom. He felt that the Declaration and Constitution were clear in their intent when stating “We the People” and “government of, by and for the people.”

As Justice Stevens himself noted, with the single exception of Ruth Ginsburg, every departing member of the Court, since Stevens himself came aboard, was replaced by someone to his or her right.

I have written before of the Founding Fathers’ fear that corporations would destroy their work. Here again, the ‘conservatives’ ignored the Constitution. It makes you wonder if you understand the meaning of the title they claim of being “Strict Constructionists.”

If ‘Constitutional scholars’ have wandered so far away from the Constitution, we common folk may be excused for being less than precise in our usage.

I find it odd that people are so drawn to the label of conservative, given the politicians who claim it today. The original conservatives were the supporters of the king’s prerogatives. The Founders were on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

The king claimed the right of his troops to be boarded in your home. Our Constitution proscribes that practice.

The king preferred that people not criticize him openly. The Constitution says we can criticize George III or George W.

The Founding Fathers not only were progressive, they stated that times would change. They devised a document that allowed for our social and political progress. They were certain that we would improve upon their situation, their conditions and their document. They themselves were no strict constructionists. Oddly, to be a strict constructionist one would have to be against strict construction. One would have to be a progressive. Oooh. There. I said it.

Back in the 1980s a nationwide survey of historians was taken as to the greatest Senator of all time. The winner was Robert “Fighting Bob” Lafollette. He received this signal honor about 60 years after his death in 1925. Lafollette became a Senator in 1906 and died in office. Prior to that he was the Governor of Wisconsin. Prior to that he was a member of the House of Representatives.

Lafollette was a Republican. So, why was he held in such high esteem? Most people credit another Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, with first promoting universal health care in the 1912 platform of the Bull Moose Party. Lafollette did it earlier. He also suggested unemployment insurance, social security and a host of other measures, some which appeared in FDR’s administration, some which have yet to appear.

How could a Republican other than Teddy Roosevelt be so liberal? Well, he wasn’t. He felt that conservative values meant that the benefits of our system should be broadly enjoyed. He felt an (perhaps Christian) obligation toward the well-being of his fellow Amercians.

He felt that America, its democracy, its protections, its potential, should not be denied to his fellow citizens. He thought America was too good, too great to be seen as selfish and stingy. He felt that as more people benefited from America’s system, the easier it was to conserve that system.

Lafollette wanted to conserve the benefits and promise of America. For that, he was fondly remembered and honored by those of the fraternity that keeps the record of our achievements and our failures.

At some point, conservatism became almost solely about conserving the treasure and prerogatives of the wealthiest among us. An article of faith was that government should be small. Why? Because a small government cost less but, more importantly, a small government had insufficient power and resources to interfere with their ‘Robber Baron’ activities and their credit default swaps.

Later, it subsumed the idea that to preserve all of that it was necessary to be isolationist. It also so feared the Bolshevik Revolution that it branded any deviation from laissez-faire capitalism as communist, socialist, anti-American, liberal, union, et al. It wasn’t necessary to understand any of those things. It was only necessary to have a knee-jerk reaction to any word the plutocrats told us was bad.

As this restrictive perversion of conservative began to wane, after the embarrassment of Joe McCarthy, the true believers realized they needed an infusion of bodies and money. They had finally realized that the military-industrial complex could be a goldmine. It could also co-opt the label of patriotism

Have you ever wondered why a Republican President, a 5-star general warned us against that group? Could it be that he still considered himself a real conservative? Did you ever wonder why the John Birch Society and its descendents called Ike a communist dupe; why they questioned his patriotism while advertising their own?

Where to get the people? Lyndon Johnson gave them a present. He was able to get civil rights acts passed. There go the racists.

Then there was Roe v. Wade. Then there was prayer in the schools. That caused the social conservatives to go looking for champions. They now had the numbers to go with their financial resources.

But who was running the show? Was it the social conservatives? No. They just provided the volume. The tune was still called by the ones that paid the piper. The plutocrats and their prosti . . . er, politicians worked in close harmony.

The new conservatives commandeered the Republican Party. They told the social conservatives they would overturn Roe v. Wade. They would put God back in the classroom. They would . . . Well, did they? Not just yet. After all it’s only been about 50 years.

With the Republican ‘conservatives’ enjoying electoral success, why were these promises not kept? If these new conservatives had actually accomplished these things, they would no longer have the means of motivating the troops. If the voters who had been convinced that their leaders were really conservatives felt that everything was right with the world, they wouldn’t need to come down to the polling booth. Those politicians would lose their faithful. They would lose their jobs. Better to keep them angry and going to the polls than actually come across on the promises.

Along came a spider. A part of those controlling the ‘conservative movement’ thought, “Why not control the world?” These were largely macho draft dodgers and other wannabes who thought war was as portrayed in John Wayne movies. We call them neoconservatives.

They believe that everything they dislike domestically can be overrun through bluff, bluster and making up the rules as they go along. They believe that everything they dislike internationally can be gotten rid of by a crude use of America’s supposedly unlimited military might. Unsurprisingly, they think of themselves as realists, as smarter than average.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of conservatism, beyond how it is being used and who is using it. In the form exercised by many in the past it has much to commend it. But, it has been commandeered by the political dregs of the country as a method of fooling large numbers in order to obtain and maintain control.

I can easily identify with many conservative precepts. Similarly, I can do the same with liberal and progressive. I cannot identify with capitalism, communism, socialism and such. They are tools to be used by people who understand them and their limitations. I feel most comfortable calling myself a populist but not in the sense that far too many use it. I see a bifurcation of those whose highest priority is people (Populists) and those whose highest priority is corporations (Fascists).

Take your pick. There are those two. There is room for conservative, liberal and progressive inside populism. There is only room for plutocrats, politicians and dupes among the fascists.

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Despite what some may think, I was not around for the Dred Scott decision. That aside, I had comforted myself that the Supremes could not make a worse ruling than the one that gave us Bush the lesser.

I was wrong, horribly so.

We are now the only developed country in the world that allows corporations to legally spend unlimited amounts to control the government. Aren’t we special?

Stay with me a couple of minutes. You will see how stupid and/or corrupt at least five of the Justices really are.

How did we get here and what needs to be done? It is simple but the ramifications cannot be overstated.

First we are dealing with a bunch of hypocrites. The radicals of the Court loudly proclaim that they believe in following the intent of the Founding Fathers. They also maintain that the courts should not legislate, nor usurp the legislative role. Yeah, sure.

No Supreme Court has come close to the activism of the present Court. They have overturned more legislation, by far, than any Court of which I am aware. That tendency alone was sufficient to make all predictions on the latest travesty easy. Commentators from the entire spectrum got it right. This ruling was no surprise.

How about their claimed devotion to what they term ‘strict construction?’ That is also a gross mischaracterization. What was the Founding Fathers’ opinion of corporations? It may not be common knowledge but is far from a secret to any scholar or amateur enthusiast of our founders.

With the exception of Alexander Hamilton, all of the founders hated and/or mistrusted and/or feared corporations and the threat they represented to the nation to which they had given birth. This at a time when corporations were relatively rare and weak compared to the present. Back then one must prove a societal need, a benefit to the public, in order to obtain a charter.

Corporations are not mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. The last time I checked, the wording was still “We the people . . .” Corporations had only the latitude to function as was delineated in its charter. Where did this idiotic concept of corporations having a legal personality originate? Not from the Supreme Court. It came from an essentially parenthetical couple of sentences by one Justice.

The year was 1886. The case was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The doctrine of corporate personhood was included by Justice Morrison Remick Waite before the beginning of arguments. He stated, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”

So, two sentences by a single, junior Justice changed the Constitution, laws and the dictionary definition without argument, without discussion, without any attempt at rationality. It subsequently became the very foundation of corporate law.

Let’s look at this. It doesn’t require looking too deeply. It doesn’t require a degree in Constitutional Law. It does require more intelligence than five of the present Justices. It requires common sense. It requires an absence of devotion to the plutocracy, a jettisoning of ridiculous ideologies. Here we go.

Everyone acknowledges that a corporation is property. It, and/or its shares, not only can be owned, by its very nature it must be owned. If it is a person, it enjoys the constitutional prohibition of slavery. You are not permitted, under any circumstances to hold a person as property. Ask your wife.

A corporation speaks with one voice. Although the textbooks tell you that the shareholders control it, or that the directors control it on behalf of the shareholders, the reality is that management rules. Management’s priorities are rarely the same as the stockholders. Stockholders also are further removed from participation by mutual funds, hedge funds and similar devices. Does anyone believe that corporate lobbying efforts are always (sometimes) consonant with the interests or opinions of shareholders?

While many other legal and logical arguments reach the same, or supportive, conclusions, no serious arguments have been proposed that contradict those arguments. We have no need to pursue any further the irrationality of claims for corporate personhood. Let’s proceed to the ramifications.

The last presidential campaign was easily the most expensive in history. The estimates I saw last year were well over $1 billion but less than two. I haven’t seen your checkbook but to me that is significant change. Actually, I consider that amount obscene. It distorts and corrupts. There is no upside for anyone who values their right to vote.

Now let’s look at real money. The major Wall Street casinos have announced record, or near record, profits. These profits are after record amounts being set aside for bonuses. Have you paid attention? These bonuses total about $150 billion.

If Wall Street decided to redirect only half of that amount to campaign finance, we would never have to watch another non-political commercial in an election year (every other year) again. Although that might seem initially to be an attractive side-benefit, all you have to remember is how quickly campaign advertising begins to pall.

While we know better, politicians owned by special interests insist that they are not swayed by lobbyists’ bribes. Given the amounts now available to them, they likely will not even bother to address such questions. The $150 billion cited above represents only that available from the major institutional players of one corrupt industry. Factor in the insurance industry, PhRMA, agribusiness, energy and a host of others wanting laws that benefit them, to our detriment.

There would not even have been the sham of the healthcare debate with its foreordained outcome. The drug pushers could sell morphine as a toothing medication for infants again, as Bayer did before it became famous for its aspirin. The Department of Agriculture could eliminate all of those pesky areas and become a foundation to channel taxpayers dollars directly to ConAgra, ADM, et al. Exxon and its peers would not have to waste another nickel cleaning up after themselves. There no longer would be a need to debate global warming, or spending any funds on research. Government could really be streamlined.

How much have you ever donated to a political campaign? Look on the bright side. Now there is no need to.

I believe that there has never been a law or ruling which so drastically changes and damages our system.

Many people get upset about the power of the government. Permit me to reminisce. Back in the late 1960s or early 1970s there was a little flap at Delta Air Lines, where I was working. You need to understand that at that time aircraft mechanics were treated like royalty. They were the princes of the industry and highly prized by the airlines.

One of these princes let his sideburns grow to the level of the bottom of his ears. No, they were not mutton-chop sideburns. Though wild hairstyles could be seen everywhere across the country, his could not be considered wild by any definition. He was fired.

Except when I was in military service, I would never expect the government to be so intrusive, so controlling of the minutiae of people’s lives. Corporations are not bound to respect any of your rights, beyond the prohibition of discrimination. The government is constrained by the Constitution. With the Founding Fathers, I have always feared corporations far more than I feared the government – until now.

All is not lost. The Court struck down campaign finance laws, not corporate laws or regulations. The Congress unquestionably has the authority to control corporate behavior through changes in corporate law. It could be done by regulation. You and I are, as people, are not controlled by laws in this area so it cannot be claimed that corporations are being discriminated against or denied that to which people are entitled.

I would ask that you notify me the next time you see a bunch of corporations exercising their right of freedom of assembly or, perhaps, their freedom of religion. I would love to attend a baptismal ceremony for one of these ‘guys.’

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