(AP) AUSTIN, Texas — The daughter of a man who crashed his small plane into a building housing offices of the Internal Revenue Service called her father a hero for his anti-government views but said his actions, which killed an IRS employee, were “inappropriate.” Joe Stack’s adult daughter, Samantha Bell, spoke to ABC’s “Good Morning America” from her home in Norway. Asked during a phone interview broadcast Monday if she considered her father a hero, she said: “Yes. Because now maybe people will listen.”
Why is it that a swarthy Islamofascist who flies a plane into a building is the vilest sort of human scum…and yet a White Christian who does the same thing is celebrated by some as a hero? Joesph Andrew Stack has been held up as a patriot and an American hero at this past week’s CPAC conference, several Right-wing pundits have called him a a hero..and now his daughter is joining the attempt to beatify her father.
Perhaps it would help to revisit what happened in Austin, TX, last week. Joseph Andrew Stack began the day by setting his house on fire. He then flew his plane from an airport in Georgetown, TX and into the IRS office along Austin’s MoPac Freeway. In so doing, he killed an IRS employee and did extensive damage to the building housing the IRS office. The miracle lies in Stack killing only one person besides himself. The tragedy is that Stack took the life of an innocent man who was simply doing his job. In so doing, Stack became both a murderer and a terrorist. Period. End of story. No debate or questions allowed. To argue otherwise is ridiculous, idiotic, and completely disrespectful of Stack’s victim, Vernon Hunter. It also flies in the face of logic, decency, and reality.
Hunter’s son, Ken Hunter, said he’s alarmed by comments that the pilot was a hero…. “How can you call someone a hero who after he burns down his house, he gets into his plane … and flies it into a building to kill people?” Hunter told ABC.” “My dad Vernon did two tours of duty in Vietnam. My dad’s a hero.”
Too true. Fools like Samantha Bell, in glorifying her father’s act of domestic terrorism, only demonstrate how truly loony and devoid of common human decency they truly are. If Stack were a bearded Islamofascist, Bell and those like her would be falling all over themselves in paroxysms of righteous fury and indignation. Because Stack was White, though, he apparently gets a free pass and has even been immortalized in the “I Hate The Federal Government” Hall of Fame. Joseph Andrew Stack was not, as so many would argue, a middle-class American who had reached his breaking point. He wasn’t a patriot determined that government would hear his message and his frustration. He was a terrorist and a murderer. Vernon Hunter did not deserve to die…and he certainly doesn’t deserve to have his death painted as some sort of necessary sacrifice to get the attention of Big Brother.
Of course, Samantha Bell lives in Norway, which is probably a good place for someone who so thoroughly hates the American government. At least she’s in a place where she can’t do any real harm…unlike her father. The apple may not fall far from the tree in an ideological sense, but at least this apple is far away across the pond.
Samantha Bell, and those who think like her, owe Vernon Hunter’s family an apology. Joseph Andrew Stack murdered Hunter in his twisted attempt at something he felt was legitimate protest. The only different between what happened in Austin last week and in New York on 9.11 is a matter of scale. The fact that Stack was a White Christian doesn’t earn him a free pass. With any luck, he’s burning in the same pit in Hell those responsible for 9.11 are. They deserve one another.
