Asked if the right-wing anti-tax rhetoric might have motivated the attack, King implicitly agreed, noting that he had been a leading opponent of the IRS for some time. He noted that although the attack was “sad,” “by the same token,” it was justified because once the the right succeeds at abolishing the IRS, “it’s going to be a happy day for America.” He sidestepped the question of the legitimacy of the terrorists’ grievances, but sympathized by saying that “I’ve had a sense of ‘why is the IRS in my kitchen.’ Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back”…. I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. And I’m still for abolishing the IRS, I’ve been for it for thirty years and I’m for a national sales tax.
I feel as if I’m beginning to sound like a broken record. At the risk of repeating myself, if Joseph Andrew Stack had been a swarthy Islamofascist, Steve King and the rest of the CPAC mouthbreathers would have been savaging him as the worst sort of human scum. Of course, Stack was a White Christian, and a far-Right Conservative, so he gets a free pass. How could he possibly be a terrorist? He was White! He was just standing up to Big Brother!! He was just another frustrated member of the downtrodden middle class being shat up by the thoughtless bureaucrats and jack-booted thugs who inhabit the IRS!!
Hmm…and where do things like Medicare and the world’s most powerful military come from? In case you’re wondering, that would be TAX REVENUES. Stack, like most wingnuts, likely had no problem with enjoying the things that tax money pays for. He apparently just thought that he shouldn’t be having to pay for them himself. The good things that government provides Americans don’t simply materialize out of thin air. Yet Stack and so many of his fellow knuckle-draggers seem preternaturally incapable of making that connection. TAXES ARE BAD…BUT YOU DAMN WELL BETTER NOT TOUCH MY SOCIAL SECURITY OR MEDICARE!!
What I find so offensive is King using CPAC to spread the prevailing propaganda. Yes, swarthy Islamofascists who fly planes into buildings are terrorists…but White Christians who do so are merely frustrated Americans with no other outlet for expressing their anger available to them. King’s assertions should be patently offensive to any American with even the barest remaining shred of decency or the most tenuous grip on reality. King’s attitude seeks to justify the murder of an innocent IRS employee who was simply doing his job. No matter how King attempts to massage reality, murder is murder. White men don’t get a pass simply because hate the government, the IRS, and/or they’re frustrated with their tax situation. Flying a plane into an IRS office is not a legitimate expression of dissent. It’s terrorism, it’s destruction of property, and in this case it’s murder. Period. Joseph Andrew Stack is a terrorist in the same vein as Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, and Scott Roeder. To attempt to beatify him as the patron saint of the anti-government movement is both wrong and offensive to anyone who believes in the rule of law…which if you think about it, is what separates this country from abject chaos.
Ask the family of Vernon Hunter whether they think Joseph Andrew Stack is a hero. I suspect you’ll get a much different answer. Stack didn’t damage the machine; he merely killed a cog in the machine, and innocent American who was merely trying to do his job so he could go home to his family. Joseph Andrew Stack deserved his fate; Vernon Hunter most certainly did not.
