Posted on 05/24/2004 12:49:23 PM PDT by chicagolady
Todays dummed down, overly sensitive youth, seem to have all of lifes toys. Long before "go carts," or for that matter, long before the Reverend Jessie Jackson came upon the extortion scene, my pride and joy was a 2 H.P. gasoline powered miniature racing car that my father had bought for my brother and I.
We had lucked out, because my parents probably wouldn't have bought this toy if it weren't for my father's loyality to his friend Joe, who had to liquidate his franchise of miniature racing cars from a bankrupted amusement park.
Following Al Capone's bloody reign in Chicago, organized crime started putting on a new face during the late 40's and 50's. With a banking system filled with millions of dollars to be laundered from their illict activities, the crime syndicate started to become sopisticated in it's menacing move towards infiltrating legitimate business, intimidating, and preying upon, law abiding citizens.
Joe, my dads friend from work, ran an amusement park franchise part time in a Chicago suburb, to supplement his income. Back in the days of limited government, families could survive on one income. For the enterprising, adventureous, self reliant individual, seeking a better way of life for his family, there was always an opportunity to supplement your income if you were willing to take the risk.
My parents did so by operating a grocery store while my father held down his day job along with his friend Joe, at International Harvester, until the modern Super Market chain started gulping up all of the Ma and Pa food stores.
Joe was doing great supplementing his income with his amusement park ride. He and a partner had bought up a dozen and a half miniature racing cars, which they ran around an oval track at the park, giving a percentage of their take to the amusement park management. Soon Joe's partner developed a drinking problem and sold his share of the business to Joe who was finally beginning to see results from all of their hard work and effort, bearing fruit.
Unfortunately, so did the crime syndicate.
Al Capone's syndicate, or "outfit," as it's called in Chicago, had been established as a fearsome and powerful terrorist force, operating with impunity with the assistance of some double talking, double dealing, rogues, acting as public servants, deceiving the people. The outfit was embolden through it's murdereous reputation which struck fear into the hearts and minds of most law-abiding citizens; making intimidation and extortion the order of the day.
They operated with carte-blanche, intimidating and putting the squeeze on ligitimate business because the tainted public officials either dummied up, or looked the other way.
Joe had confided to my father that the local mob boss had sent over a couple of torpedos to approach the management of the amusement park with an offer for them, and for the independent business proprietors who operated the franchise concessions. They were told that the outfit wanted a cut out of their business, similar to the way our Internal Revenue Service operates.
When the management asked the thugs what they were willing to do to contribute or to create wealth as their part of the investment, they were told; "noth'in!" Nothing at all, we just want you to pay us 20% of your take, or we'll run you out of business.
The management held a meeting with the concession owners and laid it on the line. Either fall prey to intimidation and pay their hard earned dollars to their new silent partners, or put up a fight and resist extortion.
Most of these guys were veterans, recently back from World War II , and weren't about to be intimidated by any outfit in their home of the brave - land of the free.
No way! The concession people all decided to stand their ground. They wouldn't be intimidated by crooks in the land which they just fought for, to help secure our liberty. After all, this is America, a land rooted in law - not men - especially not lawless men.
Words are nice, but the true way to calibrate progress is through deed. The outfit boys now operated under the pretense of legitimate business, not having to resort to bullets, now that they had cultivated an unprincipled lot of scoundrels on the ballot, paving the way for corruption to strike a burgeoning path of destruction.
The outfit started spreading money around. A few well paced bribes here and there with a visit to the local city counsel, by a bagman attorney, with the promise of increased revenue. Soon, surreptitious proceedings to amend the zoning laws and start the ground breaking machinery in motion to construct a modern amusement park right across the street from Joe's place of business, driving it into bankruptcy within one season.
This type of intimidation has been improved upon and used as an instrument for business as usual between the outfit and our local government and between big business and government ever since.
It's a taking. An unconstitutional taking which happens everyday across America by unscrupulous public officials, lining their pockets with loot, instead of excercising due diligence to our constitutional protections and preserving the law.
Had Joe and his cohorts been a little more vigilant and spent some time studing the tendencies of these maggots holding public office, this may have not occurred.
They would have forced the outfit into a confrontation out in the open, which would have made the outfit beg off because of the heat factor involved by the enforcement of laws through honest public officials.
Joe lost everything: His business, his home, and his family which he could no longer support, all to the lust of a greedy politician, whom Joe eventually shot.
We see this usurptation of individual, and property rights, being bastardized everyday in this land of freedom and liberty, which seems to have been transformed into a bureaucracy that exploits it's citizens through the hardy appetites of it's public servants. Eminent domain takings occur daily as our local governments seize private property, not as a public conveyance for the betterment of society at large, but to feed the gluttonous appetite of corruption.
Our judicial system has spawned a cottage industry of judicial activists using the courts as an instrument against the people; to seize private property as they wheel and deal with the big corporations such as Walmart, or other global monsters gobbling up small business with a promise of a higher tax base over the sacried allegiance to citizenship, and that of individual property rights.
Gluttonous politicians wait in the wings for a shot at their turn with a Monica Lewinsky type of environment, comatose to the oath of office that they swore allegiance to uphold -- but continuelly violate the public trust fearless of being held accountable by the people.
What can we the people do about this manical trend of public corruption, that seems to have rendered our constitution powerless?
Public outrage would be a good start as the people have to be made to realize that this is our government. A government of the people, rooted in law - not men.
Our voter rolls show that only a small percentage of citizens show up to vote lately. A larger percentage of voters feel disenfranchised from our system of republicratic form of government. They are fed up with the present contaminated government, pushing a socialist form of global extortion, so they no longer show up, and seem to cut off their nose to spite their face.
These citizens need to step up and come to the polls to excercise their civic responsibility. They have to join the small percentage of patriots fighting to preserve our liberty, by targeting crooked politicians and voting them out of office...before we end up like Joe, as a last resort.
A message has to be sent to every politician that if you violate the public trust, you will either be impeached or voted into the slammer. We have to restore faith and trust to the people, and purify a contaminated system by extirpating the corruptors who are impeding our pursuit of happiness.
These activist judges and stickey fingered politicans that violate the public trust need to be held accountable by the people, through impeachment, or a criminal sentence as an object lesson about America being a nation of laws - not despicable men.
Uhhh, that would be "dumbed down".
The article made the importance of voting clear, but can anyone out there do a Paul Harvey and fill us in on the rest of the story?
No Silly, It's Dumbies, just like Gumbies!
:-)
You can be the one to tell him.
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