I’m stunned and startled by some of what I heard on my show tonight in reference to the terrorist, Joe Stack, who slammed his plane into a building where 200 IRS employees work today.
Don’t get me wrong; we all get frustrated. I do — you do.. he did. We lean on people we care about, or sit quietly and work through it .. or try to affect change in some positive way (write to our congressmen or senators or back a candidate we’re more in tune with). Few of us would EVER consider doing what this loon did.
I got calls from people who not only understood but compared this idiot to the founders of our country. I got one disturbing call from a man who said the terrorist “had a set” for doing what he did. The caller went on to say that when we’re pushed to the edge we’ll do what we have to do. He went as far as to say, “If I found out I had cancer, I’d take some people out with me.” WHAT?? Another caller said, “it can’t be terrorism, not enough people died.” As of this writing, the nutjob, Joe Stack and an innocent man in the building are dead. I got an email from a friend of the family of the innocent man killed that day — she disagrees that this isn’t selfish terrorism.
Let’s be clear on what we know as of now:
Joe Stack was living the American Dream
He was married with a 12 year old daughter
He had a house
He had his own airplane — his own Freakin’ AIRPLANE!!
All indications are he wasn’t starving for food or dying of malaria in the woods of a third world county
He set his house on fire WITH his wife and 12 year old inside. Luckily they escaped harm
He went to the airport, got on his PLANE and took flight
After leaving a rambling crazy ‘manifesto’ he flew that plane into a building filled with innocent people.
What exactly am I missing? Do I like paying taxes? HELL no. Do I hope we can simplify and alter, in our favor, the tax code? HELL yes! Do I get frustrated looking at what my checks are and what the could be? Yes. Is this guy any better that Timothy McVeigh or Osama Bin Laden or Mullah Omar or Kalid Sheik Mohammad or Nadal Hassan? No. He’s exactly the same. He’s a guy who took to violence and murder and destruction for the purposes of affecting political or governmental change. Did he succeed? He succeeded in killing an innocent and in securing his place in Hell.
Your thoughts?
pags