printSo wrote Joseph Stack, the pilot of a Piper Cherokee plane, before he crashed into an office building in Austin, Texas, that housed IRS offices.
What transpires when a government says to a desperate citizen, vaguely conscious of his natural rights, “Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide”?
What transpires when times get particularly tough. And they just take and take and take what’s not theirs to take. So Joseph Stack said, “Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different …”
However you slice it, there is no moral difference between a lone burglar who steals stuff he doesn’t own and an “organized society” that does the same. In a just society, the moral rules that apply to the individual must also apply to the collective. A society founded on natural rights must not finesse theft.
The founders intended for government to safeguard the natural rights of Americans. The 16th Amendment gave government a limitless lien on their property and, by extension, on their lives. Joseph Stack took his, in the hope of taking out some of them.
More here.
Update: Repetition is a theme on this blog. So I will cut-and-paste my last reply to the exact same moral equivalence the provocative, if repetitive, Myron has already advanced. How about coming at me with a new angle? I’m being made to go around in circles. Here goes from our last debate about anti-state violence:
MORAL/INTELLECTUAL EQUIVALENCE. Conflating the causes for which McVeigh, for example, committed his cruel crime against agents and family of an oppressive government with the causes of the “Unabomber, Hitler, Stalin,” is akin to conflating MY causes with those of Myron’s taxonomy of the evil, again the “Unabomber, Hitler, Stalin.”
What sort of moral relativism is this? What kind of messy thinking is this? The causes and theories of the Unabomber, Hitler, Stalin were wrong on their logic and facts; McVeigh’s causes and motivation, if not his deeds, were right. What’s so hard about that?
Stack is justified in his anger against the shakedown agency and its agents who partake in pillaging their countrymen. He’s wrong to try and kill them. I feel so lame saying this, but it’s the safe thing to say. Incidentally, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC was more sympathetic than Fox’s statists on steroids.
One might view the government/tax issue as a choice between (a) NO government and hence NO taxes, (b) LIMITED government – such as in the Declaration – to prevent person A from harming person B – and thus small taxes, (c) UNLIMITED government where government does anything that is convenient for the “public good” as defined by our “leaders” – and, hence, taxing/borrowing/printing whatever it takes to fund.
Limited government, funded by some small excise taxes and a revenue tariff, worked rather well for 80 years in the US – and, to a lesser degree, for another 50 after the Civil War.
It is the unbounded government, which spends over 30% of our economy that requires the arcane and insane tax system. Still, as with Islamobombers, Unabombers, jilted boyfriends, abortionist bombers, etc. – I don’t take the screeds of every violent suicidal/homicidal hothead as serious philosophical discourse. Emptying an AK-47 into a McDonalds does not elevate someone into the next Baruch Spinoza.
I don’t condone Mr. Stack’s last act, but I certainly understand it. If nothing else, it is a sign that the predatory state is nearing the limits of its ability to plunder the productive.
I’ve see Casper Milquetoast characters who, when cornered with no recourse, come out swinging. The government is the original 300 lb bully. Why? Just because they can be. Mr. Stack came out swinging. The only reaction of the government will be to shake their heads and lament the amount of money he cost them.
Though no one ever seems to pay attention, I’m always explaining that our government does not require revenue because it has issued a fiat currency since 1971. When Uncle Sugar wants to buy something, he simply writes a check. Uncle makes no attempt to balance his checkbook, and nobody dares to tell Uncle that he’s been overdrawn since 1965.
The income tax is merely an Orwellian assertion of power. Uncle enjoys using it to jerk us around, but doesn’t really need it. Our fiat currency enables Uncle Sugar to redistribute the nation’s wealth in any manner he sees fit.
Therefore, even if Joe Stack had been able to annihilate the entire IRS, it would have made no difference. I can’t say whether Stack was mentally ill, but even otherwise quite intelligent people mistakenly believe that the government requires tax revenue to operate. Futility is what makes the event tragic.
I too can understand his frustration, the deck was loaded against him. He only touched on the IRS, missing the facts that Federal interference in the market caused the financial downturns, contributed to his failures; however, the people in the IRS are only working stiffs. He was 1563 miles to the south-west from where it would have had any effect, not that violence solves anything; but, Washington can take hits in Austin and Oklahoma City anytime.
Just coincidentally, this NYT story might document some of Joe Stack’s complaints.
Mr. Stack was apparently at the end of his rope. In his extreme frustration, he became blind and deaf to any other reasonable action. As typical with extremists, they focus on the easy representative target, choosing to make a statement, instead of targeting the source of their anger. They focus on agent instead of the agency, the employ instead of the employer, the American tourist instead of America. The top is always insulated by the bottom, which are usually determined to be expendable. Just an observation, but Mr. Stack may have missed his target by roughly 2000 miles.
Robert’s point, “…however, the people in the IRS are only working stiffs” is an understandable reaction, but it unintentionally glosses over an important point. The only way tyranny can ever work is when “working stiffs” provide its operating power.
In <i< The Gulag Archipelago<i/) Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote, "At what exact point, then, should one resist the communists? How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? Or, if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand… the Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers… and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt."
In the end, dictatorship depends upon "the tyranny of the clerks."
No thanks Frank, I’m not going to get into a gnat fight with you again. If you think that every government employee is your enemy, be my guest. Being a retired state employee, I have no obligation to continue my reign of tyranny.
Robert Glisson wrote, “No thanks Frank, I’m not going to get into a gnat fight with you again.”
Mea culpa, Robert. No attack was intended. I believe that Solzhenitsyn’s point is important. And I don’t believe “every government employee is my enemy”–only those that enable tyrannical behavior.
Frank
Once again Ilana, you got it exactly right. Stack was pushed into a corner, and he did what anyone would do. He just did it in a helluva spectacular way. A man, (or woman), can only be pushed so far, until something snaps. When it does, anything can happen. A lot of people blow their brains out, some run away like cowards, and some push back, like Mr. Stack. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like killing, unless you’re defending your life or those of your family. If he could have taken out the IRS without loss of life, I’m sure he would have. He didn’t feel that choice was available to him,and he was willing to give his life to both say his piece, and to illustrate the corrupt system that is our present government. I wish it didn’t have to come to that. But this might be the opening act of a much larger saga.
My mortgage payment (including principal, interest, local taxes and insurance) is 22% of my gross income. This is my largest yearly expense save one. Do I need to say it? The Federal government takes 36% of my paycheck before I even see it. I am angry about that! And Stack was right…the IRS waged war and targeted independent contractors. That stinks!
I FINALLY read Stack’s poignant statement – too bad his wife didn’t [put] him out of his airborne Gotterdammerung. [Come again?]
Here’s Bush’s “conservative” speechwriter’s counterrant:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/…/AR2010021803414.html
” .. the worst elements of the Tea Party movement — birthers and Birchers, militias and nativists, racists and conspiracy theorists, acolytes of Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Lyndon LaRouche. But the birthers and Birchers, militias and nativists, racists and conspiracy theorists do exist.. They watch Glenn Beck rail against the omnipresent threat of Saul Alinsky, read Ayn Rand’s elevation of egotism and contempt for the weak, listen to Ron Paul attacking the Federal Reserve cabal, and suddenly their resentments become .. psychedelic departures from reality. Eventually, these theories require repudiation .. what William F. Buckley did in the 1950s and ’60s, repudiating Rand and Robert Welch of the John Birch Society, thereby creating a legitimate conservatism .. Those who take the revolutionary metaphor too literally are not engaged in politics, they are engaged in sedition .. The Federal Reserve, by the way, just helped to prevent a depression by increasing the money supply. It deserves a little thanks. Immigrants .. are a source of values and vitality. And .. a source of future Republican votes”
Thanks for the link, Mryon (“Here’s Bush’s “conservative” speechwriter’s counterrant:) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/…/AR2010021803414.html“)
Unfortunately, it appears to be “dead” (or more likely, it’s been moved). Which bootlicker wrote this diatribe?
Unfortunately, it appears to be “dead” (or more likely, it’s been moved). Which bootlicker wrote this pathetic diatribe?
[I can’t access any of Myron’s links. It’s not the first time. Please try and capture hyperlinks accurately so that they can be opened.]
Myron submits the rant of a very deranged individual in the 4:21 post:”acolytes of Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Lyndon LaRouche.” “… suddenly their resentments become .. psychedelic departures from reality.” Did this guy skip his meds? After all these years, I finally understand why we invaded Iraq, blew the economy, it was sound Republican policy.
If you GOOGLE the following:
Michael Gerson A Primer on Political Reality
you will get the raving idiocies of Dubya’s “Axis of Evil” Speechwriter.
Interesting thing is – one guy writes this complete “mainstream” paranoia and advocates invading / “liberating” countries which result in hundreds of thousands dead, political destabilization, trillions of dollars wasted, and millions uprooted from their homes. He is considered “mainstream” and “normal”.
The other guy, Stack, is upset at the stress and bull…. of a world where his savings gets poofed, his jobs disappear, and there is corrupt bailouts. That opinion is considered “extreme” and “lunatic”. Admittedly, flying into the building was off-scale.
{Gotterdammerung from Wiki and Wagner: “Any cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event “}
Solzhenitsyn was exactly right. Ayn Rand once opined that the last, best hope for America might be the attitude summed up by the phrase “Don’t push me around”.
When you’re in the business of destroying people’s lives, there will always be an element of risk. If you remove all hope for the future from the wrong man, and he happens to be intelligent, it’s impossible to predict what the outcome might be.
I’ll state here that I don’t advocate suicide bombing with planes before I note the following: The statists at Fox, and particularly the intellectual lightweight Beck, misinterpreted the inclusion of the communist and ‘capitalists’ creed in the pilot’s rant. Those were included in protest of them, not in favor of them. It was crony capitalism and communism that he believed stacked the deck against him. I don’t know how anything could be clearer, after reading what preceded it.
When linking to online newspaper articles, I recommend using a so the links won’t go out of date.
Yes, it looks like Gerson is a pretty typical “invade-the-world invite-the-world” neocon. Not much to add, except that I had to sneer at his lumping in LaRouche with Paul and Tancredo. As a “former” Trotskyite, LaRouche is incomparably closer to Gerson’s people than to Paul and Tancredo.