Corruption's Cause
By jbonham76 Posted in Culture — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From the diaries by Leon...
I had an interesting moment yesterday. I met up with a friend at a Giordanos Pizza in Naperville, IL and had ordered a coke with my sandwich. When the waitress brought me the bill I noticed she had not charged me for my drink. What ran through my mind was an event in college where while working at a restaurant, a co-worker was fired on the spot for giving a free drink to a friend. I quickly thought that would be last thing I would want to see happen to this young girl, although not a friend of hers, so I alerted her to the discrepancy so she could change the bill.
Read on...
Her reaction was pretty amazing in my point of view. Her face lit up with a huge smile and she said “Wow!” and “Thank You!” many times. I felt pretty embarrassed. And she clearly was amazed that someone had the honesty to alert her to this situation. Now I have some worse character flaws than stealing a 2-dollar drink, but this was an interesting event to reflect on.
The drink was under $2. The median income for this upper middle class Chicago suburb is $112,258. I have students that drive Mercedes, and all the other typical cliché behavior you would come to expect in other Chicago suburbs like Winnetka and Glencoe. Most people here could use $2 bills for Kleenex and not know the difference.
Recently, Dan Proft wrote a post on how the core problem with Illinois government was not Governor Blagojevich but our legislature who has no idea of how to provide an effective balance to his corruption.
The forcible extraction and distribution of $59 billion of other people's money is what perverts our economy and our politics. The extractors and distributors are merely the implementation tools.
The process of doling out $59 billion worth of goodies sustains the permanent political class currently inflicted upon Illinois, including a General Assembly whose work is seemingly never done.
Interminable attention is paid to the money politicians raise and spend to run for office but campaign cash is relatively incidental. If spending limits were properly applied to government, concerns about influence-peddling would take care of themselves for the simple fact that there would be less influence to peddle.
With or without Governor Blagojevich, nothing will change in Illinois until Illinoisans recall the principles of limited government and subsequently demand that their money be recalled from Springfield.
I wouldn’t argue with him on any of this and his third paragraph is a very astute observation, yet I think the root runs a little deeper. The root cause of Illinois’s corruption, and I would venture to say that of sustained corruption in general, is that apparently in Naperville, Illinois integrity is now valued at less then $2.
I am not here to preach to others, because I would never say that I am myself a saint. I am here to say that that the day the public no longer accepts the hand-in-the-cookie-jar-legislative mentality exhibited in Illinois and the scandals of the Bill Clinton’s and Rod Blagojevich’s of the world, will come a few days after 20 year old waitresses in Naperville, Illinois are no longer overwhelmed by someone correcting a $2 mistake.
Pat is somewhat of interesting figure. Illinois conservatives like him in many ways, but you get out of the state, well...
He is a unique guy. I know it's not popular opinion around here, but I actually like the guy. He has cleaned up a lot of scum in the State of Illinois, and I have a feeling that it's just a matter of time before Blagojevich is in his crosshairs.
I think we're just used to it in Illinois. From Chicago to Cook County, corruption is just part of this state. Heck, Ryan is the 3rd Governor in recent history to go to jail. I'd love to see it change for us, but I just think people have grown up in so much corruption that we have treated it as status quo.
Go ahead and preach.
Somewhere, folks have gotten this crazy idea that you have to be perfect to point out the wrongs and injustices in the world. Falling far short of perfection, they choose to do nothing, while evil is uninhibited by such limitations and freely marches forward.
You don't have to be perfect, just honest.
Wrong is wrong, right is right. A preacher's character and behavior can obscure that message, but not change it.
I am terribly disappointed. He went into office all Jack Kennedy; he'll be going out all Jack Abramoff.
Are you kidding me?
You turned down a free coke!
What were you thinking?
It... was... free!!!
When life you gives you 2 dollars, you don't make 2 dollar-onade, you keep the 2 dollars!
As King RINO/Republicrat George Ryan is sent on his merry way to reflect for the next 6/12 years on how he conducted himself as the most egregious example of what you describe. (and beyond just corruption there is actually blood on his hands).
And the irony is- who do we have to thank for this banner day for law abiding Illinois citizens?
/ducking for cover/
None other than Patrick Fitzgerald.