At 10 AM this morning (February 18), a man by name of Joseph Andrew Stack, age 53, crashed a Piper Cherokee PA-28 into the Echelon Building in Austin, Texas. CNN has confirmed that the attack was a deliberate suicide bombing, targeted at the IRS offices within the building.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/02/18/texas.plane.crash/index.html
Stack’s suicide letter, detailing his motivation behind the attack, can be found here:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/18/stack.letter.pdf
I’ll start of by clarifying that any opinion I state here will likely be affected by the fact that Austin is my home city, and I happen to rather like the place. Blow up whatever you want, but when you fuck with Austin, I am not going to be pleased.
I’ve read his entire letter, and am not all that impressed. After reading Damios’s article, I can sympathize slightly with his anger towards the government. However, to me, the man comes across as less of a rebel standing up for his beliefs as he does an angry man lashing out at people because he couldn’t handle life’s problems. The language he uses is clichéd and fits completely into the stereotype of angry conspiracy theorist rebel without a cause. His grievances start out relatively reasonable; I could understand why someone would be angry with the IRS after reading them. However, he continues to blame more and more of his problems on the government, big business, unions (Yes. Big business and unions. I am not sure how he works out the rationale for that in his mind.)
Towards the end of his letter, I begin to get the impression that the gist of his complaints are, “Hey, things were going bad for me, why didn’t the government hand me money to help out like it’s helping out those businesses?” The government is not there to solve all your problems. That is a mentality I hope will die horribly soon, because it is simply ridiculous. No government can just bail out every person who is experiencing financial troubles. And yes, I am sorry to say this, but the job of the IRS is to get money from you. You can’t not report income and claim that it’s not tax-related; that is possibly one of the worse excuses I have heard. Yes, I agree that there are problems with the system. That is one of the main topics of this blog. But I have no respect for someone who can’t solve their own problems, and expects someone else to help them. I don’t like how the government gives money to large corporations and other companies, but I don’t’ want to replace it with the government giving money to random people on the street who can’t support themselves.
Finally, there’s his target. If you’re trying to send a message about the corrupt nature of the government, why the hell would you crash a plane into a random building in Austin? First off, that building doesn’t have anywhere close to the symbolic importance necessary for an action such as this. Secondly, this type of action is going to put more media focus on the damage caused, and the people he nearly killed than anything else. And third, it’s Austin. Not exactly the most important city out there, despite being the capital of Texas. Based solely on his choice of targets, I could make the assumption that this was just the action of an angry man throwing a very violent and dangerous temper tantrum. Real rebels don’t do useless acts like this; real rebels actually make an effort to change things.
Also, I’d like to give points to an anonymous comment someone had about this issue online:
“On the right we have your teabaggers, and now on the left we have plane crashing IRS guy. Can we agree that the popular left and right are both batshit insane and move on to better pastures?”
I could see an argument against big business and unions. In the end they represent a lot of the same things, special interest blocks with lots of political and man power to push through whatever they want that serves their will and nothing else. Unions have their place theoretically. So does business. Government, in my opinion, tends to distort both.
ReplyDeleteThis all being said, I'm still interested in knowing how exactly his finances looked. If he wanted to make a really, really powerful statement with a stunt like this, why just a suicide note? If I were a lunatic interested in flying a private plane into the IRS building specifically to leave a powerful statement, I wouldn't have left some bland statement, I would have left proof. Where are his tax reports? Where do we get information on the size of his house, his assets and belongings, pictures of his home or his car? What about wedding photos, was it a big expensive and lavish wedding?
My cynicism comes from the fact that most Americans nowadays try very hard to live beyond their means. Consider what some state the average software engineer makes about $76,000.
http://www.indeed.com/salary/q-Software-Engineer-l-Austin,-TX.html
Interns:
http://www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-intern+software+engineer/l-austin,+tx
From another website
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/IBM-Staff-Software-Engineer-Austin-Salaries-EJI_IE354.0,3_KO4,27_IL.28,34_IM60.htm
I'm pretty sure people have survived off of less.
But maybe the key lies in this.
"Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country."
Makes it sound like he was trying to game the government and lost.
Plus;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1977-Piper-Cherokee-Warrior-Single-Engine-Airplane_W0QQitemZ260548869108QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotors_Aircraft?hash=item3ca9ec3bf4
Not cheap.
I believe this guy made some good points, specifically about the government and our economic system (a belief made much firmer by the ludicrous dealings presented in Damios' post below about Protectionism), but he about this in entirely the wrong fashion. As you stated, Omega, domestic terrorism only serves to put attention on the damage - not the cause of the act.
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I only feel inspired to rise through the ranks of our country's political system and tear it apart from the inside out.
He could have at least gone public with his story, rather than suicide. I have no doubt there are legions of journalists looking for stories like his. He would've gotten the attention of the public and probably made a nice sum of money in the process.
Afterall, how do you combat the manipulation people face at the hands of the government? Manipulate them yourself until they see the facts.
And just one more thing: Why did it take this man so long to realize the farce that our government is? That, as well as several other reasons (some I have mentioned), is a fairly hefty contributing factor to my lack of sympathy for him.
The problem with his "story" is that, with what we know about him right now, it's a bit difficult to view him as a man struggling against the government. He owned a bloody private jet. That is definitely a luxury item usually associated with the wealthy. Some of his complaints against the government are legitimate here, but many of them are just blaming the government for his problems, or blaming the government for not helping him out when he had difficulties. It would be easier to form a good opinion of him if, like Damios said, we could see his tax reports, earnings, house size, etc. But right now, all we know about him is that he's a software engineer, a profession which makes far above the cost of living for Austin, who owned a jet airplane. Neither of these two facts mesh well with the idea of a man done horribly wrong by the IRS. If he was really running into financial trouble, he should have just sold the plane!
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