Joe Stack Did Not Have Tea Party Principles
The dreaded event most tea partiers have been anticipating now has a name: Joe Stack. It also has a date: February 18, 2010. Mr. Stack will soon be part of the duo “Stack and McVeigh” touted all over the mainstream media for weeks. It will serve as the left-wing sledge hammer taken to the knees of the tea party movement.
Reading between the headlines reveals a more profound story: how a sheltered and wealthy nation that has lost its way may deal with the reality of impending poverty. We can choose to root ourselves in principled patriotism and prayerful humility, as documented in the relative social calm of the Great Depression, or we can descend into chaos under social degradation and vacuous ideologies.
On February 18, Joe Stack burned his house down and flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas. Before doing so, he left a manifesto detailing his financial troubles. We all knew this moment would eventually come, when some fool who had his pockets emptied by the government would snap. Although Stack may have listed common grievances expressed by many of the grassroots tea party conservatives, his cowardice is not characteristic of the patriots who are working to restore our nation under that movement. Stack’s mainstream grievances were expressed in the manifesto:
Here we have a [tax and legal system] that is … too complicated. … Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims claiming they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. …[Regarding IRS Section 1706] I spent close to $5000 … and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time.
The rest of the manifesto smacks of a self-centered pity party, as if Joe Stack was the sole recipient of hard times and single-handedly financed the corruption of Congress. The majority of the world isn’t so lucky as to possess a house to burn and a plane to crash when carrying out what amounts to a childish hissy fit.
Stack whines in his manifesto that “we are brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place. … I have spent … my adulthood unlearning that crap.” He goes on to defame the Catholic Church and organized religion while trying to justify his felony tax evasion and “creative problem solving.”
Stack recounts his college years with a story of an old woman advising him to try cat food for sustenance rather than a steady diet of peanut butter sandwiches. How pathetic and vacant does one have to be not to appreciate the opportunity for higher education? Many who put themselves through school do exist on meager diets (not cat food), but it is a situation of their own choosing. It’s called “sucking it up” and being grateful to live in a country where you are free to better yourself.
How can you say he is coward? McVeigh was a coward too?
I actually think McVeigh was kind of psicopatic, and Stack only feeble man who didn’t know how to retaliate. But both had their damned twisted reasons to do what they do.
“as if Joe Stack was the sole recipient of hard times”
Seems to me he identified correctly the enemy. McVeigh didn’t act the same way, but he also identified it and -with a military mindset, went on to retaliate. So, if Stack is a coward, then McVeigh is an hero (avenge Waco and Ruby Ridge were his motivation). Or you going to say now that the actual Boston Tea Party protesters were terrorist too?
Both, McVeigh and Stack correctly identified the government as initiator of the use of the force against its own citizens and both responded in a different way. Why instead of acting defensively (methinks it was the real goal of the left by linking tea parties to Stack) you really debate the role of the government in this? Are you aware that the paying of taxes is done under menace of use of the force?
I don’t think Stack is an hero, he doesn’t have to be. But you and all the concerned people should use this incident as illusrtation, to deal with the real cause of this, i.e., the big government.
9-11 ??? Just because he say the word “airlines” it doesn’t mean he mentioned the 9-11. I think the link you propose to 9-11 is plainly wrong.
Also Stack was wrong in mentioning, but the essential fact remaining is the government “bailed out the rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY!”. Not the airlines? Ok, but GM anyone?
“they bailed out the rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY!” -Joe Stack
Excellent piece that sadly had to be said. The tea party movement has never been one to condone violence. It has gone to great lengths to rid itself of anyone who calls for such action.
The big government, tax loathing right, of which I am a part, needs to be wary of how we use rhetoric. Calls for the abolishment of the IRS, massive tax reform (ie Flat, Fair, etc) and the idea of culling bloated state is fine. These are ideas that can happen via legislative means.
There are fringe elements like Harry Browne, who presidential campaign advert had the IRS building being blown up, that need to realise their words can inspire some nut to do this type of murderous action. Dislike the IRS all you want but blowing up/killing IRS employees is not the answer.
“The rest of the manifesto smacks of a self-centered pity party,”
After reading his “manifesto” on the SmokingGun he seemed to me to be a self-centered, self-pitying leftist. He, after all, made a positive statement about communism and a negative statement about capitalism. The proof of his true political leanings is the frantic scrambling the MSM did to try and pin the label of “tea party” on him. They knew who he was and attempted to switch his political identity. Like most of their attacks on the majority of us regular citizens, it failed.
There should be one obvious problem with trying to connect Stack with the Tea Partiers. If you bother to read his manifesto, it’s apparent that he’s merely another stupid leftie blaming everyone else for this troubles.
As Chris Rock used to say: “I wouldn’t do it, but I understand!”
Of course his actions were inexcusable and he isn’t a hero. Many of us, however, have grown tired of going through life in a constant struggle with the government over our money. I earn a salary now so I don’t have to deal with a grasping controlling government any more than necessary.
I know that there are tax implications to cashing in my IRA – that doesn’t make it right. That is my money earned with my labor. Much of it was already taxed as income once (before I had a 401k). We launched our Revolution over a 3% tax on tea, now I’m lucky if I take home 60% of what I earn.
John Brown was also nut. But he also recognized the great immorality of his day.
Do not confuse crazy with cowardice.
Stack did what he did for the reasons he stated. If some want to imbue his acts withpurely partisan political overtones for some kind of perceived advantage, then they too, are implicitly benefiting from terrorism.
The fundamental takeaway lesson of Stack is that we all have a line that should not be crossed, and we all have a reaction to anyone who crosses it.
The Joe Stacks of this world inhabit an extreme end of a Bell Curve, and as lamentable as their actions may be, they serve as warnings to the society and its government when it has gone too far.
Stack’s actions didn’t occur in a vacuum, there was and there is a broader comtext that sympathizes with his stated motives and his target, if not his criminal actions.
Dismissing and deriding Stack may be the very thing that brings out more of his kind.
If the author actually believes that the Great Depression was an era of relative social calm, they really need to learn more about history.
For example, there was an attempted coup in America that came much closer than anyone likes to think about. There were Bonnie and Clyde and Baby Face and their numerous colleagues. There were numerous riots and demonstrations around the country. Racial violence was arguably at its worst. Millions of illegal immigrants were rounded up and shipped off, mostly back to Mexico. That’s not even a partial list.
Thus far, during this economic depression, we’ve seen nothing at all resembling that kind of upheaval, including the numbers of suicides and murder-suicides or outright terrorist acts.
I read Joe Stack’s so called manifesto. My take was that the last straw for him was that Obama let him down on cradle-to-grave government health care, which he was in hopes of getting in the wake of his inability to prepare for his own retirement. He was tired of his many failures which he never failed to blame on someone else, usually the government. He appears to have had a pathetic and confused mind, and was addlepated to the end. Good riddance and luckily he was even a failure at terrorism. Next subject.
@ #9
Warren, I believe you missed the key word “relative” in my comparison of social upheaval during the Great Depression to what we may face today during a similar crisis. During the Great Depression we were still a society in ascendancy.
Meaning, society from the elites to immigrants had a self respect and an attitude of ’no free lunch’. They were self-sufficient (20% of the population lived on farms.) There were higher standards across the board for social conduct that today have all but eroded. We now, are a society on the decline.
As for Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face, etc. Our collective crimes today are so similar in magnitude that they no longer prompt such legendary names. The violent crime rate for 2007, according to the Bureau of Justice statistics, has increased nearly five times that of the 1960′s (the earliest date available.) We now have domestic terrorists, foreign terrorists and gang violence to worry about. This high level of crime is the “baseline” crime rate we will start from today when social upheaval starts—very different from the 1920’s -30s.
As far as racial crimes and rounding up immigrants, that is more of the sign of the times than a direct result of the Great Depression. Shortly after WWI and the fall of many European empires, the redrawing of Europe’s borders presented a scapegoat for much of the imperial shame: new “minorities” of the regions. Almost 2 million Christians and Muslims were uprooted and transplanted between Greece and Turkey after the internationally sanctioned Treaty of Lausanne. This unfortunately served as a precedent for problem solving based on ethnic divisions and led to ethnic cleansing under the Nazi regime. Under Woodrow Wilson (and other Progressives) this kind of attitude was also fostered in America. Sadly, it did result in segregation, race-based crimes and a negative attitude towards immigrants.
That being said, I stand by my claim that the –relative- social calm of the Great Depression stands in stark contrast to what we may be facing under another depression.
–Andie
Stack was a Leftard who had a late term abortion, murdering another human as he went.
The Tea Party folks are going to change the USA with the vote.
Efforts to link nutty, murderous, furious, selfish Joe Stack to the tea party movement are beneath contempt.
And show the desperation of Left Wing punditry.
Stack appears to have had mental.emotional problems.
I am also against the bailouts. Unions should take a flying leap.. but, I’m not going to kill myself or anyone else over it.
Everyday we work to make things better and get rid of Obama and his liberal agenda.
Kill yourself and you have given up the battle and they have won your spot in the parade.
Stack was not a “tea partier”! He was neither a conservative or a liberal…. They key is the last two lines of his “manifesto”. He was raging against BOTH systems, communism and capitalism. He was a classic “Anarchist”! (Look up Anarchism in wikipedia.) It will become obvious when you read the definition, what a perfect fit he is. It really explains a lot of things. It explains his dabbling in being a “tax resistor” in CA. and why he felt violence was the only way to make a difference.
The other dead give away to his Anarchist tendencies was the fact that his daughter, (who he apparently taught well,) went to live in Norway because she didn’t like the U.S. tax structure… excuse me?! Norway has incredibly high taxes! But you see it is also socialist and Anarchists are very prevalent in that part of the globe.
I hear that there are pictures at CNN of Shamu at a tea party. The violent murder of his/her/it’s (???) trainer is a needless tragedy. This is obviously exposure of the violent tendencies of the teaparty. This horrible violent para-military group must be… (No pictures? None? No link of any kind….)
Never mind.
Andrew Joseph Stack was nothing but a coward, to his family, to god, to our country. Boo, hoo, hoo, I have money problems and its not my fault, it the big bad government. This domestic (white trailer trash) terrorist who first burned his house and crashed his plane into a building during business hours and killed Vernon Hunter a 27 year Federal employee and 20 year veteran of the US Army with two tours in the Vietnam War.
#1 “How can you say he is coward? McVeigh was a coward too?”
I’m late to the discussion, but let me answer thusly:
They were both cowards of the first order: they both attacked people whom they knew wouldn’t/couldn’t defend themselves or fight back. They both launched cowardly, sneak attacks on innocents. Especially in McVeigh’s case–there was an employee day care center located in the building he bombed. How ‘brave’ is it to intentionally target children?
Cowards by any sane measure. How can you NOT call them cowards?
I think people are missing the real lesson of Joe Stack. He exemplifies what the US has become. Even Tim McVeigh wasn’t desperate enough to plan to die in carrying out his attack.
Joe Stack is to me the American kamikaze, the American suicide bomber. He is a new breed. Joe Stack proves that the terrorists were able to change us. Before 9/11, despite all our crime, we didn’t do terror attacks. We had so much to live for. Now we are frustrated, divided, broke and in some cases, criminally angry.
The fallout from 9/11 changed us – we reacted just like the terrorists hoped. We gave up our civil liberties while war profiteers made mad clutches for taxpayer billions. We bungled into two invasions of countries that hadn’t attacked us, nor planned to, nor were capable of hurting us – and our best military minds knew this and said so beforehand.
I’d like the author to clarify this: “The principles from the 9-12 movement form the backbone and defining characteristics of what it means to be a patriot of the tea party movement”
This is terribly vague. What does it mean to be a tea party patriot? I think the author expects us to be able to read his mind. Good writing spells it out for clarity.
@ #19
Touche. http://www.the912project.com/the-912-2/
@ 18 AF_Vet said:
Very interestng what you wrote. So, let’s rephrase it:
The Goverment attacked people whom they knew wouldn’t/couldn’t defend themselves or fight back. The Goverment launched cowardly, sneak attacks on innocents. (Waco and Ruby Ridge)
McVeigh’s declared he wasn’t aware of the employee day care center inside the building with children? And that he would have changed target had he know. This is just to set the record straight.
Specially in Ruby Ridge the government forces intentionally targeted children. Cowards by any sane measure. How can you NOT call them cowards?
Just think about it. McVeigh had to be put on trial. He got what he deserved, but don’t come here just ignoring the deadly sins of the government.
21. Mr YY:
“The Goverment attacked people whom they knew wouldn’t/couldn’t defend themselves or fight back.”
Nice try at moral equivalence, but the people of Ruby Ridge, could and did fight back. They were armed, ready and fired back at authorities acting within the bounds of the law. Try again.
“Specially in Ruby Ridge the government forces intentionally targeted children.”
Liar. Proof please. (Good luck with this one…)
“McVeigh’s declared he wasn’t aware of the employee day care center inside the building with children? And that he would have changed target had he know. This is just to set the record straight.”
His fault that he didn’t know…And I call both him and you bald faced liars. How very nice of you to try and cover for Mr. McVeigh. He says he would have changed his target? Really? To what? And can you say that he wasn’t just trying to get a softer sentence? Timothy McVeigh was coward, and so are you for covering for his atrocity.
Overall, you provide a very poor deflection of the original statement of Mr. McVeigh or Mr. Stack “not being cowards” by bringining in the ‘sins’ of the government.
You sir, suck. I feel sorry for you.
Nice try at moral superiority.
The fact is that Government started first at Ruby Ridge, since when is the abilitiy to retaliate (since you are stating that about the victims at Ruby Ridge), since when is that a blank check for government to initiate the use of the force? Instead of give opinions (like they are cowards, maybe you are confusing cowards with crazy or sociopathics) you can make an entire judgment of the actors, but you are here condoning the government in a problem the government started.. you suck for real.