Rich guy dislikes poor people, wants local kids to "lose sleep" over plan to shut library

Constantine "Connie" Xinos is the president of the home-owners' association in a gated community in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook. He dislikes being near poor people (he successfully blocked a permit for a senior's home, stating, "I don't want to live next to poor people. I don't want poor people in my town"). He reportedly worked to elect an Oak Brook village council who would shut down the town library, which he also campaigned against. When local kids showed up at town meetings to ask that their library be left open, he is quoted as saying, "I don't care that you guys miss the librarian, and she was nice, and she helped you find books;" and to the library staff to "stop whining."

The librarians are now attempting to unionize under the Teamsters.

Sydney was upset and "her little friend was in tears" after Xinos spoke at the meeting last week, says mom Hope Sabbagha.
"I wanted that kid to lose sleep that night," a grinning Xinos says Wednesday, as he invites me for a nearly two-hour interview in his Mercedes-Benz in the gated Oak Brook community where he lives. "This is the real world and the lesson, you folks who brought your kids here, is if you want something, pay for it..."
A poor kid who grew up in Berwyn and worked in his dad's cafeteria in Chicago, Xinos went to law school and served in the Marines. Xinos says he speaks for Oak Brook's view of the Teamsters when he says, "Nobody here likes those kind of people."
Xinos, who says he never had children in part because he wasn't sure he'd be able to support them, sprinkles the F-word throughout his conversations. He dismisses a recent library event involving dogs with a blunt three-word rant in which he bookends swear words around the word "that."

Ugly battle has librarians in Oak Brook turning to Teamsters (Thanks, Lynn!)

(Image: A dome and skylight brighten the center of the Oak Brook Public Library, Marcelle Bright/mbright@dailyherald.com)

Previously:

Rich NY town tries to shut down children's library because poor kids might use it

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

Being rich or republican has nothing to do with being a total stupid dumbass. I happen to be very well off financially and a republican. I also have funded the building of two libraries in my area, funded 25% of the construction of an addition to the local hospital that is dedicated to helping the needy in our community and I actively support most charitable organizations in town. At the moment I’m very busy making sure the food banks are stocked for the upcoming holidays.

This guy would give Scrooge a bad name. He is a gold plated void surrounded by a sphincter muscle. He should be taken out back a beaten to a pulp allowed to heal and beaten again.
ill lich

As Rush Limbaugh taught us long ago, there are lots of people in the world who think selfishness is a virtue.
Daemon

$10 says he’s a fan of Ayn Rand. Any takers?
- Brainspore
  
  Daemon, I’m tempted to take you up on that bet just because this man doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who reads at all.
Anonymous

Oak Brook is home to the headquarters of McDonald’s Corp. McDonald’s represents a large portion of the tax base in the community. As a result everyone else pays only a fraction of the property taxes they would pay in neighboring areas. For his ~$600,000 townhouse he only paid $4690.50 in taxes for 2008. People like Mr. Xinos are beneath contempt, but trying to use him as a poster child for conservatives or Republicans adds nothing to the debate.
- IronEdithKidd
  
  Jumpin’ Judas on a pogo stick! This d-bag pays about 2k less in taxes than I do on my >200k house! WTF!!! Where I live, this guy would rightly be paying close to 20k.
  
  This guy is the poster child for what’s wrong with conservatives in America. They worship averice above all else. They are as uncivil as they can possibly be when they don’t get what they want. They seem to want to simultaneously destroy the society in which they actually live and preserve a way of life that never existed. Specifically this guy is myopic, selfish, irresponsible, and self-loathing.
Oscar

He is only triying to forget he was poor one day and he wants to have a revenge against aall people once say he was shit

The Poorest man in golden bed…
Penguinlady

SteamingPie said: “Xinos is Greek, right? If I interpret it correctly, it means “foreigner.”

Yes on the first one, no on the second. “Foreigner” in Greek is “xenos,” the root of “xenophobia,” fear of strangers.

I believe someone posted earlier that “Sinos” means “sour.”
Craig

What a #@$!ing moron.
gollux

What a teabagger…
Oxymoxy

This guy seems to just want attention by saying rotten things. He’s an off-the-internet troll.
Cicada

The honesty is quite refreshing.
Craig

What really bugs me is idiots like this don’t understand the first thing about economics. (You don’t have to understand economics to have a crapload of cash anymore… it seems.) A world where you only get what you personally can pay for would be an impoverished one in so many ways. Let’s see how he feels about paving his own streets, collecting his own garbage, policing his own community, responding to fire alarms in his neighborhood. What a moron.
Felix Mitchell

Why would you live in a place clearly designed for rich people if you weren’t rich? Or, why would you allow rich people to re-design the laws of your town?

Dickheads like this guy are all about ‘hard work’ for other people, but never seem to be above simple bullying for themselves.
Nathan Chadwick

I would like to point out that the Village of Oak Brook owns and maintains the Oak Brook Village Golf Club which requires membership and has gone unscathed during this recent wave of budget cuts. So if we need to reference priorities, here is target number one.
http://www.oak-brook.org/dep_recreaton/the_golf_club.shtml
Anonymous

Xinos’s time in the service and his impoverished childhood did not result in anything positive regarding empathy in his character. People like this are a big problem.
dylan

“You’re a douchebag. Therefore, you’re wrong!”

Gotta love ad hominem.
Anonymous

“Wow, and here I thought it was a douchebag move for the local Libertarians to hold their meetings in the tax-funded public library.”

I was once at a Tony Roma’s (chain rib restaurant) and noticed that the local Dennis Kucinich for President campaign was having their meeting there. Kucinich is a vegan.

Oy vey, Adamnvillani, where to begin?

You don’t have to be a Limbaugh-style dittohead to support a political candidate. Kucinich is a vegan, but turning all Americans into vegans was not part of his political platform. I wanted Al Gore to be President in 2000 while disagreeing with his stance on capital punishment (he’s for, I’m against). Your ribmunching Kucinich fans were not being hypocrites.

Libertarians oppose public funding for just about everything except national defense. I recently read a blog comment wherein a self-identified Libertarian referred to public libraries as “welfare book stores”. So, unless it was a meeting of “Libertarians Who Are Libertarian About Everything Except Libraries”, they were being hypocrites. It would be like the Richard Dawkins fan club meeting in a church basement, unless they were actually the “Richard Dawkins And Delicious Irony Fan Club.”

Here endeth the lesson, as Richard Dawkins would not say.
Allnewtoday

This is an edited version of the story. MAny parts have been cut out of it to create a slanted view. This is very unethical and the WHOLE story needs to be reproduced, otherwise the author is in danger of plagerism, which is not only disrespectful, but creating a misunderstanding/miscommunication among the viewing public. The article states,
“Begun as a volunteer effort in 1961 with donated books, the library occupied a small space in village hall until it moved into an old school two years later. It stayed there until the village built the new library.

The library is a village department funded by the general fund, same as the police, fire department and public works. It has no taxing power. Its budget comes from the village, and much of that money comes from sales tax, as there is no property tax. And sales at the mall and other businesses are down.

“We’re probably going through what a lot of towns are going through,” Niemeyer says of the budget cuts. “None of these things are easy.”

It’s not complicated for Xinos.

“You may like the library, but when you call 9-1-1, you want a policeman or a fireman before someone to tell you where the books are in the library,” says the man who has talked of privatizing, outsourcing or even closing the library.

“I understand that my philosophy is conservative,” Xinos says, adding that government just needs to catch bad guys, put out fires, fix the streets and make sure buildings are sturdy.

He campaigned, successfully, against a plan to bring subsidized housing for seniors into town by declaring, “I don’t want to live next to poor people. I don’t want poor people in my town.”"
(Xinos, Constatine. Interview by Burt Constable. Daily Herald. Daily Herald, 1 Oct. 2009. Web. 8 Oct. 2009. < http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=325508>.)

Please keep journalism and stories ethical and authorized by not plagerising. I was interested in Boing Boing because of the stand the editor in chief took against advertisers that threatened to sue, but after I see things like this article, I have lost all respect for that editor and will not support this website by viewing or commenting after this instance.
- mn_camera
  
  @ Allnewtoday: I can’t speak for the “plagerism” you reference, though excerpting and linking to an online article is most definitely not plagiarism.
  
  You can’t accuse anyone of it until you can spell it correctly. Just as you can’t claim to be a white supremacist until you can spell it correctly.
  
  You = bad internet cop. Me = good internet cop.
  
  You = busted…
- jimh
  
  Public libraries, humbug!
  The clarifications you included in your comment do nothing to “balance” the post or sway my opinion that Constantine Xinos is a hard-hearted, despicable individual. Residents of gated communities with no property taxes complaining about funding a public library? Oh for crying out loud. New money has no concept of noblesse oblige. Wake up and be grateful, Connie.

Anonymous

One day he will grow old, move into a nursing home, and depend on those same poor kids to wipe his ass and take care of him. What comes around goes around.

Lazlo Toth

I left horrible goat noises on his answering machine. I’m a terrible person.

Talia

What a loathesome human being. Does this cretin have friends, or does he spend all day alone swimming in his money like McScrooge?

Oskar

Dude, first of all, it’s “Scrooge McDuck”, not “McScrooge” (he’s not a hamburger!). Second, Scrooge is awesome! He’s greedy, true, but he never cheated anyone or made any money dishonestly (unlike his dastardly nemisis, Flintheart Glomgold). He worked hard for his money, and he earned it. He cares about people and he would never, ever close down a library for poor kids! (he might fire a warning shot with his shotgun if they came close to his money-bin, though, but seriously, who wouldn’t?)

Scrooge’s motto is “I made it by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!” If every American capitalist was as smart, as honest and as hard-working as Scrooge McDuck, the world would be a much better place.

Anonymous

What an elitist pig! The sad thing is he isn’t even close to be considered part of the “elite”. Just because you’re a millionaire doesn’t make you “rich”. People like Bill Gates, Ted Turner and the Rockerfeller laugh at people like you.

jennybean42

I never use the word Douchebag, but strangely it is the only word I can think of right now.

farleymac

So, he doesn’t want ‘poor people’ to use the library that is funded by ‘his’ tax dollars. Which come from everyone that shops in Oak Brook? Simple solution is to quit spending money in Oak Brook until everyone behind the gates withers away.

BBrodriguez

Why did he insist on haveing the interview in his car? What an oddball

http://richpotter.net Rich Potter

Obviously the interviewer was too “unwashed” to be invited into the guy’s home.
Steaming Pile

Because he wastes more gas that way. He’d probably have gotten a Hummer, but those are far too spartan for someone of his alleged social standing.

Tezcatlipoca

I wonder about the people at Oak Brook. I mean, electing an obviously un american person as their home owners association president? Constantinos Xinos? What kind of foreigner loving community is that?

Besides, he was a poor kid. Everybody knows poor kids
cannot possibly be sucessful, so I smell rat. Somebody has financed him to use him as a future pawn.

I am sure he is in fact an european communist infiltrator under the orders of the illuminati send to corrupt America. If only Sen. McCarthy were still alive, such people would be send back to their countries where they belong.

Steaming Pile

I kind of wondered about that myself. Xinos is Greek, right? If I interpret it correctly, it means “foreigner.”

John

I was recently reading a comment thread on a librarian’s blog. At one point, a neocon popped up and attacked the concept of public libraries. He kept referring to them as “welfare book stores”, which reminds me of something Colbert might say!

Anonymous

He exists — a thorough google reveals he has had an angioplasty with stents. He also has sued the Canadian and Ontario governments, apparently (damn legal industry paywalls) over payroll taxes or some such.

Phrosty

Those silly poor people and their rights.

Ted8305

@BBRODRIGUEZ: maybe the interviewer was poor. Xinos probably wouldn’t have allowed a poor person inside his home or office, but luxury automobiles are acceptable venues for poor/wealthy interaction.

Anonymous

The level of depravity that this vermin has dropped to has vivified even this wounded spirit, several thousand miles away. This kind of personal and political mediocrity is only visible once the true dimness of those “in power” is shone-upon by the lights of Reason and Truth. This “Xinos” or whatever his name is, is simply a few mental disorders shy of a despotic tyrant.

I remember a time in human history when people like this were stoned to death by their own congregations. “The sin of greed”, I believe it was called. I honestly hope this “man” gets what he deserves in the after-life.

May the gods see you to the Abyss.

Penguinlady

Ooops – I meant “Xinos,” of course.

Agies

Reminds me of the city council in the first couple of seasons of Weeds. I hope this guy gets vilified.

On the other hand this has got to be one of the most elegant ways to get get across what someone is saying without actually saying it;

He dismisses a recent library event involving dogs with a blunt three-word rant in which he bookends swear words around the word “that.”

toyg

The guy is a case-study in projected self-hatred. He despises his background, so doesn’t want “poor people” around. He regrets not having kids, so he despises them. He had to do everything the hard way, so thinks everyone else should as well.

I guess we should take the good news: Mr. Xinos did not reproduce, sooner or later he will die, and the world will be a slightly better place.

http://tenyearsofpics.blogspot.com patrick dodds

Knowing someone lives in a gated community saves so much time having to value their worth.

Paba

People keep telling me that the more local the government, the more responsive and receptive they are to your needs. And then I remember homeowner’s associations and disregard most of that.

mn_camera

He’s also too dim to realize that a future populated by the uninformed, while it may temporarily allow him to feel superior, will really be no future at all.

Of course, not having kids (we can at least be thankful for that!) means he has little future to care about, doesn’t it?

k1p

toyg,

I came here to say what you did. This guy is the definition of a shit-sack.

The silent people of his neighborhood are just as much to blame.

Anonymous

This fool better be careful, that last time I heard about this kind of stupidity, was just before the French revolution, and you know what happened to them.

John

If I steal the word “plagerism” from Allnewtoday’s post, it that plagiarism?

Lookforthewoman

@Allnewtoday – how is highlighting portions of an article and posting a link to said article “plagerising” or creating a “slanted view” of the original article?

Me thinks you don’t know how this sort of thing works. Especially when you threaten that “will not support this website by viewing or commenting after this instance” – sweetie, we know you’ll be back to read the comments that your comment has generated, like this one!

1993 called, it wants it’s IRC tantrum back.

arkizzle / Moderator

Allnewtoday

What are you referring to as ‘plagerism’, in this context?

dlelash

Nah, someone else had it right – “Xinos” is obviously Greek for “Burns”.

jimh

Homer: “Ya know Mr. Burns, you’re the richest guy I know – way richer than Lenny.”
Mr. Burns: “Yes, but I’d trade it all for a little more.”

dnafrequency

haha Mr. Burns

Anonymous

He dismisses a recent library event involving dogs with a blunt three-word rant in which he bookends swear words around the word “that.”

That.

Anonymous

that is so not right to diss the poor like that. The US would not be what it is right now if it weren’t for the them working hard. We all started off poor at sometime and made our way up but it does’nt mean you can forget where you came from and treat others lower than you like shit. It’ll just come back to bite him in the ass!lol

Anonymous

There’s your winner for douchebag of the decade, if not the century. Itâ€™s hard to believe there are people out there that can be that big of a piece of SHIT.

Neon Tooth

As a Chicagoan I can tell you that “nickname” guys are never a good sign. If he actually lived in the city he’d probably be an alderman.

Lester

Are we sure that this is a real person and not a villain in a Little Rascals short?

“Don’t cry crocodile tears about people who are making $100,000 a year wiping tables and putting the books back on the shelves,” Xinos smirked, secretly palming Alvin’s golden harmonica.

Colin

Human being of the fucking decade. All he needs is a small child to come up to him asking for a penny for the guy – then he kicks them.

Yep

That guy has a prepaid first class ticket on the hell express.

igpajo

This is the kind of person I can sincerely say I hope loses everything in a ponzi scheme.

Tom

It’s funny because not all of Oak Brook is a gated community (only a very sub division), and it’s neighboring towns are relatively poor. So a lot of non-Oak Brook people go to their library because it is so much nicer.

F.Y.I. Most Suburbs of Chicago are part of a greater Chicago library system. So although each town has it’s own library with it’s own funding. You can take out books from other library’s with in the group, which is almost all of them.

normd

I have to thank Mr Xinos for having sparked a highly amusing thread on BoingBoing. Scrooge, Mr. Burns, Old Man Potter – you have been out-grouched.

Crashproof

Wow, and here I thought it was a douchebag move for the local Libertarians to hold their meetings in the tax-funded public library.

Hools Verne

I just can’t believe how many posters seem to believe that rich and/or affluent people are incapable of crimes like arson or vandalism. You know how the well to do kids spent their time in my neighborhood? They got drunk and trashed other people’s houses. Its easy to commit crimes when you have the money and influence to get away with it.

sk8rboi69

Sounds like it’s time for a little street justice. I mean seriously, if this guy was living in the neighbourhood I grew up in, it’d be him in tears and losing sleep in the end. A “KEEP OFF THE LAWN!” sign was an invitation. A jerk trying to mess with the library and enjoying it? That’s a declaration of war.

Gibson

One word: 4chan

Day Vexx

I LOL’d at the part where his house got burnt down, and they ran him back to Berwyn.

querent

i’m with the aging sk8er kid who takes this as a declaration of war. you too can learn to be ninja in 6 short months. gated community…? *degrades into guffaws*

unruly katy

Gated communities are teh suck. Srsly. Mixed-use zoning is where it’s at. Because unless somebody creates a douchebag archipelago where ALL such cretins can be shipped, the thing is to dilute the douchiness. Prolonged exposure to high concentrations of douche are hazardous to the health and welfare of all living creatures.

Snidely Whiplash got nuthin’ on this charmer.

toe to the mas

This guy thinks he’s rich? I’m sure there’s plenty of other families in Oakbrook who are WAY wealthier. I hear his Mercedes is from 2007! Ha!
Also, Oakbrook kids don’t go to the library, they buy all there books at Barnes and Nobel. They should be good.

Anonymous

Xinos means sour in Greek. Make of it what you will.

Snowrunner

It is “funny”, he sort of confirms my observation that people who come out of a “bad” background either:

1. Turn into complete A$$holes, living by the “me me me” meme as if the world owes them for coming from such a background.

2. Realize just how harsh the world is in general and try to make a change.

He clearly belongs to #1.

Maybe someone can lock up that Gated Community and throw the key away.

Anonymous

So rich people don’t use libraries? What rubbish. Also, ‘poor’ people probably don’t have the bus fare to get to a different part of town – and they can always ask their library to get a specific book for them.

Also, I really doubt that the sets of muggers and library users intersect much.

Whoever thinks that libraries aren’t important because people should just buy all their OWN books obviously doesn’t read much!!!!!

bazzargh

It seems Xinos has a history regarding this library:
http://www.state.il.us/court/opinions/appellatecourt/1998/2nddistrict/July/HTML/3970833.txt

In 1998 he got a restraining order preventing this library being built on town-owned land, despite a vote by the townspeople in favour; his argument was that it breached the covenant that gifted the land. The appeals judge quashed the order.

He was also a co-defendant in this property-development case:
http://www.state.il.us/court/opinions/appellatecourt/2001/1stdistrict/june/html/1003758.htm

wherein he – wearing his real estate agent hat – supported further development in breach of a covenant (a reversal of his position in the first case), so that he could subsequently develop land that he owns. He lost this case too.

It sounds like the bruised ego of a property developer.
top geezer

Good grief! He’s going after the library? What a dbag. and the specious logic that it takes away from the police and fire depts is bs. Oak Brook is not exactly a hotbed of crime and arson, or even accidental smoking flameouts. There is no crime in Oak Brook. In fact, it’s where those who sit atop the criminal foodchain reside. Retired Outfit guys live there, white collar corporatist smash & grabbers live there, McDonald’s has its headquarters there. This guy is obviously an over-compensating wingnut, and ought to be disqualified from any serious discussion of village policy. But apparently the rest of the residents – by their silence – tacitly endorse his classist (and classless) views. Easiest recourse for the rest of us? Boycott Mickey Ds. Don’t give Oak Brook any more tax revenue to the support the intellectual dumbdown of a wealthy community that obviously doesn’t deserve a well-read citizenry.
What a dbag.
arikol

Only in america would this guy actually get to affect the community in this way. He could shout all he wanted, but no library would be closed for the whims and dislikes of a asshole like that.

He may feel free to have an opinion, but if he hates company (the poor, kids, seemingly everyone who is not him) this much, he should probably move to an island where he can be left alone with a bunch of money.
Worldwalker

In other words, poor people are taking advantage of services for which they have not paid.

Mr. Gated Community pays no property tax. The town services are funded by taxes on businesses, including the mall he probably doesn’t shop at and the headquarters of McDonald’s, restaurants he probably doesn’t eat at. In other words, Mr. Xinos is the one taking advantage of services for which he has not paid. If a poor kid using that library has ever bought a Big Mac, the kid has probably contributed more to the funding of that library than Mr. Xinos ever will.

This guy is the worst kind of successful man, the kind who wants to prevent other people from achieving the same kind of success so that he feels more elite. He’s like a stock character from a Horatio Alger book, the evil rich man who is about to foreclose on the house owned by the hero’s widowed mother while hiding the secret that he himself was born the son of a cobbler. Andrew Carnegie knew his kind: “There is no class so pitiably wretched as that which possesses money and nothing else.” For those of you who don’t know (hopefully not many on BoingBoing!), Andrew Carnegie was a penniless immigrant who became richer, in today’s dollars, than Bill Gates, and spent his retirement years giving away his fortune … to build libraries.

Oh, and Anonymous-with-the-Attitude: You seem to have a greatly mistaken impression on two points. One is that there is a word called “plagerism” which has something to do with not reporting some facet of an issue that you think is important, and the other is that someone thinks that you are important, and one of the top ten popular blogs in existence will be upset because someone who can’t even be bothered to register for an account threatens to not read it again. Don’t worry, the other 2+ million of us will manage to get along without you somehow.
Ted8305

Which one of the following is not fictional national franchise from “Snow Crash”?

Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong
NovaSicilia
The Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates
Metazania
Connie Xinos’ Douchebagistan
Narcolombia
New South Africa
http://mutualist.blogspot.com Kevin Carson

Um, no, Connie, the real lesson is that if you want something, you use the government to strong-arm people. If you don’t want to live next to something, like a seniors’ home or a library, you use the government to stop other people doing what they want with their own property. You, Connie, are a mooching welfare parasite.
vacant

I don’t want a picture of the library. I want to see pictures of the self-absorbed jackass, his car, and his house. We should also know his address and phone number. In that way, we poor people can avoid him completely. No clerk or waiter should serve him. He should not have his garbage picked up or the gate opened for him.

He needs to learn how to truly be self-sufficient. He isn’t anywhere close to reality.

I have worked for people like this. As Cory wrote above, with this “type” of individual, there is 100% certainty he is cheating on his taxes. I helped a guy like this get a low interest $5 million grant from our county government to expand his business. He got it by threatening to move the business to the next county (pure bluff and not even economically feasible but the county fell for it hook, line, and sinker). Then, at the closing, he cheated the attorney’s out of a huge portion of their fees by pretending to be outraged at their price tag and saying he wasn’t going through with it (another bluff). He knew what their fees were before he went in. They worked very hard for weeks on the deal. He was very proud of what he had done.

The phrase “it’s just business” to the guy I worked for meant he had a blessing to be unethical and immoral. He cheated on his taxes by hundreds of thousands of dollars and then whined about people on food stamps.

Please, somebody post his pic.
- strand
  
  This is what he looks like:
danlalan

Just as you can’t claim to be a white supremacist until you can spell it correctly.

I must disagree. I suspect many people who make the claim are unable to spell anything, correctly or otherwise.
Jay Gatsby

Allnewtoday has a point. If the real context of the article was that Xinos would rather the town’s limited resources be spent on police and fire services rather than the town library, that makes logical sense. A library, despite being a repository of knowledge, is NOT and essential service.

Admittedly, Xinos is also motivated by the fact that he does not want poor people coming into his town. Why do poor people use the library in his town? Because it’s nicer than the libraries in their towns. In other words, poor people are taking advantage of services for which they have not paid. It’s no different than poor people wanting their children to go to public schools in rich areas, even though they don’t live in such areas.

At the end of the day, he isn’t acting any different than people who live in other wealthy communities around the world. They don’t want the poor coming to their communities because the poor generally bring their problems with them. These problems include vandalism, theft, assaults, etc… He may be more vocal than most, but go to any wealthy suburb and you’ll find the same attitude.
ill lich

I don’t know whether this guy is a Libertarian or not, and although I admire certain aspects of Libertarianism, I think they are too rooted in a past that is long gone– you can’t go out to the prairie, build a sod house on free land, and walk around with a side arm anymore, just like you can’t turn YOUR land into a toxic waste landfill, even though you own that land, and in theory you should be able to do with it as you please.

Ironically the more publicly funded things we get rid of the less free we become in certain ways. As others have pointed out most of us personally don’t pave the roads, collect the garbage, arrest the criminals, or put out the fires. A public library, even in today’s internet era, is a valuable resource. The poor aren’t going to better themselves intellectually by reading free local newspapers, and the more educated people become the less likely they are to be a burden on society. Would this guy prefer the third-world option of all the rich living in walled-off compounds for fear of being kidnapped and held for ransom? That’s not “freedom.”
Ambiguity

I used to be against gated communities, until I realized they were voluntary concentration camps for assholes.
Urinal Gum

I hear poor people use the fire and police departments. We’d better get rid of those, too. I’m sure Connie will be fine when the poor people come to burn his house down.

/poor people help the rest of us: http://www.urinalgum.com/?p=157
dhalgren

Homeowners associations…true monsters.

Surprising to read lots of negative comments about ‘poor people’ here on BB. Are you seriously trying to propose the old tired adage that because people are poor they are more prone to criminal conduct than to people who are ‘not poor’. Give me a break. We are all human beings, for the most part at least, and we all have the same desires, needs, etc. So trying to pass off some nonsense that poor people equates to lower moral character and acts of criminality over the superiority of more well off even rich people makes me sick.

The only difference between poor people and rich people in my experience is that if you have money it’s easier to get out of bad situations with a few extra bucks in your pocket over the person who has less money and who cannot afford the same type of help that the rich person has available to him.

The screams coming expensive homes aren’t heard as much – thicker walls and better insulation.

Seriously am I on BB?
- HarveyBoing
  
  Surprising to read lots of negative comments about ‘poor people’ here on BB. Are you seriously trying to propose the old tired adage that because people are poor they are more prone to criminal conduct than to people who are ‘not poor’. [...]
  
  The only difference between poor people and rich people in my experience is that if you have money it’s easier to get out of bad situations with a few extra bucks in your pocket over the person who has less money and who cannot afford the same type of help that the rich person has available to him.
  
  I think you are reading too much into the comments, and overstating their prevalence.
  
  Do people with money break laws? Sure. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they break more laws than poor people do.
  
  But I’d also guess that they break different laws, for the most part. The kinds of crimes that panic rich people tend to be violent or property crimes, while rich people who break laws are generally doing things like embezzlement, fraud, etc. There’s a lot more to the “difference between poor people and rich people” than how much money they can pay a defense lawyer. There are fundamental differences in motivations and types of behavior, driven in large part by what opportunities exist or not in the life experience of each.
  
  While I don’t agree with the logic involved (and frankly, I don’t see any indication anyone else here does either), it’s not hard to see how a rich person might mistakenly take the position that certain kinds of public services or projects could attract poor people to their neighborhood, and that doing so in some way increases the rich person’s exposure to certain kinds of crime.
  
  In other words, the BB comments you are criticizing aren’t expressing the views of the commenter their self, but rather that commenter’s observation of the behavior of some subset of the population of rich people.
  - Anonymous
    
    Embezzlement isn’t a property crime? Good to know.
    
    Seriously, the definition of ‘crime’ to a rich man is someone eating out of their garbage. They may not want it, but they would hate to save someone else’s life!
    
    That’s the real function of a gated community.
Anonymous

The guy is being an impossible douche.

I don’t know what the demos of the surrounding areas are, but he may have a point about the poor bringing their problems with them.

Check the bussing scandals for that. -Even recent ones.

Relatively smooth demo gradients, town-by-town, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, region-by-region are normal. I feel that Liberal interventionism and Project-ism don’t seem to help people much.

Foreign aid stats seem to support that idea, too. ie: The 3rd world is still broke.

The actual transmission rate may be less than he thinks, though. As, I’ve never met many troublemakers who hung out in Libraries.

And as far as taxpaying is concerned, wake up.
The middle class pay almost all the taxes. The poor have no money for them, and the rich exempt themselves out with careful dodgery.

+1 Internets to the guys who sussed Xinos is a self-loather over poverty + kids.

I also agree that short of a miracle, people richer than him helped him on his way up. If they’d taken Xinos’ attitude, he’d still be in the ghetto.
Anonymous

If he doesn’t like being “next to” poor people, then why is he living in Oak Brook?
Anonymous

I’m surprized that this f#@*king ego-maniac can talk while looking down his nose at people at the same time. He makes me want to move in next door to him and put a portable basketball hoop in my driveway and fill my front lawn with pink flamingos and little elves and a fountain statue of a kid pissing on his lawn.
jjasper

He’s an attorney, and Republican. And a real estate agent. If the poor kids want to get back at him, they can find out the properties he’s listing, take out ads explaining what an ass he is, and target would be buyers.

Hit him in the place where his heart should be.
- Christovir
  
  He’s an attorney, and Republican. And a real estate agent.
  
  Please let him be a dentist too!
khartley

Why trash this guy? Seriously. He has an opinion and whether misguided or not, he is entitled to it. He is also entitled to lobby hard against whatever he wants. JUST LIKE- the poor and disenfranchised should lobby against his library hatred and rally support for their side.

I dunno, I can disagree with someone without needing to get all hurt feelings and morally outraged. Guess I have thick skin.

How many of you who name call and villify actually thought of supporting the library in question? I sure as hell didn’t- as I just don’t care that much. If it were MY library I would debate his ass into the ground and support my side, but alas- it ain’t my backyard’s library.
- Gloria
  
  “Why trash this guy? Seriously. He has an opinion and whether misguided or not, he is entitled to it. He is also entitled to lobby hard against whatever he wants. JUST LIKE- the poor and disenfranchised should lobby against his library hatred and rally support for their side.”
  
  Mm. Also just like all the people here who are entitled to call him out for his outrageous behaviour.
  
  We can do this all day, hon.
adamnvillani

Your ribmunching Kucinich fans were not being hypocrites.

Whoa, I’m not saying they were. I’m just saying it was funny.

FWIW, I too supported Al Gore in 2000 despite my being anti-capital punishment. I learned long ago that I’d never find a political candidate who matched my views 100% unless I ran myself, and since I don’t plan on doing that, I came to peace with the idea that every vote is a compromise.
reznicek111

“What, they have no libraries? Let them read Kindles!”
- AnoniMouse
  
  +1 internets for you.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  Rez +10
TEKNA2007

Xinos sounds like the Ben Kingsley character from “Sexy Beast”. I wonder if he got to be pres of the Homeowners Association by gut-punching anyone who disagreed with him.
cory

“They have to pay for it” – they do, douchebag, it’s called taxes.

Speaking of which, check this guy’s taxes. I guarantee you – 100% certainty -
he is cheating on them, and not in a small way.
Mitch

How hard would it be to mod a potato gun into an egg mortar, and where is Connie’s house?
zikzak

This guy has to be an infiltrator, right? His behavior reminds me of the Yes Men, posing as wealthy powerful officials and representing the officials’ unethical positions in an exaggerated and outrageous way.

There are probably many rich people in the neighborhood who also wish they could shut down public facilities and exclude poor people from their community. But now that Xinos has represented their position in such an obviously vile way, they can’t possibly voice support for such measures.

Thanks, Xinos!
mgfarrelly

As a librarian, I can, with a very small amount of digging, tell you just how much of your taxes go to pay for the library. In most municipalities it’s about on par with what animal control or the auto insurance for city vehicles. Often it’s subsidized by the state, an even tinier percentage of your taxes, as well as grants and donations. Fines make up almost nothing and often the efforts (miniscule as they are) to collect on overdue materials eat up any “profit” they might yield. The idea is to get the materials back.

The return on investment from libraries is almost ridiculous. That beats Wall Street, even during the boom years.

Many, if not most, librarians have Masters degrees (MLS: Masters in Library Science or MLIS: Masters in Library and Information Science) and are not paid at a level that is requisite with that education. There are librarian positions, not entry level, that start at under 27,000 a year. That’s less than 1/3 of what the degree cost. Table wipers and book shelvers, we ain’t. But we love what we do, which is nothing short of fighting for intellectual freedom, easy access to information and general public do-goodery.

I’m heartened by all the mockery of this jerk. For all his money he’s a very poor human being.
Snig

This guy is inspiring all the town’s children to grow up loving books and voting for Democrats. He’s probably the guy who turns his lights off and ignores the kids on Halloween.
Sleeper

Sometimes I wish I was a judge. I would make rich assholes like this guy s**t bricks as I dismissed their arrogance with with a single tap of the gavel.

(I know, I know, it could never happen. But a man can dream…)
Coherent

Wow… it’s not often you meet a genuine monster, someone who is so wedded to themselves, so selfish and unempathic that you can easily visualize them as an undiagnosed serial killer.
Anonymous

I say we fine the cr4p out of him – to the point of being destitute – and then make him move.
Anonymous

He may have risen above the ghetto, but judging by his language it doesn’t seem that the ghetto left him. A trip to the library would probably benefit this guy.

Maybe they should replace the library with a strip joitn to better reflect the prevailing manners and classiness of the homeowner’s association…
Chris

Ladies and Gentlemen, that was Constantine “th cnt” Xinos, proving incontrovertibly that money can’t buy class, and that the making of self-made men ruins them as people.

Thankfully he doesn’t seem to have bred. Probably too busy kicking puppies.
jlongstreet

Oak Brook, just in case you were wondering, is where the headquarters of McDonalds are located. That combined with the high-class mall (the “budget” store is Marshall Field’s) means that Oak Brook has no property tax. There’s also a minimum square-foot requirement, to keep out poors.

I grew up in the next town over. Now that D’s Diggity Dogs is gone, Oak Brook has nothing of value, and would serve the world better if it were burned down.
Anonymous

Xinosphobia is born. Xinosphobia the hatred of self hating hate radiating â€¦â€¦Please elaborate. CC idea license. Not plagiarizable.
Anonymous

Ok, as a public library worker at library in an upper income area, I have to make a comment about poor people, libraries, and crime.

Thieves and criminals know no class boundaries. People do not stop committing crimes just because their income goes above the poverty line.

Some of the biggest d’bags and troublemakers that I have encountered in our library are…gasp! Not from the poor sections of town! They are from the upper income areas! And these are not people just being annoying in the library. These are people we have to call the police out to escort them off the property (often in handcuffs). These are rich people caught stealing books, defacing books that they have a personal objection to, throwing books and objects at the library staff because they aren’t getting their free service fast enough, or think that the library is a free babysitting service and then drop their toddlers off at the library completely unattended in a building full of strangers! (And if they do that stuff in public…wow, I can only imagine how they treat their friends, relatives, and neighbors in their communities).

So the idea of “let’s get rid of the public library because it attracts poor people and crime” is just absurd.
Anonymous

Libraries are a socialist plot anyway. If you want to read books, you should get a job, make some money, and buy the books you want.

If Libraries didn’t exist, and someone tried to invent them today, they would be crushed into oblivion by the publishing industry. (“WHAT?! You want us to let people use our stuff for FREE!?”) Doubt it? See music and movie industry for proof…
bazzargh

Gatsby,

he doesn’t want the poor coming because they bring vandalism, theft and assault? Yes, that would be why he opposed the construction of assisted housing for senior citizens in 2002 (and ever since – this one’s still stuck in the courts):
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1427828/0-Fence-Post-News-Letter.html

Because before you know it, those grannies would hirple across Route 83, climb the fence of his community, and release their smelly cats.

Truly this guy is an example to us all, of how not to be.
adamnvillani

In other words, poor people are taking advantage of services for which they have not paid.

Actually, since this town fills its coffers through a sales tax instead of a property tax, this argument is even less valid than it usually is. Anybody who shops in Oak Brook pays for it, and it doesn’t matter where they live.

Wow, and here I thought it was a douchebag move for the local Libertarians to hold their meetings in the tax-funded public library.

I was once at a Tony Roma’s (chain rib restaurant) and noticed that the local Dennis Kucinich for President campaign was having their meeting there. Kucinich is a vegan.
Anonymous

Eat the Rich. Feed the Poor. But really, why isn’t this guy more afraid for his life?
Satyen

Who the hell does this guy think he is? Eric Cartman?
Jay Gatsby

I never said Xinos was right, but rather tried to articulate his arguments a bit more coherently. Poor people should be able to go into rich areas and use the resources that are funded from the general treasury. This is one way that children from a poor background can pull themselves out of poverty. I wouldn’t doubt that a wealthy person gave Xinos a chance, which led him to become wealthy himself.

However, it is undeniable that poor people do bring higher crime into previously low-crime areas. This is why many wealthy communities oppose low-income housing, or even city bus lines going through their neighborhoods. Unfortunately, you can’t separate the well-behaved poor people from the not-well-behaved poor people. Therefore, the safest thing to do (in the minds of people like Xinos) is to exclude ALL poor people. How do you do that? By taking away the public services that draw them.
- IronEdithKidd
  
  As a former poor person, I take great offense at your blanket generalization. It never once crossed my mind to commit any of the litany of crimes you list while I was poor. You have a prejudice and it’s showing in your comments.
  
  Lack of money in the pockets of one’s parents does not magically produce criminals in the next generation. I grew up with many poor people who never considered committing the kinds of crimes you are ascribing to the poor. However, it was our experience that many of the “rich” kids we grew up along side did commit many of those crimes. You know, for shits and giggles.
- Chris the Tiki guy
  
  Even further articulated, “Wharrgarbl!” is still “Wharrgarbl!”
- Anonymous
  
  You may have the most appropriately self-deprecating handle ever!
  
  Riddle us this: if poor people entering a rich neighborhood bring crime, praytell how this happens? With armed guards surrounding inflated property values, how does the riffraff even get in?
  
  By the same token: Why is there a library at all in such a community?
  
  I hope the poor minimum-wage two-jobs gatewatcher never takes a bathroom break or falls asleep, lest the rich man be delayed a few seconds in getting his police or fire services!
  
  Truth: This formerly-poor rich man knows the lengths he himself would (did?) go to in order to get where he is today, and naturally expects the same of others — hence his desire to avoid them/himself.
  
  The class war is a legitimate fear nowadays — America historically avoided it by mitigating the difference between the classes, at least superficially.
  - RobD
    
    I have to agree on two points:
    1. Truth: This formerly-poor rich man knows the lengths he himself would (did?) go to in order to get where he is today, and naturally expects the same of others — hence his desire to avoid them/himself.
    
    Been there, done that. On this ( and this alone) he MAY have a point. Albeit poor kids who read are less likely to steal. My own case is not a good example.
    
    2. The class war is becoming an increasingly real fear. Let us all pray that true class warfare never eventuates in any of our countries. The way to avoid this is, of course, to reduce the class difference.
    Ayn Rand rotates in the grave. I treasure the irony of the fact that the libertarians’ most famous mouthpiece is, at final analysis, a speaker for feudalism.
    (I’m not Trolling. If you can legitimately defend Libertarianism without decending to “those who disagree with me are either viscous or stupid” please do. Preferably via PM.)
    (the irony of that last is not lost on me either: such are the evils of drink)
    (WTF is astroturf or copypasta? Ignorance is not bliss BTW love “disemvoweled”; a beautiful pun.)
funkadelic73

If Fred Phelps wasn’t a religious man, this is what he would be.
Anonymous

Is this article Satire? Or is this a real article?
This character who hates poor people seems a bit too evil to be real.
arkizzle / Moderator

Remmelt & Chris,

There are only 3 words you definitely cannot type on BoingBoing.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/01/boing-boing-moderati.html
Abby Nonmouse

But phag is one of my favorite words!