Was the Austin terrorist John Stack a right wing loon?
Sure - because as we all know, liberals love to pay taxes and never get mad at the IRS.
Don’t believe me? Here’s Paul Begala wanting to make April 15 “Patriot’s Day:”
Happy Patriots’ Day. April 15 is the one day a year when our country asks something of us — or at least the vast majority of us.
[...]
This country has showered me with the blessings of liberty. So what do I owe my country in return? Paying my fair share of taxes, it seems, is the least I can do. Thanks to President Obama and the Democratic Congress, 95 percent of Americans will get a tax cut this year. No one — not even the wealthiest 1 percent — will have to pay higher income taxes until 2011.
But no one kisses the ass of our IRS overlords with more nauseating obeisance than Matt Stoller:
I just paid my taxes, and I have to say, I always take pride when I do so. I don’t like having less money to spend, of course, and the complexity of the process is really upsetting. But I am proud to pay for democracy, and I feel when I do send money to the DC Treasurer and the US Treasury that that is what I am doing. The right-wing likes to pretend as if taxes are a burden instead of the price of democracy. And I suppose, if you hate democracy, as the right-wing does, then taxes are the price for paying for something you really don’t want. Personally, I find banking fees, high cable and internet charges, health care costs, and credit card hidden charges much more abrasive than taxes, because with those I’m just being ripped off to pay for someone’s summer home.
To which I responded:
When liberals like Stoller make noises of satisfaction like an infant who has just soiled their diaper just because they obeyed the law one wonders what lefties like our Matt do when they come to a complete stop at a stop sign. The celebrations must go on far into the night.
Obviously, liberals love it when they are racked and stretched by the IRS - even for honest, piddly-sh*t transgressions. They get off on a government agency that can make your life miserable - and, as Mr. Stack suggests - unlivable once caught up in the maw of IRS enforcement procedures. The trauma and torture wears one down, as forcefully and unrelentingly as tectonic plates grinding against each other.
Here’s Amanda Marcotte who suggests that Mr. Stack was indeed a left winger but that he was trying to goose right wing nuts into picking up on his IRS jihad:
Stack’s beef with the IRS seems to have developed from personal problems stemming from possible tax evasion on his part. But it appears to have turned into a full-blown ideological stance, and again, it’s clear that he hopes others who share his ideological stance—and believe me, there are a lot of crazy right wing nuts in the area who do, and I have no doubt Stack was aware of this—will act on his wishes. This is what I mean by a mish-mash. Most of his ranting seems very left wing, but if you’re living in central Texas and you do something like this, you’re sending a signal to right wing nuts, and you know it.
“Most of his ranting seems very left wing…” but ignore that, pay it no mind. It disturbs the narrative that this fellow was a tea party type.
What was that “left wing rant?”
And while they appear to make it look like it’s all about anti-government and anti-IRS, they fail to mention his anti-Catholicism, anti-Bushism, anti-capitalism and pro-communism.
I guess it doesn’t fit the preferred narrative
No, it doesn’t. But when has that ever stopped anyone on the left from jumping to conclusions? Recall that suicide of the federal worker in Kentucky that the left flayed conservatives over before it was discovered he took his own life and wasn’t murdered by “anti-government extremists.” Or Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s “PTSD transference” where he heard so many bad things about Iraq coming from his patients that he snapped. I wrote here about both right and left jumping to conclusions about Hasan but in the case of the Austin terrorist, there is a clear, and laughably ignorant attempt by many on the left to tie Mr. Stack to tea partyers.
Why can’t a nutcase just be a nutcase? Why does he have to be “motivated” by political views at all? I’m not a mental health professional, but I’ve read enough to know that trying to glean intent from a diseased mind is a ludicrous sport for amateurs. The reason someone commits suicide in the first place is that the natural, healthy, normally functioning mind breaks and the primal urge of self preservation is either short circuited or is prevented from working properly. This does not happen in minds that are in love with logic or reason.
The left is ascribing a rational thought process to an irrational man. If it weren’t so stupidly obvious that there’s is a political attack rather than a serious attempt to reach a conclusion based on observation, investigation, and a familiarity with how mental disease can lead to suicide, we might excuse liberals for simply being dumb. But tis the season for idiotic political bloviating so we’re stuck with nonsense like this:
Joseph Stack was angry at the Internal Revenue Service, and he took his rage out on it by slamming his single-engine plane into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas. We now know this thanks to the rather clear (as rants go) suicide note Stack left behind. There’s no information yet on whether he was involved in any anti-government groups or whether he was a lone wolf. But after reading his 34-paragraph screed, I am struck by how his alienation is similar to that we’re hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.
I was not struck by that at all. What struck me was this guy’s lack of a clear ideology - something that some of the less reason challenged liberals recognized and, to their credit, are writing about.
5. He was mad at the IRS, and left what CNN reports was a suicide note on a local website, detailing his trials with the agency. In fact, a lot of his rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a tea party rally.
The question of whether this guy was a terrorist is a no brainer; of course he was. Maybe the FBI and Homeland Security refuse to call incidents like this “terrorism” because of the increased paperwork involved in reporting it that way. Otherwise, the only explanation that makes sense is they don’t want to make a big deal out of the incident.
But in this case, we have a terrorist without portfolio. His motivation, given the building housed a regional IRS office, seemed to have been revenge more than anything. His ranting about wanting to inspire people is just that - the mouthings of a madman who wanted to give his death a twisted kind of meaning. It’s not logical or rational. It is delusional.
Maybe some day both sides will realize that the only people they are fooling with their politicization of the insane are themselves.
12:13 pm
I not sure of the definition anymore. I would be more inclined to call him a homicidal maniac, since he does not seem to be affiliated with any organization with similar philosophies, and because his suicide seems to be intent to kill for revenge.
12:48 pm
Rick said:
Yeah, or because he isn’t brown.
1:08 pm
The FBI and Homeland Security also didn’t call Hasan a terrorist either. Somewhere I think I heard he you know …might have been brown.
I have been debating this elsewhere but it just isn’t terrorism. I happen to agree with the FBI, Homeland Security and DoD.
“premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience.”
He had 2/3 but it’s that part of a group or an agent that he for sure wasn’t and neither was Hasan.
1:26 pm
Bubbaquimby said:
Thank you. That’s certainly a relief to find out. Apparently, I was way off.
1:43 pm
I am guessing that’s sarcasm.
And so if he was a terrorist, what does that mean? Does it mean we start looking for people who are pissed at the IRS? That seems like a pretty long list.
At least with the failed Christmas bombings we can do work on where he was trained, who trained him, are there anymore like him, etc.
I guess in the blogosphere (right and left) I am in the minority. I just don’t believe in lone-wolf terrorism. It’s just lunatics with a vendetta with no overreaching sinister plot or group trying to do something. Just cause they have a plane or a bomb doesn’t make them different than a crazy with a gun going after his co-workers.
1:45 pm
Look, this guy is simply a literate whackjob that chose the IRS as a target. It could just have easily been DNC headquarters in Austin. (yes it exists).
The one thing I can say is Stack seemed to have a sense of “entitlement” based either on education, hard work, or a general sense of superiority. His apparent economic failures seem to be a matter of projecting his own failures on others; Government, Business, The Catholic Church or a bunch of smugly superior Austinians.
Most, in my 65 years of life, who have such a sense of entitlement do seem to reside generally on the political left. Amy Bishop in Huntville?
I’m a fiscally conservative libertarian who lives 10 miles from the crash site.
2:01 pm
Awww River Rat, thanks. That was perfectly said. And spot on.
And no, this was not an act of terrorism. Terrorism is designed by foes to terrorize a population. Do you remember on 9/11. The confusion? The news reports of possible targets, planes still in the air not responding, not knowing. Jihadi’s use terrorism to bring fear and uncertainty. You never know how or when they’ll hit and they all fight for the same reasons.
This guy was a homicidal pseudo victim in his own mind bent on revenge. Nothing more.
3:40 pm
Jenn of the Jungle said:
Then I read your blog article:
“Liberal Terrorist Joe Stacks Attacks IRS In Austin”
Please explain how your brain works.
6:48 pm
Chuck, now you’re just being mean. She’s new here — she didn’t know she couldn’t just spout random bullsh!t and not get called on it around here.
Its okay Jenn. I mean sure, we’re all laughing at you for being a mindless partisan hack, but at least you try to keep the nonsense on your own site, so kudos for that. Plus you get a bonus point for taking your blog tagline from Duke Nukem, so you’re certainly doing better than most others around here.
6:57 pm
Here’s a simple, but often overlooked point:
Pay your taxes.
Pay ALL your taxes.
Pay ALL your taxes ON TIME.
You won’t have problems with the IRS.
I work in several states every year, for 2009, I just filed a Federal Tax Return, a California Tax Return, Georgia Tax Return, Louisiana Tax Return, an Iowa Tax Return, and a Pennsylvania Tax Return.
In the past 10 years, I’ve never filed less than two state returns in addition to my federal form. I make a good living, so no complaints. But I learned at an early age “Dont’ fuck with the IRS.”
Why some people choose to go to war with this particular agency, when they’re obviously wrong in their tax returns, is baffling to me.
2:28 am
I am from the Austin area, this guy (Stack) went to the UU church I was in till last month. He is a far left wing dude. Much like the other folks in that church. I was very slightly aquainted with stack, He was off the left end.
8:24 am
Stack was a nut job…pure and simple. Attempting to portray him otherwise is foolish and ultimately a waste of time. On the subject of taxes, I do remember a time in this country when the vast majority believed you owed something for being an American…whether it was paying taxes, going off to war…you owed your country and your fellow Americans. As I have grown older, that notion seems to have disappeared. I remember after 9/11 seeing 2 bumper stickers side by side. One was a “taxes are too high” message, and the other simply read “Freedom Ain’t Free”…I wonder if the driver ever saw the irony? DEE
9:20 am
Obviously left-wing extremists are the greatest terror threat to this nation after their fellow travelers among the Islamists. After the Obama fanatic gunned down fellow professors in Huntsville and after this guy, I imagine Homeland Securitu will start to monitor the DailyKos and Jackson-Jefferson banquets. That’s what DHS does, right? I vaguely recall some sort of crackdown on conservative groups after this idiot asshole became president.
9:41 am
Nice, Rick.
You delete my comment, which attacks no one and states that if you pay your taxes you wont’ have IRS problems, yet you allow a post that calls our President an “idiot asshole”.
And you complain about honest, civilized discourse disappearing.
Nice.
Gee - maybe if you had a larger vocabulary and didn’t use the word “fuck” in your comment, my spam filter wouldn’t have captured it. I usually don’t even bother to look at my spam so you’re lucky this time.
Now - don’t you feel like even more of an asshole than normal?
ed.
1:09 pm
Actually, no. The spam filter caught it after it appeared as a comment? Interesting. It was up for over half a day before it disappeared
I’m telling you it was in the spam filter. You said I deleted it. You were wrong and criticized me for something that wasn’t true.
Most would simply apologize and move on. You obviously don’t have the wits, or the emotional maturity to do that - not to mention the vocabulary of a sophomore in high school.
ed.
8:08 am
Why not look at the average persons frustrations with all things goverment. You cannot address your grivences in a court(gov.)is ALLWAYS right and you are allways wrong,you cannot use the courts to address Gov. wrong doing. You either seath with pent up anger or you take one of the few courses left open to you to pubically voice your displeasure.
When you have people running our Goverment like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,who tell you stick it where the sun dont shine,WE tell you what is good for you and youd better accept it,I wonder why incidents like this dont happen daily.
Its easy to label a person a nut or terrorist but no one wants to set down and reason as to why this man did this?
Condone it? Hell no! Understant this persons frustration with our Goverment,hell yes!