UPDATE: What Hero?

I just got through reading the online suicide note of Joseph Stack, the software engineer who flew his single-engine Piper Cherokee into an Austin, TX, office building. Apparently he not only killed himself but took another person's life as well and injured a dozen more. And he missed the IRS office he was aiming at in the first. This was not only suicide but also murder and assault.

But before setting foot in the cockpit, he sets fire to his house - apparently with his family yet inside! Was he trying to kill them also?

Of course no one in their right mind will condone these actions; my intent is not to affix culpability- Stack alone is responsible for his actions - nor to flail away at the government, although there is a wealth of material to be covered there. I am more interested in the notion being bandied about that Joe Stack is some kind of anti-tax Tea Party hero.

He is not a hero, far from it.

He is also not deranged.

He is most certainly selfish, self absorbed, perhaps narcissistic. Any man who loves his family more than his own life would not have chosen the path he took. His hatred for whatever the government did to him should not have taken precedence over his concern for the welfare of his family. And his blind, breathtaking disregard for the lives of other people stuns me.

His actions are more like that of a spoiled child.

If Joe can't have his way, then Joe is going home.

And he is taking all his marbles with him whether they like it or not.

In retrospect, how bad can life be if you can afford to own and operate a Piper Cherokee PA-28 airplane to visit your clients?

ADMIN UPDATE: For the full text of Stack's suicide note, go here.

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UPDATE: What Hero?

Your Friendly Neighborhood Gov’t ShakeDOWN

If Death and Taxes are avoidable in this life, then I’m a Democrat who voted for King Showbama. I think my record on this subject is pretty clear.

Oh, I’m gonna die, of that I have no doubt…unless my wife wants to pay for cryogenic freezing, but first I’d have to move to Freakifornia. And I refuse even to step foot in Freakifornia.

When I go, it’s the dirt nap for me, or the fishes, depending on who gets to me first.

So that leaves taxes. Do I have to pay? The 16th Amendment says so…or does it? This is an old argument, but it’s always worth bringing up when a tax hike is looming for any American, even those making more money than a porn star impersonating Sarah Palin [NOTE: The link is NOT adult content.]

A few years back Brian Doherty, of Reason magazine, wrote Five Reasons You Don't Owe Income Tax, Dammit! My summary of his gloss on the tax-honesty movement boils down to this:

1. Our tax system is voluntary, as defined by several documents by the IRS itself and backed up by the Supreme Court of Florida.
2. The U.S. Supreme Court (in 1916) declared the 16th Amendment does not provide the power to tax income. It does, however, provide the power to tax gains (as in corporate gains).
3. Income is wages earned…that is, your agreement to trade your labor and your time in exchange for cash…again…defined by the U.S. Supreme Court. Labor in exchange for money is not corporate gain.
4. Nowhere in the IRS tax code are the following terms clearly defined: “state, United States, employee, and person.” Now…we all know the government is absolutely clear about all things, especially those pertaining to freedom (or the illusion thereof).
5. “According to the tax-honesty reading of U.S. Code 26, Section 861, only income from foreigners or from overseas activity appears to actually be subject to the income tax.” Hmm. How many illegal wage earners in this country don’t pay income taxes?

So… is it possible (just possible, mind you) that your government has been lying to you for 95 years? That’s absurd! They would never lie to us. About anything. I mean, our elected leaders and their political appointees don’t go around scaring people into doing things they don’t want to do, such as…oh…I don’t know…embroil the nation in war in the defense of tyranny a few oceans from your home…more than once?

Why, then, do we pay our taxes anyway? It can’t be out of civic duty or Oliver Wendell Holmes’ desire for paved roads leading to his favorite Lincoln dealer (were he alive today): "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."

We pay them out of fear, fear of the IRS, or, more appropriately, their Criminal Investigation Division. They can seize your assets, make wild accusations that destroy your personal and professional life, and give you an enema the size of Florida (with spikes!).

And you don’t even get a kiss.

What was it that Kissinger said? Oh…now I remember: “He who controls the money controls the world.”

You can admit it: If you suddenly understood that you didn’t have to pay taxes, unless you wanted to -- and that the IRS has never provided anyone with a clear, concise document, in English, explaining why it is that you have to give up your earnings (to pay off the national debt to the Federal Reserve, btw, not buy more war planes) -- you’d tell the IRS to take a nice leap into shark infested waters. And, if for some reason, out of the goodness of your heart, you’d pay taxes anyway, I have some valuable stock in Chernobyl nuclear reactors I’d like to sell you.

In these next few months King Showbama will have the Legislative and Executive branches of government under his thumb and a vast mandate from the American sheeple to maneuver to shore up the economy quickly…and create his tax storm, conveniently giving the middle class a cut in taxes the IRS can't really prove (without the use of force) you have to pay in the first place.

He’ll also have Dubya’s government stock in the nation’s banks and the vast powers of the Patriot Act to do whatever he damn well pleases.

Before he does anything, maybe he should watch this film by Aaron Russo (rest in peace), best known for making Trading Places:

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Gov’t ShakeDOWN