Friday, February 19, 2010

Mea Culpa: I should know better than to believe first reports.

Stack, it seems, did not set the house on fire with his family in it as first reported. From the Austin Statesman:

Hutchins said he was on the phone with 911 when a car pulled up just beyond the house. A woman and a girl who both lived in the house got out, Hutchins said. Neighbors believe that was Stack's wife and her daughter, who is about 12 years old. The girl was crying, and Hutchins said the woman looked distraught. They were believed to have spent part of the afternoon in a home across the street.


So, dear readers, I owe you and Stack an apology for believing first media reports. My prayers are with Stack's family. It appears now that he killed a 67-year-old IRS employee in the attack, as he is missing and two bodies were found in the wreckage of the building. My prayers are with his family as well.

But even with the correction of this falsehood on the part of the press, it does not materially change my critique of Stack's actions nor of the situation. Though I still insist that there must be no Fort Sumters if we wish to hold the moral high ground, I am realistic enough to know that there will be more kamikazes like Stack, driven beyond reason by the Leviathan's unconstitutional acts.

For there are no free lunches. As Mama Liberty has said, if they are worried about civil disturbances why don't they quit disturbing us? The FBI, in its haste, has proclaimed that "this was not terrorism." Yet I will tell you that every federal employee, and especially IRS agents, felt a tremor of terror when they heard of it. There is no defense against such attacks, just as there is no predicting which victimized taxpayer might resort to it.

There is a line from an Australian movie about the Tet Offensive in 1968, The Siege of Firebase Gloria, when R. Lee Ermey and his Marine Force Recon patrol come across a previously friendly village that has been slaughtered by the Viet Cong -- every living thing is dead, men, women, children (save one), even goats, dogs and chickens. One of the Sergeant Major's men expresses his horror at the savagery, saying that such conduct is madness. Ermey corrects him, "This is EFFECTIVE. Nobody's gonna get out of line in this valley again."

This is the seduction of evil, that it is easy and, in the short term at least, usually effective. It is also a principal building block of the lie of collectivism, that you have to break eggs in order to make a "new socialist man" omelet. Only we are talking about living, breathing people, not eggs. Some have made the comment on this blog that the IRS employees were "enemy combatants." No, they weren't. At least, not yet. We Three Percenters must remember, if for no other reason than that everyone else will surely forget it, that it is important when fighting the monster not to become a monster yourself. The Leviathan has set itself at war with the people, but we are not AT a shooting war yet. Not YET.

"When then?" I was asked yesterday. I replied that I did not know, but that we would recognize it when we saw it. So, too, would everyone else. Until then, we hold fire, prepare and await events.

But, if sending a shiver through employees of the IRS was Stack's intention, he got his wish. And given the years of anguish and yes, terror, that the IRS has inflicted on some of the citizenry in order to convince the rest of us to go on feeding Leviathan, how can this be seen as anything other than karma, as much as we disagree with and deplore it? I am certain there will be a small bump of agency transfers ("Say, they've got an opening in the GAO, I think I try for THAT. Nobody flies planes into accountants' buildings, except maybe Jihadis.") and early retirements.

Good for them if they do. It is never a bad idea to leave Sodom before the fire descends. For there will be more Stacks in the future. As much as I deplore that fact, it IS a fact.

Mike
III

6 comments:

monkeyfan said...

Well Stated.

Dr.D said...

I read his "manifesto" this morning, poor bastard, he had been kicked around, by the life in general and the IRS in particular. I grieve for him, his family and the people he injured and killed. Yet I also understand why he did it, I don't condone it, but I do understand it.
And I agree we will probably see more of this, probably on a smaller scale and to be largely ignored/paned by the lame stream press. People are reaching their trigger points and acting.
We in the Patriot movement have a term that covers this type of action: "Leaderless Resistance".
It's impossible to defend against, as one person turns their whole life to their one goal.

I cry for my country and where we are going and what it will take to bring us back the path.

Dr.D

Pat H said...

Based on the "manifesto", it's clear that Stack was just a disatisfied Transnational Socialist who'd been a repeated business venture failure, in California and then Texas.

Based on what is alleged to be his manifesto, if I had to make comparisons between Stack and anyone it would be with Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama faculty murderer, though I do applaud his intended target, his methods were unsound.

Chris K. said...

Pat:
The guy was a little unstable. His motives weren't lilly white. He may have been looking for his share.

But don't loose the forest for the trees.
He was tired of his money (OUR money too) being stolen to bail out the politically connected.

And his target selection happened to be right on too.

So just because this guy wasn't one of US, we don't need to tear him down more.

And Mike is right. If it gives some goons pause as to what they do for a living, not everything that comes out of yesterday will be in vain.

straightarrow said...

I told all my children, all of them that if they ever went to work for the IRS, even just sweeping the floors I would take them out of this world, that they had been raised better than that.

I will pray for the families, but not one little supplication for the IRS employee or Stack.

Anonymous said...

Knowing these:
1) Refund IRS returns get mailed to Austin, TX
2) Obama's mindset is, "Never let a crisis go to waste."
3) Fedgov is desperate for dollars.

I stand by what I said yesterday, if you're expecting a tax refund, I can guarantee you that it will be very slow in coming.

Eric
III