Posted on 01/11/2023 9:52:02 PM PST by jfd1776
The Chicago mayoral primary election is underway. They’ve winnowed the field a bit – down to seven challengers plus the incumbent, at this writing – and people are doing their polling, walking precincts, and putting up yard signs.
And there are commercials; in the biggest media market in the Midwest, in which the Democratic mayoral primary is the biggest contest, you can already be sure that the only real winner in this election will be the radio and TV people, selling those 15, 30, and 60 second spots to put ads on the air.
What are the issues?
Tax and regulatory policy have employers and employees alike fleeing the city, county and state at a record clip; should that be the issue?
Chicago schools are worse than ever, with dropout rates climbing and test scores plummeting; should that be the issue?
The welfare state ensnares ever more members of each generation in the same lousy neighborhoods, unraveling the American dream of each generation doing better than their parents did. Should that be the issue?
Oh, no. One issue dominates every conversation, because it has to. Crime.
There are the statistics: We hear the number 723 most; because there were 723 murders in Chicago in 2022 that we know of. But there are other numbers to worry about too: 2832 shootings, that were reported, anyway. A 23% increase in reported robberies. At least 1800 carjackings. And a brand new report last week revealed 523 sexual assaults of students – primarily committed by Chicago Public School teachers and administrators – that had been kept out of the papers over the past decade.
Now, Chicago is a big city. A city of some 2.7 million. While this is a huge drop from its onetime peak – 3.6 million in the 1950s – Chicago is big enough that you should expect some crime. The tenements will have robberies and the alleys will have rapes. The bars will have brawls and the parks will have rumbles. The shopping districts will have purse-snatchers and pickpockets; the business districts will have embezzlers.
And ever since Cain slew Abel, there has always been murder.
As awful as it is, these numbers will never reach zero. In a city, everything is concentrated; there’s more danger, more opportunity, more criminals.
But still, there is no excuse for these numbers. None. And while Chicagoans have lived with high crime for decades, there are signs that this recent acceleration may finally be too much. The tax base is moving out, the press is reporting the truth, the politicians are flailing around for answers and solutions.
Chicago Democrats like Governor JB “I Got Mine” Pritzker and Mayor Lori “You’ll Get Yours” Lightfoot naturally repeat the standard mantra of the Chicago Democrat: “Too Many Guns!” They hope that voters will believe that a city that has had gun bans for 60 years will solve its crime problems by talking about gun bans again. Gentle Reader, if gun bans worked, Chicago would have been crime-free for half a century now.
The Illinois State Legislature, dominated by Chicago Democrats, recently passed yet another unconstitutional law banning so-called assault weapons, which will eventually be overturned. Only law-abiding citizens obey the law; even Chicagoans have become wise to the foolishness of depending on gun bans.
And the crime problem remains. It keeps getting worse. And worse. And worse.
So what are the real causes?
We know. We all know. Every Illinoisan knows; even the ones who hate to admit it to themselves.
3. The open border. Not only have the national Democrats ensured that our southern border is porous, but Chicago has acted as a magnet; the city, county, and state have all declared themselves “sanctuary” locations, inviting the world’s criminals to come to Chicago. The people flooding our borders aren’t just the world’s poor, sick, weak, and oppressed; they are often the criminals with a price on their heads in their native countries. The best way to avoid a death sentence at home is to come to America.
2. The lack of police. Like so many big cities, Chicago’s refusal to support its police in recent years has caused a spike in retirements and a drop in recruitments. A city in economic turmoil can’t afford to pay police what it would cost to attract new recruits, let alone keep its promises to fund its once-generous pension plans. Most would-be policemen see the foolishness in risking their lives to catch a criminal whom the system will turn loose the next day if not sooner, so they choose some other line of work.
1. The lack of prosecution and punishment. This is the key to Chicago’s crime, as in fact it is the key to most of the crime in blue states. The George Soros-funded State’s Attorney, Kim Foxx, resists prosecuting most of those identified or arrested. Those who are prosecuted get “time served” or minimal sentencing as their reward, if they’re convicted at all. And on the rare occasion when convicted criminals do get put away for a decent stretch, the governor can be trusted to eventually throw open the prison gates and let them go early in mass releases, blaming overcrowding, or budget cuts, or even Covid.
Oh yes. The primary reason for crime in Chicago isn’t that we can’t catch the perpetrators; most of Chicago’s criminals are caught again and again. The reason for crime is that even after we catch them, we almost always let them go.
It doesn’t take tens of thousands of criminals to commit tens of thousands of crimes. These are all repeat offenders. It only takes a few thousand, if that, to commit a hundred thousand crimes, if you keep setting the same criminals free to do it again. And again. And again.
Chicago has had a “no cash bail” policy for years now. That’s not what it sounds like, by the way. One would assume it meant “We are holding the person until trial; no amount of cash will get him out.” Sadly, that’s not it. “No cash bail” means that bail in Chicago no longer requires cash at all; they will let almost all criminals go “on their own recognizance” – without putting up a penny – even if they’re illegal aliens or other obvious flight risks. And with Gov Pritzker’s brand new “Safe-T Act,” this brilliant state is happy to flood the city streets with criminals, and become a beacon for still more to come.
On February 28, Chicago will narrow down its mayoral candidates to two, then go into a runoff.
Every one of them is a Democrat; none can be expected to seriously retreat from the policies that have put us where we are today. Which of them would dare to cancel our sanctuary city status, or start locking up criminals again, or ensuring such a crackdown that the gangs flee the environs for easier pickings? Who would stand up to party policy and acknowledge that law-abiding gun owners are not the problem, and claiming they are just makes us a laughingstock?
From incumbent to alderman, from bureaucrat to congressman, from neighborhood activist to businessman, they may differ in style, in funding, in support, but they don’t differ substantively on policies.
Chicago is a city of graft, in a state long known for its corruption. The crime on the streets may just be part and parcel of what Illinois has become.
An honest candidate – if there were such a thing – might rightly call on people to embrace it; the public has been voting for crime for a century, why even pretend to oppose it now?
Copyright 2023 John F Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer and transportation manager, writer, and actor. A one-time county chairman of the Milwaukee County Republican Party, and former president of the Ethnic American Council, he has been writing regularly for Illinois Review since 2009.
A collection of John’s Illinois Review articles about vote fraud, The Tales of Little Pavel, and his 2021 political satires about current events, Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes One and Two, are available, in either paperback or eBook, only on Amazon.
And thanks for posting the whole column on FR.
Oh yes. The primary reason for crime in Chicago isn’t that we can’t catch the perpetrators; most of Chicago’s criminals are caught again and again. The reason for crime is that even after we catch them, we almost always let them go.
It doesn’t take tens of thousands of criminals to commit tens of thousands of crimes. These are all repeat offenders. It only takes a few thousand, if that, to commit a hundred thousand crimes, if you keep setting the same criminals free to do it again. And again. And again.
Blessings for the new year.
Very insightful. Excellent article.
The city of ignorance.
Progressives are stupid, and they don’t know it.
Not really, at least recently.
Take a look at the 2020 results at the Chicago Board of Elections, where you will find some of precincts in the poorest neighborhoods with 94% turnout and 90+% voting Democratic.
You couldn't get that turnout if you offered a free bucket of chicken and complimentary quart of malt liquor in those neighborhoods.
That's ballot stuffing, based on the "motor voter" registration of everyone and mail-in voting.
What the Dems have done since 2020 is export the Chicago model to the rest of America.
Chicago Democrats like Governor JB “I Got Mine” Pritzker and Mayor Lori “You’ll Get Yours” Lightfoot naturally repeat the standard mantra of the Chicago Democrat: “Too Many Guns!” They hope that voters will believe that a city that has had gun bans for 60 years will solve its crime problems by talking about gun bans again. Gentle Reader, if gun bans worked, Chicago would have been crime-free for half a century now
Great descriptions of Pritzger and Lightfoot!
Excellent article!
I’m in Rockford/Loves Park, and we are no strangers to the rising crime rates.
There are many causes, Chicago hoodlums coming here for easier pickings and the rising drug problem are principle causes.
The Democrat leadership and neutered GOP in this state are to blame.
Ecclesiastes 8:11 -
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil
Call them what they re, “liberals”. There is nothing progressive about their ideas. If anything, they are regressive. Always remember that liberalism is a mental disease.
“ So what are the real causes? We know. We all know.”
You missed one. It’s the elephant in the room that no one will dare mention.
Chicago has a significant subset of the population that commits the vast majority of these crimes. That population is composed almost entirely of young feral black people. “Teens” and “youths” are the common terms used to describe them. But everyone knows who they are. It’s just no one dares to say it out loud.
Generation after generation of the black population in Chicago has been systematically destroyed by an endless cycle of dependency, an “education system” that hasn’t just utterly failed but has been complicit in their destruction.
It’s been going on for almost 60 years. As a result we have a serious problem with young black males who have been allowed to run completely wild. Over 80% of the black children born in Chicago have no father in the home. The endless cycle of dependency on “public housing” and welfare programs has robbed them (and us) of any hope of them becoming civilized human beings.
If you factor out about 12 neighborhoods in Chicago the city becomes statistically as safe as any city in Switzerland. If anyone bothered to factor out black males between the ages of about 15 and 30 the rate of violent crime would plummet to insignificance.
And it’s all been done deliberately and with malice afore thought.
L
Lurker, you are right, and then some.
I addressed the issue, though not quite the way you did, in this piece in 2014.... it is indeed a terrible problem.
Thank you, sir. I’m a big fan of your work.
L
“Escape from NY.”
Sad.
Long time ago I loved Chicago.
5.56mm
This caught my attention: "The Illinois State Legislature, dominated by Chicago Democrats . . . "
Thanks to Reynolds v. Sims, a little known 1964 Scotus ruling, Senator Dirksen of Illinois warned at the time that Chicago would come to dominate Springfield. He was right; due to Reynolds, Illinois is near bankruptcy and losing population as people flee high taxes, higher unemployment, and societal destruction.
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