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Taxes and Terror
brucelewis.com ^ | 2010.02.18 | B-Chan

Posted on 02/18/2010 3:58:21 PM PST by B-Chan

A disgruntled private pilot flew his airplane into an Austin IRS office this morning. His farewell rant, which I won't link here, explains that he did it out of hatred of the rich, the politicians, the rich politicians, and most of all the IRS.

This man, whose name was John Stack, was not a Muslim. Neither was he a Christian (he rails against the Catholic Church in his parting note), a Republican (he singles out George W. Bush by name as a bad guy), or a member of the Tea Party.

So what was he? Simple: he was a terrorist.

Terrorism is the use of violence as a form of political protest. It is immoral, even when the protest is based upon legitimate grounds. When confronting an unjust law, a moral person is obligated to protest non-violently, ultimately by refusing to obey the law and by peacefully submitting himself or herself to the consequences of disobedience.

For the record: I acknowledge that the current tax system is unjust, but I categorically reject the use of violence to protest the system.

A person who feels they are being unjustly taxed has a moral option: he or she may refuse to pay, and take their lumps like a hero. John Stack didn't have the guts or the brains to choose this option. Instead, he chose to kill himself and seriously injure several other people. And by so doing, he proved himself in the end to be nothing more than a loser, a failure — and a terrorist.


TOPICS: Government; Local News; Politics; Society
KEYWORDS: austin; stack; tax; terrorist
May God bless his victims.
1 posted on 02/18/2010 3:58:21 PM PST by B-Chan
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To: B-Chan

According to the reports I’ve seen, Stack only succeeded in killing himself. Hopefully none of the injuries sustained by those folks in the building are life-threatening.


2 posted on 02/18/2010 4:00:40 PM PST by ZirconEncrustedTweezers (Progressive rock - GOOD. Progressive politics - BAD.)
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To: ZirconEncrustedTweezers

Let’s hope so.

His name was Joseph Stack, by the way. I screwed up when I retyped this.


3 posted on 02/18/2010 4:03:35 PM PST by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: B-Chan

He seems like a straightforward lunatic to me. His writing is typical of paranoid schizophrenia.

If his brain has survived the crash, they will probably find gross abnormalities.


4 posted on 02/18/2010 4:06:16 PM PST by proxy_user
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To: B-Chan

He fit the DU template to a T as did Amy Bishop. I am not surprised at either one.


5 posted on 02/18/2010 4:06:49 PM PST by darkangel82 (I don't have a superiority complex, I'm just better than you.)
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To: B-Chan

He was a communist. Look at his suicide rant; he was fooled by communism and when his “religion of Communism” smacked him back in the face by rearing its second face, this realism didn’t fit into his schema of what he thought for decades and he cracked.


6 posted on 02/18/2010 4:07:17 PM PST by Engineer_Soldier (Glenn Beck radio show replay (2-5pm Eastern): http://gateway.andohs.net/player/?sid=3018&nid=2920#)
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To: B-Chan

He also railed against our current healthcare system like a kool aid drinking KOS kid.


7 posted on 02/18/2010 4:07:22 PM PST by nhwingut (Palin/Bachmann '12)
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To: B-Chan
A sign of the times. Frustration, rage, desperation, and hopelessness. This guy takes it to an unacceptable level, so has branded himself as crazy. Unfortunately I fear there will be others.
8 posted on 02/18/2010 4:15:00 PM PST by trapman
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To: Engineer_Soldier

Yet, safe bet that the Lamestream Media will still paint him as a “crazed Christian conservative teabagger”. Oh, gotta throw in racist as well. Crazed, most definitely. Racist, well a good number of leftists are racists. As for the rest, well the lefty media is so predictable.


9 posted on 02/18/2010 4:15:40 PM PST by Fred Hayek (From this point forward the Democratic Party will be referred to as the Communist Party)
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To: B-Chan

These guys are beyond stupid. Burn your house down — now your wife and girl have no place to live. You destroy a good airplane (could have been sold for their benefit). Succeed only in killing yourself (pointless). This is simply beyond belief.


10 posted on 02/18/2010 4:15:45 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: B-Chan
The communist creed:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed:
From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

-Joe Stack (1956-2010)

11 posted on 02/18/2010 4:15:48 PM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
These guys are beyond stupid. Burn your house down — now your wife and girl have no place to live.

They were both reportedly INSIDE the house when he set it on fire. They were pulled out by a neighbor.

12 posted on 02/18/2010 4:19:44 PM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: ZirconEncrustedTweezers

He was not a terrorist. He was not a government inflicting random acts of violence on the population to keep it demoralized and hopeless.
“Terrorist” is a word that once had meaning. Now it is mostly a synonym for “enemy” ans is becoming a synonym for “someone we disagree with.”


13 posted on 02/18/2010 6:00:15 PM PST by arthurus ("If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, don't shoot an abortionist." -Ann C.)
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To: B-Chan

Neither was he a Christian (he rails against the Catholic Church in his parting note)


I’m not saying Stack was a Christian, but the fact that he ranted against the Catholic Church does not prove whether he was a Christian one way or the other. I know plenty of Christians who rant against the Catholic Church, the Mormons, and many other religions others consider to be Christian.


14 posted on 02/18/2010 6:39:56 PM PST by RogerQ
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To: ETL

I printed out his manifesto and read all of it. He puts his thoughts out in a concise, organized matter. Just didn’t act on them properly. Now, almost no one will even consider what he had to say. How sad to not be able to think more clearly.


15 posted on 02/18/2010 7:50:01 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: RogerQ

He tells the truth in the entire piece. No one will hear him now.


16 posted on 02/18/2010 7:51:04 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin

But he ends it all with this:

“The communist creed:
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed:
From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”

-Joe Stack (1956-2010)


Not exactly an endorsement of Capitalism. And certainly not a denouncement of Communism.


17 posted on 02/18/2010 8:06:13 PM PST by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: ETL

He’s mocking the entire system. That’s the way I see it, but I could be wrong (and have been before).


18 posted on 02/18/2010 8:20:52 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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