Cook the Books

Knowledge may be power. And the Republican Party in Lake County may be out of power. But it does not follow that the Lake County GOP is no sharper than a rubber donut.

No, but it does go a long way toward explaining why the Lake County GOP has mounted a coordinated effort to dumb down the electorate -- ensuring a constituency that will be easy prey to the politics of fear and greed.

The game plan is simple: erect barriers between the voters and sources of knowledge. One strategy, to replace public education in Lake County with a system of vouchers and home-schooling, failed. Plan-B for the GOP, it now seems, is to undermine Lake County's libraries.

Benjamin Franklin established the first public library in 1731: "The doors of wisdom are never shut." On the other hand, Dan McConchie, Lake County's lone remaining Republican State legislator, walked through the doors of a Lake County library and perceived a pork-barrel:

"Sure," McConchie said, "they provide nice services to their folks, but I walk in there, and there's people that are just sitting there on the clock doing absolutely nothing."
McHenry County GOP leaders: Want tax cuts? Look at libraries

And David McSweeney, Lake County's lone remaining Republican State legislator, thinks your public library is a cash-cow:

"require voter approval for any major capital expenditure, even if they're using tax reserves," McSweeney said.
Suburban libraries hoard money, avoid getting voters' approval to build

Note to Ops: If you can read this then your public library was established for people like you.