The Real Chicago Hate Crime

Some bozo in the Windy City made national news over a staged hate crime. Coverage of this semi-event went from the alleged crime itself to its performance to the arrest of the perp to the dismissal of charges against him. This raised so many hackles that a retired judge felt compelled to comment on the matter in one of the nation's most prestigious newspapers.

The most interesting and significant fact in this entire affair is the retired judge, Sheila M. O'Brien. According to the website CWB:

 O’Brien, 63, retired from the First District Appellate Court in 2011 after 16 years of service. She previously served nine years as an Associate Judge. Before rising to the bench, she worked as an assistant public defender, trial lawyer, and instructor a the St. Louis University Law School.

If this is true it means that the honorable justice O'Brien retired from the state bench at age 53. Now it's possible that the feminine legalist could have simply quit work one day and moved on to other things, like her current affiliation with Loyola University. We can't know for sure without access to the lady's tax returns. The use of the word "retirement", however, doesn't seem to indicate that this is what occurred. It appears more likely that she has moved to that country called "public employee retirement", a place she's likely to inhabit longer than the 25 years that she made courtroom decisions for the state of Illinois.

According to Taxpayers United of America, Justice O'Brien is the beneficiary of an annual pension of $192,039 and is statistically likely to collect in excess of $7.9 million in taxpayer-funded retirement benefits. In 2015, the mean annual household income in the US was $79,263, about 40% of what Justice O'Brien will receive in taxpayer funded benefits. Her retirement income alone puts her in the top 6.2% nationally.

We've already heard much about the dire status of  Illinois state finances. A large part of that noise has been the Prairie State's overwhelming pension obligations. According to Forbes, 23,000 retired state employees receive over $100,000 annually in pension payments. Dr. Leslie Heffez, a dentist retired from the University Chicago Circle, now operating a practice in Highland Park, Illinois, is receiving an annual retirement payment of nearly $600,000, the largest in state history.

But it isn't just about the money. The most important feature of American culture has always been its embrace of the "Protestant work ethic". The enthusiasm for hard work is a foundational value in America, and to the mind of most, the quality that makes the country perhaps the most successful in world history. Those that don't embrace that moral, that are instead lazy and feckless, are pariahs in their own communities. The idea that an elite can establish a system where they can receive benefits for things that they did and were compensated for decades ago is a rejection of the Protestant work ethic that puts them morally in league with the lowliest members of American society.

 Justice Sheila O'Brien