To all of the Coasties out there: please, for the love of all that is holy, shut up about Chicago Corruption. While you’re at it, shut up about corruption in Illinois politics in general. We don’t care, and we don’t want to hear your ignorant views. To be quite frank, you have no idea what you are talking about. The more you complain and whine, the less we care.
Yes, we fully understand that there is a high level of corruption in Illinois politics. We fully admit it. In fact we are proud to admit it. There are two big facts you are missing entirely while you complain impotently from your sorry excuse for a state. The first is that we actually like our politics. Our state actually functions! (As opposed to states like Florida, which has its own Fark tag.)
Unlike most of the states in our union, we have a strong economy which continues to grow ever year. Our economy is so strong that we manage to carry the fourth highest tax burden of any state, which in layman’s terms means that our state finances your state’s inadequacies. We function so well that we are a net exporter of tax dollars, a responsibility that few other states share. The next time you are driving on a federally funded road, or sending your kids to a public school, you can thank the people of Illinois for being industrious enough, and our government for being generous enough, to pay for the privileges you are enjoying. Without us, you would be rolling in the fetid squalor of third-world poverty.
But we don’t just pay for your kids to go to school, we also do a decent job of paying for ours too! Illinois generates enough money to pay one of the top ten teaching salaries in the nation, and we feature some of the best schools in our nation, and top research labs in the country. Not only are we doing a great job educating our own children, but we are bankrolling major research and development for the entire country and spending our human capital on the world’s problems.
Combine all of this with our generally low unemployment, the fifth largest gross state product in the country at over $560 billion (and 17th world wide, yes that is higher than most European nations), a consistently growing economy and population, and you can see why we have very little to complain about. Our government actually does what it is supposed to, despite the supposed high corruption.
What really grinds our gears, however, is that our state is fundamentally not as corrupt as yours. I’ve lived in other states, I’ve seen the evidence of blatant corruption, but never before moving to Illinois did I see people do anything about it. The real reason why Illinois and Chicago seem so corrupt is that we publicize it and deal with it, instead of sweeping it under the political rug and pretending it isn’t there. What you are seeing isn’t a problem with corruption, but instead our courage as whistle blowers. We arrest our governors and haul them off to court, try them, and sentence them for their crimes. We sue our state when it crosses the line, and publicly hunt and ferret out all of the corruption we can find. When we do find it, we air it out for everyone to see because we believe that the people have a right to know what their government is doing. Meanwhile in the rest of the United States, corruption lives behind closed doors and in murky, dimly lit hallways, hidden from view. The media don’t dare step in and out corrupt politicians because that just isn’t the way things are done. Really we can’t blame you. After all, you are just acting like other third world nations do, and without us you wouldn’t be part of the developed world.
It is for these reasons that it really pisses me off to see the mainstream media accuse Illinois of being corrupt. Why fault Obama for supporting His Honorable Highness the Lord Richard M. Daley, Mayor, City of Chicago? Is Daley corrupt? Sure he is! But Chicago is not only the third largest city in the United States, but one of the fastest growing, most successful, and culturally rich cities in the country. The Daley family, in their long reign over Chicago, have made the people of Chicago happy and gotten the job done. He has the support of 71% of the population for a reason. I applaud Obama for his support of Daley, he had the courage to realize that the problem with Chicago is not corruption. The problem with the rest of the country is an unwillingness to admit to its own corruption.
So the next time you decide to criticize Illinois or Chicago for corruption while sipping a glass of wine on your veranda, take a moment to think about who is paying to subsidize your standard of living. That’s right, it isn’t your sorry excuse for a state, it is Illinois. So sit down and for goodness sake, shut up.
-Angry Midwesterner
March 9, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Dude, I think you’ve got serious “convert disease.” 🙂
November 22, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Wow can we say dumb ass, if you can’t see the problem in “our” state of Illinois then your part of the problem.I can sit here and point out the flaws and corruption in this state and our entire greedy country but “ignorance is bliss” and sir you must be in bliss.
February 15, 2008 at 6:52 am
Let me tell ya something MR fuck, For you only theres any no point to trick nor fool from whom’ IONLY if you knew who was in the Mist before you and that is walking all over you!
May 14, 2008 at 8:46 pm
After living and working in Chicago for only 3 short months, I came looking for this subject without even being prompted by past knowledge of corruption. I have lived on both coasts and have to say that this city, regardless of surface appearance, is unbearable and so clearly and pathetically corrupt it makes me count the days until I can get out of here. I feel like I have a government member’s hand in my pocket every where I go. I can’t go 10 miles without paying a toll or some other exhorbitant gas-tax or sales tax. I have never gotten so many ticky-tack parking tickets, and if you’re unlucky enough to get a speeding ticket… look out. What does all of this government charity giving get us? Nothing but, hands down, the worst roads I have ever driven on anywhere in the US and many foreign countries that lie far below your top 17 gdp’ers. The bridges are in such poor shape, I fear every time I have to go under one that it will come falling down onto my head. Why is it that all of these other states, with their more hidden corruption, have lower taxes, fewer tolls, and infinitely better roads? I can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on with the stuff that isn’t so brutally obvious. Something is terribly wrong with this city and state.
July 10, 2008 at 6:19 pm
This state is by far one of the poorest run states in the country and by far one of the most corrupt. There is one word that I can say, which describes Illinois Politics, GREED!!!! My father and I owned a restuarant a while back in the 90s and I had sold my interest in the restaurant in 1999. My father still held a percentage until it closed in 2005. The manager of the restaurant got away with over $180,000.00 from on-going pilferring and stealing cash. My mother and father who had moved to Arizona were relying on the restaurant for their retirement. Unfortuantely, the manager who stold them blind took the restaurant down. There was an issue of unpaid sale’s tax in 2004 as a result of not having any money, just before the restaurant went under and into bankruptcy. The state looks up to see who the owners are so they can take their money, garnish, lien, sue, whatever it is they do to ruin people’s lives, especially in the state of the economy we are in, and they still had me as one of the owners. They decided to make me responsible for the unpaid sale’s taxes from 2004, even though I sold my interest in late 1998 which proved that I was clearly not an owner. I argued this over and over again with the state after they had garnished my wages and said the only thing I could do is file a late discretionary hearing to try and remove the wage garnishment and get the lien taken off my property, but never the less, they kept the lien on my property and continued garnishing my wages. I filed the late discretionary hearing, won the case after several months, and now the state is obligated to refund my money back to me. This refund process has now been going on since Novemeber of last year, 2007, almost 9 months. I better get interest on my money, if they ever pay. I recently spoke to the person handling my refund process and she blantantly said to me that she has no idea at all if and when I will get my money but if I do not get my refund within the next fourteen days to then call all the newspapers, radio stations, and all press,and to tell them all about this horrid sham, the neglect the state has when it comes to money and giving maney back to the people who should be getting it back, because I am not the only person who is having this problem, the problem of trying to get money back that the state should have never taken in the first place.It is going on with thousands of people. The state, then, took all the money out of my father’s bank account which was both his and my mother’s social security money, the only money they had to live on, causing them to bounce very important checks for their health insurance, utility bills, and life insurance and leaving them with virtually no money to live on. My father was 83, my mother 81.As a result, they both got very sick, went into the hospital, and eventually died two moths later,a complete travesty, my mother passed away in April, my father passed away in May.But do my brother and I have any recourse against the state? Of course not!! It has always been very, very easy for the state to access anyones bank accounts, property, assets, steal all the money from honest hard working people, retired, handicapped, people living on hardly any money at all, living on only social security, and taking every dime out of their accounts. My father and mother had been having financial problems and trying to prosecute the manager who stole from him causing this problem in the first place and they don’t get any cooperation from the state, county, or any local law enforcemnt at all causing horrible stress to the point where they both got very, very sick and eventually died as a result of it. I am writing this letter to say that if I do not get my money back from the state in the next two weeks, I will contact every newspaper in the country, tv stations, radio stations, any and all press, and I will try to make it known as to how corrupt, dishonest, mean,horrible, that the state of Illinois is and how two loving peple, my parents, were blatantly murdered by the greedy state officials who only care about money and taking as much money as they can form whomever they can without ever knowing the circumstance behind it or caring what it will do to the people who they are taking it from. I will make this as public as I can as to how greedy the state is, how the money is totally mishandled, and how they killed my parents by stealing their money out of their accounts. We are over taxed, it still takes five people to do the job of one person, it is still all ran on nepatisim, favors, bribes, greasing palms, kick backs. I am so fucking pissed about what is going on regarding getting my refund and what has happened to my parents, that if our great governer Blagaovich(I don’t even know how to spell his name and I do not care) does not go to prison, we will all eventually be fucked!!!!!
July 12, 2008 at 3:25 pm
The state runs what used to be the gangsters. We are governed by thugs.
September 27, 2008 at 10:58 pm
to Angry Midwestern…you are probably one of the many crooked politicians in Chicago, Ill, am I correct. You one stupid dumbass. I would not live in this state at all with all that corruption. I live in good ole TN.
October 11, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Since I live in the state capitol, Springfield. No it is not Chicago, that is just where the crooks usually live. The corruption is so great now with Blago that we are about to shut down state facilities. Yep I sure am proud to be from Illinois right now. So tell us your real name, are you Blagovitch or D aley?
October 21, 2008 at 4:07 pm
What a complete looser; do yourself and everyone a favor – SHUT THE FUCK UP.
December 9, 2008 at 5:33 pm
[…] Illinois citizen who is obviously a Democrat and a blind defender of his party. After I read the 12 Angry Men Blog, all I could think was, “wow.” To quote Tom Roon’s recent comment on this blog […]
December 9, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Wow. This was very enlightening. I agree there is corruption in other states but pointing at your brother and saying, “he does it too!” Is so childish that is betrays a lack of intellectual acumen.
Read the list of current corruption going on in Illinois in the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0601220272jan22,0,534393.story
I’ve written a bit about my reaction to this dog and pony show but I don’t think I captured the “wow I can’t believe he said that” feeling the way you have. So I gave you a nice link on my blog. If anyone wants to read it you can find it here: http://anamericanidiot.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/its-a-chicago-tradition/
December 9, 2008 at 6:09 pm
What a friggin loser! People like this are the face of corruption.
December 9, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Capone was well-liked by the people of Chicago AND he opened up soup kitchens and helped the unemployed. HE was still a fucking loser crook. doesn’t make it right, you dumb asshole.
and as of 12/8/08, another FIB governor has been arrested by the FBI for corruption charges, your state faces a $2 billion deficit, you have the highest gas, cigarette and one of the highest property taxes in the union…so WHAT in the hell are you babbling about???
you TRULY are a fucking Illinois bastard!
jeff ircink
December 9, 2008 at 9:10 pm
and what makes this dipshit rant of yours even more head scratching is that you say (in other posts) a number of nice things – you talk about staying in the Midwest for the holidays, pollution-free countryside (apparently where you live), farms that line the country roads – but than you have the nerve to support how screwed up your state is.
you been drinking the Kool Aid that Packer GM Ted Thompson’s been dowling out in Green Bay?
jeff ircink
native Wisconsinite living in LA
ex-Packer backer supporting Favre and the Jets
and someone who recognizes bullshit 2500 miles away – and Angry Midwesterner in full of it
December 9, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Jeff Ircink wrote:
Angry Midwesterner in full of it
Angry Midwesterner is, in fact, a carpetbagger.
December 10, 2008 at 12:19 am
Some of us grew up in a corrupt New York, you didn’t hear any of us complaining. Some people are just so sensitive these days. If you are sensitive about living on a corrupt Illinois, you can always move.
By the way I, had no idea your sales tax was over 10%, maybe you should really think about moving……
December 10, 2008 at 1:23 am
Angry Midwesterner is, in fact, a carpetbagger.
You wish cheese-head. I was born in the Midwest, as a 7th generation midwesterner.
December 14, 2008 at 7:50 am
Boy, this is really dumb.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
February 11, 2009 at 3:44 pm
So you are the 12 men who put me and my family into the “rolling in the fetid squalor of third-world poverty”. What you say here does not apply to Illinois civilians, only to you and your families, who pay for your own needs and which the law does not exist. Please come on over for dinner on the curb outside of your home where my family resides because of you, but please bring your own Toilet Paper, we ran out of grass from your lawn, please fertilize this spring, I am paying for it. Before you arrive, we would need a certified report from GOD that your EXORCISM (s) was indeed successful.
February 12, 2009 at 6:43 am
Look at all you looking down your noses at my home state, yes I am from Illinois and I am damn proud of it, yeah our politics are a joke but that doesn’t give you the right to assume that you are any better. Illinois is full of caring people and just because the state government is more interested in lining thier pockets with cash doesn’t mean that the ordinary civilians don’t struggle just like everyone else. I can’t believe the ignorant comments I’m reading on here! Josh if you can’t stand living here any longer then move, no one is holding a gun to your head to live here, move or suck it up. New Yorker, yes the taxes are 10%, SO WHAT, anybody that is from Illinois is used to paying high taxes, just like anywhere else. “maybe you should think about moving” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Where do you suggest New York? NO THANKS. BettyC, wow you must real proud of living in a perfect state like good ole’ Tenneesee, you also must be proud to be from a state that produced both Al Gore and the Ku Klux Klan, give me a break! Its a shame that you people feel this way, but at the same time I don’t really care. Illinois is my state and if you can’t take the heat then stay out of OUR kitchen! Its just that simple!
March 2, 2009 at 11:16 am
I’ve lived in this ****hole state most of my life.I made the mistake of coming back to try to help out my aging p’s.Now because of the corrupt legal system in illinois (ie).Wheeling, from days past.A police officer who just didn’t like me.I have no livly hood.I am (wanted armed-Dangerous History of violence) LIE! Too add insult to injury.I received a dui in Missouri last year.Illinois now says because of past dui’s in this state,back in the eighties.The before(police officer)who just doesn’t like me continues to sit outside bars waiting for people to leave.If you’re a women its ok he will let you go for a price.not ($) but you know?This aspect of corruption is BAD and alot of people don’t realize.
March 2, 2009 at 11:28 am
Oh ya they say I will never get a D.L. ever again but thats ok CORRUPTION GOOD?
March 9, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Angry Midwesterner = 7th generation Midwesterner still = carpetbagger!
November 7, 2009 at 11:17 am
If you still doubt about Illinois corruption, please read this:
http://www.illinoiscorruption.net/
March 22, 2010 at 4:44 pm
You are an idiot! I have lived here my whole life and hate the politics! Mayor Daley, Gov Blagojevich, Gov Ryan, CCBP Todd Stroger. The list goes on! Trust me everyone, this idiot does not represent the majority of Illinoisans. We hate the corrupt politics.
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