chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

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Annelie
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by Annelie »

This would not detract from his social conscience in evictions, yet show that no one is good or bad, but that have both in our hearts.
Yes, true but, some of us has more than the other in our hearts. Sometimes I think a few people have no hearts!
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centurion854
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by centurion854 »

Two things. Phylo good follow up information. The 82 year old widow was a dog handler at where again? Oh right Ravensbruck. A concentration camp where jews and other undesirables were systematically murdered and vicious dogs guarded the perimeter. Now I am willing to bet there are no holocaust deniers or other fringe loonies here but when I see people displaying sympathy for former concentration camp guards it makes my blood boil. And that was what this 82 year old widow was, a concentration camp guard with a dog, period. Should the fact that she was 82 given us cause to show her leniency? I don't know. What I do know is that a good one third of my extended family was exterminated by German military personnel. They never lived to see 82. I personally don't care if she got kicked out of this country.

Secondly the Sheriff in Cook County is required to enforce laws. When merchants and others complain because prostitutes and johns have sex in alleyways, block sidewalks etc, the pros and the johns become a public nuisance. Additionally and I am sure this comes as no surprise to most you, more and more frequently the prostitute lures a john into said alleyway where his or her cohorts rob the john. This becomes something more than a victimless crime, especially if the john is beaten, stabbed, shot or muurdered. Since the sheriff is an elected offical he is also beholden to his constituents to take care of their problems. Prostitution stings are a good way to at least make a good show of it. As far as the evictions go, good show. When my wife's job was eliminated, things got alittle rough. The mortgage company was not easy to work with. Long story short, we found help, the mortgage company got their mind right and it worked out. However I can see how without my badger like attitude, nine months hence we could have been looking at an eviction notice. Without people like the good sheriff, a lot of misfortunate people could have found themselves homeless in Chicago and that would truly be a bad thing.
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John W. Howard
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by John W. Howard »

Hi Centurian:
I think the dog-handler issue as well as John Demjanuk annoys some of us because we do not believe in guilt by association. Just because both of these two worked at camps should not be enough to deprive them of citizenship, or put them on trial. Had John Demjanuk been Ivan The Terrible, guilty of specific crimes, then more power to the people trying him. Yes Demjanuk and the dog-handler were accused of lying on immigration papers, but that "crime" pales in comparison to the legions of people who collect US Government benefits who never filled out any immigration papers at all and are here illegally. Add the bigger fish with a more pronounced Nazi backround, who were brought to the US and became citizens, and the hypocrisy gets bigger. Granted the scientists and intelligence people were huge assets to the US, but the hypocrisy is still there.
If Demjanuk and the dog-handler were guilty of specific crimes that can be proven, then by all means prosecute, but just because they worked in a camp does not make them guilty of anything. If I remember correctly there is a German soldier assigned to one of the camps, who is honored by the State of Israel for his services to the inmates in his camp. Perhaps Demjanuk and the dog-handler fall into that category. My feeling is that if sufficient evidence is presented to warrant extradition for trial, then that should be done, but depriving people of citizenship should wait until proof of wrong doing is established. Just a few thoughts. Best wishes.
John W. Howard
centurion854
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by centurion854 »

John I think you misunderstood my post. I have no sympathy for the 82 year old former dog handler. Even if you were just a perimeter guard or a dog handler, you knew what was going on in the camps. If you stopped the inmates from leaving or escaping than you were complicit in their illegal imprisonment and death. In California if three people drag a victim into a room and one of them beats him to death and the other two just hold the door shut so he can't escape, then all three of them are guilty of first degree murder. To me anyone involved with the camps was guilty. I don't kow what the morally correct answer is but that is how I see it. Unfortunately the survivors of the camps are all old and frail. To pin a specific act or crime on someone would be nearly impossible. But I do not believe that those who murdered and tortured or assisted in the murder and torture of other humans because of their religion or anything else should get to walk scot free if it can be proved that they were involved in a significant way. Patrolling the perimeter with a dog trained to bite just for the hell of it, would be significant enough in my opinion.

I enjoy going to this site. I am awed by the wealth of knowledge here. I do not believe posting here makes you a neo nazi or a fringe loony. Sometimes though I don't understand some of the posts. To me they sound like the writer is either in denial or had no problem with what the third reich was all about. What I mean by that is the ethnic cleansing of eastern Europe and the attempted exteremination of the jews, gypsys and other undesirables. The funny part is had the jews been allowed to participate as Germans, they would have fought just as hard and patriotically as the rest of Germany did. In WW1 my great uncle won the Iron cross fighting on the western front. Ironically that Iron cross was what got him and his family out of Germany 20 years later. When Ludendorf did a study to see whether jews were being wounded at the same rate as the Christians in 1916, he found that they were more than holding their own. So the nazis effectively rid themselves of a great source of manpower which make the holocaust even more shameful. Jews are no better or worse then anyone else. I'll bet you could have found jplenty of jews who fled from Russia to germany in the 20's more than willing to fight on the eastern front. The point is, I think that history from the German perspective is interesting. However we should never forget that in addition to a military campaign there was an intrinsically evil attempt to exterminate an entire people. It can not be ignored.
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by Paddy Keating »

Not everyone assigned to the staff of a concentration camp was guilty of crimes against humanity, even by association. The German Nazi regime has to be regarded in perspective. Hitler and his cronies were neo- imperialists whose attitudes to 'inferior' beings reflected not just European imperialist attitudes of the previous three centuries but attitudes embraced by others peoples and systems, from the Zulu nation to the Ottoman Turks. Once this is understood, it becomes easier to see the Shoah for what it was and, indeed, much harder for deniers to assert preposterous claims that it never happened. However, not everyone who was involved by dint of wearing the uniform or patrolling the perimeters was guilty. I have interviewed men and women posted to camps for various reasons, who were honest with postwar authorities about their wartime service, and much as you might find this hard to swallow, they were not guilty of crimes against humanity. Look at it this way: I do not view English people as murderers despite two recorded genocidal attempts against the Irish. Nor do I deem all Israelis to be racist maniacs because of the punitive raid on Gaza. I would not even hold every IDF soldier who participated in that appalling operation responsible. Coming back to the octagenarian doghandler, who are you to say that she is guilty and deserves to be rendered homeless and deported? Do you have her file in front of you? That we know this much about her past suggests that she was honest about it, further suggesting that she was not guilty of anything other than just being there and knowing what was happening. And if that is sufficient to condemn someone, then the Allied leaders who were reliably informed by the Polish underground of Auschwitz and Treblinka must be considered guilty too, mustn't they?

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John W. Howard
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by John W. Howard »

Hello Centurian:
I agree with most of what you say, but I do not think the Nazi crimes are being ignored on this site. Almost all of our members are well aware that 12 million people were killed by the Nazi regime, but our focus is the German military and discussion is mostly limited to that. I think Paddy's response sums up most of my arguments as well, so I will not discuss this much further. It would be a good idea to stop this discussion here, because we are moving off topic with the two of us agreeing to disagree slightly :wink: Best wishes.
John W. Howard
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by Paddy Keating »

Amen to that. What's the latest on our Robin Hood sheriff and have there been any similar initiatives elsewhere in the US?

PK
centurion854
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by centurion854 »

Ok, I agree.. Let me correct one small thought. I have never believed nor would I ever hold it against all Germans for what a few did. I do and always will disagree that those who didn't directly participate in torture etc. were not guilty. On that issue I will not give in for the reasons earlier stated.

As for the Robin Hood sheriff, I have not heard of any other similar initiatives. I belong to several police web sites and have seen nothing about the Cook County sheriff's initiative. I would have thought that would have been news. If I hear anything else I will post it.
centurion854
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by centurion854 »

All I found was an article from October 2008. It basically outlines his issues with what was happening to people in Chicago. Here it is:

By Don Babwin
The Associated Press

CHICAGO — Diane Limas was already planning a protest as she walked out of the Cook County Sheriff's office.

She and other renters had wanted to meet with Sheriff Tom Dart to complain about deputies tossing people out of their homes because banks had foreclosed on their landlords. Dart was unavailable.


On Thursday, Limas was still marveling about Dart's announcement that he would no longer send deputies on court-ordered mortgage foreclosure evictions because many of those forced from their homes were renters who faithfully paid their rent.

"That he had the courage to do this was huge for us," she said. She said she was impressed that Dart was willing to accept possible legal consequences for his decision not to carry out court-ordered evictions.

Accredited Home Lenders filed a lawsuit Thursday to get Dart to obey an order that calls for the eviction of Shirley McFarland of Dolton from her foreclosed bungalow. In a statement, attorneys for the mortgage lender said although Dart may have concerns about the orders he is charged with enforcing, he cannot refuse to carry them out.

Dart met Thursday with a judge and offered several suggestions to ensure that tenants are properly notified they are subject to eviction and that banks correctly identify those who should be evicted.

"I've just been trying to come at the entire eviction process from an entirely different way, to take a horrific, traumatic event and make it less so," Dart said after the meeting.

It's an approach that sets him apart from other lawmen in the area.

"A court order is just that, it is an order by a judge," said Sheriff Keith Nygren in nearby McHenry County. "It doesn't say if you want to follow it or if you think you should."

Dart brought a somewhat different perspective to the job when he was elected sheriff three years ago. While most police chiefs and sheriffs can look back at long careers in law enforcement, the 46-year-old Dart has never been a cop.

A former prosecutor in Cook County, Dart was tapped to fill a vacancy in the state senate in 1991 and won an election as a state representative the next year. He served in the General Assembly from 1993 to 2003, and made an unsuccessful run for state treasurer.

Dart then joined the sheriff's department as Sheriff Michael Sheahan's chief of staff. When Sheahan announced he would not run for re-election in late 2005, Dart announced his own candidacy and was elected.

He quickly dispensed with a few of the trappings of the office. He doesn't have a security detail. He doesn't travel with a driver, unless he has several appointments. He declined to emblazon his name on department vehicles and signs - a typical practice among newly elected public officials.

His most pressing crisis as sheriff came during the summer, when federal authorities released a report criticizing his management of the county jail. The report cited unsanitary conditions at the facility, serious problems with the medical treatment of inmates and the physical abuse of inmates by guards.

Dart remains angry about the report.

"My major issue I had and still have is that it completely ignored all of the major and somewhat monumental changes we have done," he said Thursday, citing improvements in the dispensation of medication to inmates and steps to reduce inmate violence.

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

"I was treated as if I had done nothing since I got there," he said.

Sherrif Dart has his hands full. Chicagp is a very corrupt and violent town. When I googled him, I found multiple articles about poor conditions in the Cook County jail and corrupt deputies. All I can say is,"good luck Sheriff."
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by phylo_roadking »

As I said at the top of the thread - the BBC turned up instances of a couple of Sheriif's Departments that were no longer cooperating with the property companies that were busy carrying out foreclosures and "rezoning" voters prior to the election last November :wink: I wonder if THIS particular little problem...disappeared...after November 4th???
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centurion854
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by centurion854 »

Maybe it disappeared after states started putting moratoriums on foreclosures. In California there was a moraturium for a time. Now the companies are starting to work with people. Heck all I did was write a letter about my son's medical bills and my wifes sudden unemplyment status. I asked for an application to start something. Without arguing $400.00 dollars got wacked off the loan. Now I do not wish to seem cocky or anything. I am grateful they did it. All I am saying is companies seem to be more willing to work with homeowners so maybe the whole foreclosure thing is mellowing out. I don't know for sure but it seems like a good guess. And no I did not vote for Obama. Or maybe with all the other problems Cook County has, the foreclosure deal seemed like small potatoes to the media.
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John W. Howard
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by John W. Howard »

Hi Centurian:
You did exactly the correct thing according to an attorney friend of mine. Get in touch directly with your creditors, after you have figured out what you can afford to pay. There are many attorneys who will take your money up front and obstruct the repayment process eventually leaving you with no money to pay your creditors at all, because it is all in the hands of your attorneys!! Some of the credit counseling places will do the same. Better to handle the problem yourself if one is able. Best wishes.
John W. Howard
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Re: chicago Sheriff.....I think a decent person

Post by phylo_roadking »

In the UK, the govt. set up an intervention system about a year ago to take on the role of agreeing moratoriums etc. between owners and mortgage houses...

It was revealed last week that exactly FIFTEEN householders had taken advantage of the intervention system! FIFTEEN! It wasn't advertised AT ALL, and everyone simply forgot about it - ESPECIALLY the mortgage houses who could therfore continue merrily with their repossessions...! :evil:
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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