Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
By James Banakis
June 20th, 2025
This quote was penned by Lord Acton, the strong 19th century advocate for individual liberty. It is a timeless observation as old as the scriptures. It underscores his conviction that unchecked power poses the greatest threat to human freedom. His work consistently underscored the significance of limiting government and concentrated authority in favor of individual rights and personal liberty.
Lord Acton is a hero of mine. As a business owner I understand that individual liberty is mother’s milk for the entrepreneur. Acton understood that great men are almost always bad men when you
“combine the certainty of corruption by authority.”
My ancestors immigrated to America in the 1880’s. Out of necessity they became fruit peddlers. It was the most rudimentary of all businesses. One buys fruit at the market, transports it by foot to underserved areas of the city, and hopefully sells it for a profit. In 1886 there was no safety net. EBT cards and Medicaid were nonexistent. As always there was no protection from the God-awful Chicago winters. Competition was fierce and at times violent. Because of lack of language skills, and understanding of laws and their rights, immigrants were easily swindled and taken advantage of.
There was only one’s resourcefulness and determination to defend against the obstacles. Yet of all the hardships, the one that was the most feared, hated, and potentially the most damaging was concentrated governmental power and abusive corruption.
Family stories were passed down to me in the oral tradition that connected one generation to the next for ages and ages. My favorite stories were the ones that involved conflict, heroic undertakings, and cunning conclusions. I always envisioned these stories as our family’s ongoing Odessey.
As a child I was told of the cops, bureaucrats, and elected officials (the bad guys) who shook down my great grandfather and great uncles (the good guys). Push-carts, the most indispensable part of their livelihood, sometimes disappeared or were destroyed overnight. Like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill, they had to start over. There were no other options.
In time though the fruit carts evolved into a produce shop at the South Water Market. My Grandfather would tell me of how his father and uncles would have to provide all the politicians with baskets of fruit and Christmas trees every year. The cops would help themselves to produce daily.
Years pass and the produce shop evolved into restaurants and a coffee distributorship in the following generation. Paying tribute continued to be a cost of doing business in Chicago only now there were now more bureaucrats, sales tax examiners, and inspectors. Most all of them conducted the city’s business with their hand in small businessman’s pocket. Relating the experience to me, my grandfather, normally docile if stock market wasn’t having a down day, would narrow his eyes, lean in, and call the grifters, “dirty bloodsucking sons of bitches.”
Years later, my opening a business in the city meant hiring a facilitator to guide me through the complicated process of who to know and who to pay obtaining all the licenses and inspections. The most galling part of the corruption I experienced was the confident condescension, and arrogance of most officials I had to deal with. They knew they held all the cards, and they had the only table in the casino.
As I write this, Mike Madigan is being sentenced to 7.5 years for a lifetime of corruption. Madigan, the longest serving legislative leader in US history, rose to power manipulating zoning laws. In the weeks leading up to the sentencing, there are cries for mercy from fellow complicit politicians and friends. After the sentence there are all the phony self-righteous politicians saying they’re glad, he deserved it. Spare Me! As far as I’m concerned, Mike Madigan and all his yet unindicted buddies are nothing more than the “bloodsucking sons of bitches” my grandfather warned me about. For generations they enriched themselves at the expense of all the entrepreneurs who started businesses unable to sleep nights trying to navigate making payrolls and paying mortgages and mollifying greedy politicians always aware that they hold the power to end their businesses or at the very least make their lives a costly living nightmare.
Madigan is the embodiment of Lord Acton’s axiom. In this deeply blue state, he held absolute power. There were no checks and balances from a flaccid, complicit republican opposition. His daughter served as attorney general protecting him from legal prosecution. Madigan collected untold millions selling business licenses at the airports, rezoning whatever he needed to regardless of who’s life was upended or destroyed. Despite all his exploitation and fraud, Madigan is small potatoes compared to some of our national leaders.
Today only 15 percent of Americans view Congress as favorable. Most (80 percent) of us favor term limits on Congress, but it would be almost impossible to put into law. Why? Because Congress alone has the power to enact a law to that effect, and they would never willingly neuter themselves. They also have passed laws to protect themselves from sexual harassment, and liable and slander laws. Almost anything they say or do short of murder inside the Capital building is protected.
They have the power to vote themselves raises. Many times, they put their spouses and family members on their office payrolls, but it’s only a façade. Most outrageous of all of course is that they enrich themselves to an obscene amount through inside trading and influence pedaling. The most influential, Pelosi, McConnell, Schummer, Biden, Tillis, Warren just to name a few, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. An incumbent congress person has a 90 percent chance of reelection because of special interest and labor union money poured into their campaigns. Congress is no longer interested in solving our problems, but only in covering their asses, cashing in, and getting reelected. Absolute power corrupting again.
Illinois like California and other states are now essentially one-party rule. Once that happens the power of all elected officials, the servants of we citizens, become absolute. Corruption and their self-serving policy get shoved down our throats. Isn’t this cycle of tumbling into the abyss of absolute power emblematic of the mess we find ourselves in America today?
Our visionary, sagacious founding fathers based our Constitution and Bill of Rights on individual freedom, checking the powers of those who govern. Thomas Paine expressed in “Common Sense” that government is at best a “necessary evil.” In 1776, the founders were in a position much like we’re in today. The absolute all powerful British Crown, consuming as much power as it wished. The problem, then and now, is to formulate a system that gives government the power necessary to protect individual liberty and prevents those who govern from abusing that power.
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish a government that becomes damaging of their natural rights and liberties. He saw this as a necessary instrument to control our leaders and prevent tyranny. He foresaw occasional rebellions to refresh the “tree of liberty.”
So, there we have it. The solution is our sacred birthright. One popular definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” Instead of believing Mike Madigan’s seven years sentence is going to solve the corrupt environment we find ourselves sinking into up to our necks. We need to follow Jefferson’s remedy. Of course, it’s not going to be a simple task but like the fruit peddler who repaired his broken cart, we need to push the boulder up the hill together and refresh the tree of liberty from all the “bloodsucking sons of bitches.”
It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.
– Theodore Roosevelt
Peddler by Jackson Pollock
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Jimmy Banakis is a life-long restaurateur. He was an honorary batboy for the White Sox in 1964. He attended Oak Park River Forest High School, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Chicago-Kent Law School. He claims the kitchen is the room he’s most comfortable in anywhere in the world. He published an extremely limited-edition family cookbook. He’s a father and grandfather, and lives in Downers Grove Il.
Comments 40
Excellent column! It’s too bad nothing will ever change here in the “State of Corruption”.
All the “bloodsucking son of bitches” rule by the consent of the majority of the governed, and as long as the governed get their handouts (actually their own or someone else’s tax money), nothing will change. The governed have neither the will nor the courage to see beyond their own self-interest. They can be and they are, bought off cheaply.
Money corrupts absolutely. The World is changing, people are becoming selfish, money has taken over and Mayor Johnson wants a Black America. Try and figure all this out folks. People do not speak with one another because of the difference in their Political views or money. So sad. The Politicians only care for money, and take and take from the poor man. Wait until Cook Country folks look at their Real Estate Taxes. I do not think they care they support the idiots that run the Government. Ridiculous. Power CORRUPTS Absolutely.
Love of money.
Too well said and clearly heartfelt.
The word politician is derived from the work politics.
Poli – as in many.
Tics – as in blood sucking parasites .
Perfection!
Well done, Lou.
I’m adding that to my repertoire.
There is an easy answer to getting term limits. For Congressmen, give them three terms, then vote them out if they run for another term. It doesn’t matter how bad the opponent is. After a while, the Parties will understand that they need to find new candidates. For the Senate, maybe two terms. The people of Cook County would rather pay 50% of the value of their property in taxes than vote for a Republican.
Absolute truth. The “dirty blood-sucking sons of bitches” continue on courtesy of the voters. Look at Chicago- the citizens hated Lightfoot’s pathetic act as Mayor. But, in true chumbolone matter, they voted in a clown who is 100 times worse.
Until people wise up, until the media tells the truth, nothing will change. I’m not holding my breath.
I digress George. The exact opposite is true. Chicago voters did NOT elect Brandon Johnson. They simply didn’t come out to vote. A certain demographic votes faithfully for the Democrat Party. No matter what. The rest of Chicago voters simply refused to vote since the only two choices you had were both Democrats. Heads I win, tails you lose. Get it? We all know Vallas was the lesser of two evils but most couldn’t stomach the idea of voting for ANY Democrat. Illinois weak Republican Party allowed Rank Choice Voting in Chicago which ensures you will NEVER get a Republican on a mayoral ballot in
Chicago ever again. Low voter turnout is the desired result and this political strategy has been very successful for the Democrats. Until the weak Illinois Republicans stop rolling over to expose their soft, white underbelly they’ll continue to be irrelevant. Until they get a strong leader to teach them to fight the bastards voter apathy will continue in Illinois. And Chicago will continue its fall.
” ..soft white underbelly” refers to canine behavior when a dog submits to a stronger, alpha dog as an act of submission. I use it reference to the Illinois Republicans. Not anything else.
Not voting, is voting. Fools who don’t vote have no right to complain.
Since Trump got into office his business empire has doubled in value. He has used tariffs to get better deals for his private corporation that his sons now run. An example is with Vietnam.
And don’t forget pols like Nixon, the Bushes, etc. Both sides do it!
Well said Mr. Diaz about the white Chicago democrats of today. These fools shall only look up to the past in Vrdyoliak democrats who brought the virtually unknown, unheard of the Republican nominee Bernie Epton to within a percentage point of votes to the then strong Black Mayor Washington in his reelection for mayor. Like Mr. Rudd pointed out, todays Chicago whites from the north and north west sides do not realize that ‘not voting is voting’ for the opponent. And the Mayor Panics uses the race chord for any thing and everything including to opposing the latest city council’s curfew against the young black thugs! And no wonder the nation wide whites are ready to willingly submit to minority demands, at their own peril and to those of immigrants like me who came to live (and love) in this country more than half a century ago hoping for the ‘melting pot’! Now, often I wish I had gone back ‘home’ after finishing my (graduate) schooling here.
Actually, the Chicago voters DID vote – – – ALL of them! What most folks don’t pause to understand (or perhaps don’t care about) is that Not Voting redounds to the winner. In the last mayoral election, cast votes for Johnson were 319,481; cast vote for Vallas were 293,033. Total registered – 1, 587,153. That means 974,639 people didn’t care or actually understood that by not showing up they gave Johnson an even bigger “vote”. Considering that all of the City employees are REQUIRED to vote, as are all of the members of the CTU, that pretty much takes care of the vote total.
As far as the state is concerned, a truly competent Republican is certainly swimming up stream! We have an excellent candidate in the gubernatorial race already. We can only hope the Republicans are smart enough to get behind him and support him. What we normally do? We are the VERY BEST at eating our own! We find something our candidate did or said 15 years ago and beat the snot out of him for it, instead of joining together and working for the Win! Our Democrat friends would vote for a potted plant that had a -D. behind their name (several recent examples are available, aren’t they!!!). They may disagree, but they smile and vote for their ‘guy’…..they’ll sort it out later. Like her or hate her, Nancy Pelosi was an example of that when she was in her prime. When it was clear that NY-14 was going to be won by the illustrious AOC, she smiled, nodded and made sure that enough Dems came out and guaranteed the seat…..then she proceeded to deal with her later. She valued keeping the seat -D. over explaining to the country what all her shortcomings were. Until Republicans figure that out, they will not win….not in a state like Illinois. (Issue compounded by Pritzker’s money and the rate at which he’s willing to spend it to throw an election in a direction he finds acceptable.)
Jimmy:
Your solution, “…pushing the boulder up the hill together…”, sounds hopeful.
Thank you for this writing.
When I think of Illinois corruption, I immediately see our senior US Sentaor and archlouse Dick Durbin. In the remaining four years, I hope that AG Pam Bondi has time to turn over his many crawl spaces. Democracy dies in darkness, Dick.
Pat, Dick’s his wife Loretta was a lobbyist for many years, but oh no, that did not influence her getting clients, Burke’s wife had an office in the old days right next hubbie Eddie’s ward office, but that did not get her clients, lil’ Johnney Daley had an insurance business, but oh no, that did not bring in the clients, gee, oh what a wicked web they have weaved, in a real free market they all would have failed.
The Daleys had an insurance business. If you got a contract with the city and needed workman’s comp , liability insurance etc guess were you bought it to seal the contract deal with the city.
And all perfectly legal.
I believe that it was Walter Jacobson, then a young journalist, who queried Mayor Daley about his son’s insurance company getting city contracts. The mayor’s answer was something like, “what kind of father would I be if I didn’t help my son’s out”.
America’s blue states are most in need of the voter’s embrace of “No Kings” sentiment- or more succinctly, “No Clown Holes”.
The dirty blood sucking sons of bitches was a phrase I heard often from my grandfather. Yes an immigrant who came here with next to nothing, rode the rails. Went from town to town to work. Then decided he’d have his own business.
Thanks for an excellent column.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a French political philosopher studying our nascent democracy said that our republic would survive only until our congress realized it could bribe the people with their own money. The bloodsucking sons of bitches have been doing it for 60 years now with only one care in mind: self preservation.
Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg) Letter to Archbishop Mandell Creighton (Apr. 5, 1887): “Power TENDS to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
That is an important disctinction.
As the Grandson, Son and Husband of legal immigrants what you write rings so true.
When my grandfather had his business in Bellwood, he knew exactly what to have ready for all the holidays so he could get his permits and make sure no one would shutdown his business due to technicalities. Same for my dad when he had his tool shop. My wife learned quickly that “government union” was another phrase for graft. But the one thing I can say about my family of immigrants: we have perseverance, we make it work.
Mr Banakis—. The true words of America’s hard working immigrants. Thanks.
For a son of Chicago, Even in the relatively well heeled 19 th ward as a kid you came to understand how things got done. If you wanted bases put out or chalk lines for football it was the guy in the park house who made it happen. Next up The aldercreature or Ward Super was the resource center or in some cases pipeline to da Hall or even the Fif floor. 50 fiefdoms. As a young adult and into middle age I understood “Madiganistan” on the state level. My dad was an executive with two companies that operated fleets of trucks daily in the city. I’m sure if he were still alive he could tell detailed stories of payoffs and deliveries of a dozen cases of product to each Ward office every holiday. Double parking, no parking zone and blocking traffic citations were easy to target. I do miss the true days of the “City that Works” We had a clean city. Miscreants who created disorder got locked up or perhaps a wood shampoo warning. Neighbors sat on the stoop and visited. Kids played til the streetlights came on. The current fool on 5 or “Toilets” have done nothing for living in Illinois (I left seven years ago ). Even God would be stressed trying to course correct Chicago and Illinois.
James Madison warned in the Federalist Papers: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.” His warnings have not been heeded–especially in Illinois.
Jimmy,
Years ago I ran a family steel business on South Chicago Avenue. We suffered numerous breakins and overnight thefts of office equipment, since the perps couldn’t carry away a steel coil. Next came the theft of our electrical cables for cranes, equipment and the like. The local cops that patrolled the area sought to shake us down for “protection!” I was forced to pay them off once, until we suffered another breakin, whereupon I informed them they weren’t worth “skata.” Next I informed them that “someone from downtown” was asking about the neighborhood cops….the protection racket ceased, and they lost interest! We still had breakins from time to time, adding burglar alarms and guard dogs, but the neighborhood continued its slide into oblivion, and we closed up shop years later, moving some operations to Indiana! Eugene Sawyer was our alderman and did all he could to help, and we prayed he’d become mayor, but alas, wasn’t meant to be….he was one of the good guys in my opinion. Never asked for anything! We had to ask how best to help him! How about that?
Thanks, Leo for the term of art “skata.” As a young apprentice I worked for Pete Gallas Electric where I acquired and added to my vocabulary an arsenal of effective Greek swear words, including my favorite, “Malaka.”
Very good column Jimmy, you hit nail right on the head.
Congress is sickening, term limits should be enacted.
1880 – awesome, awesome story. Thank you!!
Truth be told and thank you. My great grandparents immigrated from Poland in 1890 and too operated a fruit store in the old Bush neighborhood in south Chicago . The present problem is that there are so many of the corrupt blood sucking sons of bitches in Illinois that are feeding off so many businesses and property owners that it will take some real leaders to make a difference! I don’t see it ever happening in my lifetime, but have all the hopes that it can happen. Ps. Jimmy where is your restaurant so we can become customers and support it.
Outstanding and well written article. And these days applicable to practically all of our society.
Many thanks, John, for your words of wisdom. I hope you have a nice weekend.
Tom
Great column.
Blood sucking sons of bitches should be insignia on the Chicago flag! Great column!
Jimmy. Be careful what you wish for. Term limits? Basically that would result in a total capitulation to the folks who have no term limits, are unaccountable to the electorate, make their own laws (rules), adjudicate their own laws and enforce their laws as well (Madison’s very definition of tyranny). I’m talking about the faceless bureaucrats who populate our huge federal administrative state. Maybe they are the ones who need the term limits.
Great point.
Was just reading this and saw you here Denny….I found this amusing
‘Competition was fierce and at times violent. Because of lack of language skills, and understanding of laws and their rights, immigrants were easily swindled and taken advantage of’
Well, yes and no…I am 100% Irish. Family came here in the 1840’s thought the 1890’s. Every one of my ancestors, via Chicago to farms downstate.
It wasn’t the language skills that let us down. Irish coming to the USA were more likely to be literate in English language than the general population in the USA.
It was the general criminality, and the fact that somewhere between 49% and 51% of Irish were OK with that, given the long history of rule by thugs in Eire.
Easy to look back and say ‘we were a bunch of screw ups’. But it was a hell of a lot better to be a ditch digger in Illinois than being in Ireland during the famine.
Wow – just floored me. Great passion in your words. And undeniable truth.