Apparently the guy was originally from California and, yes, we grow ‘em weird here, too.

What scared me when reading his justification/suicide note was that he didn’t seem completely off his nut, at least as far as his writing went.  I mean, we have Pandagon trolls who write so badly it’s amazing they can operate a computer.

But this guy — he seems more in the vein of Ted Kaczynski... Which is still pretty damn scary…

Is there such a thing as a Libertarian terrorist? Because that’s the closest I can come to pegging this guy.

Is there such a thing as a Libertarian terrorist?

Didn’t people describe the Heath Ledger Joker that way?

I read his screed, and it doesn’t sound like he holds much in the way of left-wing views. 

Most of it is just anger, and lacks any indicator about a political ideology.

The bits that seem to indicate ideological stances are mostly frames that often cross the ideologic spectrum.

He complains about bailouts, not just the bankster (actually, I think he skips the banks) or GM bailouts, but also the airline bailouts after 9/11. 

While plenty of people on the left & right complianed aobut the bankster bailouts and the airline bailouts, I think complaints about the GM bailout was mostly limited to the right.  And those complaints were really just thinly veiled anger that the union workers weren’t going to get totally screwed by seeing their employer go under. 

Otherwise, he complained about the health care system, but didn’t indicate what his complaint was, and he called Bush a puppet president or some such, but he wouldn’t exactly be the first right winger to ever think Bush was a bad president.  Hell, Richard Viguerie was denouncing Bush toward the end of his term. 

He seems to be a classic anti-tax, anti-big government type.  He chose to blow up the IRS.  You don’t get much more right wing than that.

He was mostly mentally unstable though.  A through and through mentally deranged conspiracy minded crackpot.

I was saying over at Balloon Juice that it seemed to me that the incident was clearly political, since it was an attack on a government building, but it wasn’t clearly partisan.  There’s no way you could say, “Oh, yeah, this guy is a Republican/Democrat/left-winger/right-winger.”

I was very relieved to see that the early reports were wrong and he set the house on fire after his wife and daughter left.  At least he didn’t decide to take them with him like it seems a lot of these guys do.

It’s a lot like the Oklahoma City bombing, which was a lot like what was depicted in the famous right-wing stroke book, _The Turner Diaries_.

Thing is, sleazy adventure stories and “TEA Parties” are just make-believe.  This guy actually killed people.

When you’re right, you’re right. Teabaggers have already adopted him as a martyr on a Facebook page. I don’t imagine it’ll be very long before they’re chanting his name as a martyr to the cause at the next FOX organized right-wing event.

I thought the Heath Ledger Batman was a fascist communist?

Yes, though: there is such a thing as a Libertarian terrorist. I certainly don’t want to draw false equivalence with the overwhelming majority of Libertarians, but the entire ideology *is* anti-establishment. If you get rid of government, the IRS, the Food and Drug Administration (etc, etc), you suddenly get ponies. The villains are clearly marked, and the goal is to dismantle them… add in some unhinged vigilantism, and it isn’t hard to see how this guy and the Unabomber draw motivation out of that ideology.

And it is a bit scarier in that their sacred individualism lends itself so easy to these lone wolves.

This guy’s raison d’etre was that he wasn’t getting all the perks he felt entitled to as a white guy. Now, going undercover to experience how the other half lives is what makes liberals liberal; this guy went the opposite way and got pissed that he wasn’t getting all the toys he was used to. And he wanted to take as many people with him as he could. I’m betting rightie.

Another tool.  I just hope he wasn’t a spark in the nut-shack tinder-box.

I watched Glenn Beck today just to see what he would say.

He started literally crying and saying basically “please please please don’t commit violence!! ok??” I don’t remember Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow ever having to beg their audiences not to become violent.

This is a superior post and discussion, thank you.

The only reason it even seems like a question about whether this guy (or Scott Roeder for that matter) are terrorists comes back to how the tradmed fall all over themselves to legitimize these extremist ideologies and political agendas. Jake Tapper asks if it is appropriate for the White House to view FNC as political, and everyone politely ignores Glenn Beck. What the fuck? It isn’t just another perspective, and it isn’t equally legitimate.

And then a guy blows up an IRS building because he thinks taxes are evil. And everyone has to think really hard about whether or not that is evidence of a political agenda.

Am I going too far in drawing a line between this and that? Not the violent act itself, but this awkward and uncertain reception.

There is such thing as a “libertarian” terrorist, his name is Vox Day.  He’s more of an ideological terrorist, but if pushed in the right direction, he will go violent.

The supportive comments on mainstream news sites are far more frightening to me than the attack itself.

You mean Teddy Beale?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale

Probably not; by the time they get to even this moderate amount of $ucce$$, they become very self-preserving.  More likely he just finds psycopathic sycophants and encourages them - which is why I have to ask, aren’t people being charged with incitement to riot anymore?

I fail to see how you can not call this terrorism.

He attacked the IRS as a part of the US Governement that he thought was infringing on citizens’ freedom.  That’s a political act.  He totally meant to “intimidate or coerce a government” and he wants others to rise up and follow in his footsteps.

That’s terrorism.

The only reason NOT to call it terrorism is that you want to focus people’s fears on brown people who happen to live in oil-rich lands instead.  If you want to protect white Christian males as just good ol’ folk unless they are singularly insane, in which case you can’t call it terrorism regardless of intent.

We have an act of right wing terrorism about every other month.

——————-
BenD, really?  You watched Beck (I can’t stand to do that) and he whined to his audience to remain nonviolent?

How can he spin that shit?

That’s what we’ve all said for ages now—he’s a whackaloon and the people who watch him are crazy militia/racists/terrorist types.  That just proves that he knows it as well.

This is clearly a terrorist act within the standard definition of the word.  It is not clear what the guy’s politics are other than rabidly anti-government and ant-tax, but it is equally clear that the Teabaggers have embraced him and his cause:  http://www.americablog.com/2010/02/anti-govt-anti-obama-nuts-launch.html  It i.s time to get very worried about your fringe rightwing neighbors, because this stuff is contagious.

Even if you live in Central Texas for a short period of time, you become quite aware of Alex Jones, Infowars, and the extreme amount of conspiracy theory hysteria.  In the Austin area, if someone is a conspiracy theorist in one way, they probably buy them all.  That’s why that would-be primary challenger to Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchinson was a birther AND a 9/11 Truther.  There’s a real all-purpose culture of cultural paranoia.  If you live there, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Digby has a really interesting find:  there’s a possibility that this guy was scammed out of his money by his fellow anti-tax protesters here in California.

I’ll bet David Neiwert is on it. Sounds about right—-the anti-tax schemers are a serious problem in California, from what I understand.

I fail to see how you can not call this terrorism.

Here’s my scenario:

Here’s a guy who believes the IRS forked him over. He’s broke, but looking at huge fines and jail time (the IRS is not about to cut anti-tax freaks any slack). He may owe more on his house than it’s worse. Yet he has a new wife and daughter to support.

Let us say that he has a healthy life insurance policy such that he is worth more dead than alive. So, why not commit suicide, get back at an agency you believe was persecuting you, and score enough cash for your family where they can afford to live? Let the fire insurance pay off the mortgage, and your wife can start over somewhere else. Write a rambling letter where you alternately appear to be a left and right winger to get the sympathy of extremists on both sides while clouding your motive.

I got the impression he was a straight-up anarchist, albeit of the kind anarchists prefer not to be associated with. I’ve seen others suggest he sounded like an Alex Jones clone.

Hector B:

The Willie Loman gambit never works…

Hector B. @27

From what I understand most life insurance policies contain clauses that let them refrain from paying out in the event of suicide. Same thing goes for home owners insurance and arson fires.

The guy was unhinged. I don’t pity him at all, first of all, broke people don’t own private planes, second, you don’t kill innocent people no matter how bad you think you have it.

I read his letter, and like ginmar said, he was just soaking in entitlement. He wasn’t mad he didn’t find a job in Austin, at least initially, but that the jobs there didn’t pay as much as his previous tech jobs had.

He sounds to me like a bipartisan wingnut. Rightwing, leftwing, who cares? Point being, the nose his plane was headed straight down into a government building. Some ideologies are more fertile breeding grounds than others, but in theory, any group could attract a crazy person who eventually attempts mass murder.

The real test is how different movements respond to this guy. On the left, I’ve seen nothing but horror and emphatic insistence that the alleged perp was the most among the reprehensible lifeforms going and almost certainly a terrorist. (On the left, opinion on the “terrorist question” is a function of whether the person has read the crasher’s likely suicide note, the consensus among lefties who’ve read it being: Total terrorist!). So far, the people building Facebook shrines to this shitbag have been rightwingers.

The guy was unhinged.

Right, no one’s going to penalize the grieving widow for the actions of her crazy husband. And you buy private planes on credit like you do anything else. Ten percent down, and up to 20 years to repay.

BenD, really?  You watched Beck (I can’t stand to do that)

Well it did help I’m high on Vicodin this week after some dental surgery. I probably couldn’t do it sobe

and he whined to his audience to remain nonviolent?

How can he spin that shit?

He made up a lot of bullshit about how the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building today was a follower of the French Revolution (?) and how the Teabaggers are followers of the American Revolution (!!) and how he [Beck] is just like Thomas Paine, or something.

There were so many historical inaccuracies and made-up facts in his rant that if I weren’t on opiates I would have wanted to break my television. But at the end he cried and said “PLEASE PLEASE PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE DON’T COMMIT VIOLENCE, OK?

Again, neither Olbermann, nor Maddow, nor Schultz ever had to say that to us. That’s the difference between the American Right and the American Left.

Let us say that he has a healthy life insurance policy such that he is worth more dead than alive.

Very, very few life insurance policies will pay out a claim when the cause of death was determined to be suicide.

From what I understand most life insurance policies contain clauses that let them refrain from paying out in the event of suicide.

Very, very few life insurance policies will pay out a claim when the cause of death was determined to be suicide.

The vast majority of life insurance policies exclude payouts for suicide only for two years—a prolonged cooling-off period. Stack’s difficulty would have been finding a policy that didn’t exclude death during general aviation activities, not suicide.

Very, very few life insurance policies will pay out a claim when the cause of death was determined to be suicide.

Just taking a random look through Google is appears that it may actually be common practice to have a suicide exception for only the first couple of years after the policy is taken out.  After that period elapses they will cover suicide as any other death.

He made up a lot of bullshit about how the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building today was a follower of the French Revolution (?) and how the Teabaggers are followers of the American Revolution (!!) and how he [Beck] is just like Thomas Paine, or something.

I’m sure he conveniently skipped over that whole part on how both revolutions are tightly connected.

Not that it means anything, but for what it’s worth, U.S. Congressman Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), who represents Austin, is saying he absolutely believes this to be “an act of domestic terrorism”.

I read his manifesto and he sounded like my dad. The same free-floating paranoia, the same conviction and the government and big business are not merely in bed together, but the same thing. I’m not looking forward to my dad seeing a newspaper tomorrow and trying to talk to me about it.

I actually have to disagree. I do not believe Stack’s actions were terrorism. Yes, he did have some pretty messed up political views and bought into conspiracy theories, and yes, the manner with which he struck out was eerily reminiscent of the MO of the 9/11 hijackers.

Let’s compare him to a domestic terrorist, let’s say… a guy who blew up an abortion clinic. The bomber, by his act of violence was using violence in “furtherance of political or social objectives” threatening women by saying, “you want to get an abortion? This is what will happen to you.”

Stack wasn’t trying to further a political agenda. In short he saw himself as an aggrieved party, he was angry at the IRS, but due to the nation of the agency, he could not direct his focus on a single individual. If he had been able to find the one person who he felt was responsible for his problems and then shot him, that would not be domestic terrorism. But Stack could not confront any one individual, he generalized his anger and attempted to take it out on an organization.

Given all the attendant rights-related headaches an act of terror entails (I’m pretty sure the Patriot Act and most executive power grabs weren’t repealed just because we have a decent President in the Oval Office), I wouldn’t be yearning to stuff this action into that envelope. But that doesn’t mean that people like Dave Neiwert or the Southern Poverty Law School shouldn’t be brewing some coffee and preparing to work overtime.

This act of terrorism is all Obama’s fault. Remember, nobody ever crashed a plane into a building while Bush was in office.

Authoress, if you were an IRS agent having a difficult case to investigate, would this incident make you think twice about how dangerous it is to ask for money from anti-government loons?  This is terrorism, because it makes people scared to go about their lives.  That’s what terrorism does, is, and how it works.

Terrorism only requires that the actions cause fear.  That’s why burning a cross on someone’s front lawn is more than arson and littering.  That’s why beating up a gay man and leaving a note that says “FAGS GO AWAY” is more than assault.  That’s why a host of crimes are classified as more than the crimes themselves.  Sometimes this makes sense, sometimes the lines get blurry, but in this case I’d say that attacking a government building that investigates civil crimes is probably somewhat intentionally trying to make those government workers a bit more cowed.  Terrorism is about intimidation more than direct force.  That’s why this guy will be seen as a martyr by a lot of loons.

I read his manifesto and he sounded like my dad.

The big difference between my own right-wing dad and this guy is that my dad is smart enough to figure out how to do his taxes. This guy seems to have flitted through life getting fleeced by tax-protestor scam artists

I haven’t read comments yet, but came to the conclussion that yes, this was terrorism for similar reasons to yours.  At base though, the gut inclination that it was, for me, prior to the actually analysis of was my gut right, came from the fact that an anti-tax person crashed a vehicle into a government building without seeming to have a specific individual target. 
I can absolutely say, as an at times gov contractor, that this will act as a intimdating factor in people going to work and doing their entirely necessary jobs for the government.  Anyone who already had any sort of anxiety factor will have it increased.  People who never thought about someone they had no contact with, personally, trying to kill them because of where they worked doing data entry, filing, answering calls as receptionist/at a phonebank, emptying trash and cleaning floors are now forced to think about it.  Misplaced rage used against lower level employees who have neither responsibility nor authority over any of this man’s issues where his targets because he was a coward attempting to intimidate a governmental system using suicidal means.  He was a terrorist.

@37:
I believe you are correct about the suicide clauses (though it gives the Ins co room to delay and argue), but many will not pay if someone is killed while committing a felony.  Whether this was terrorism or not, I’m sure we can all agree it was a felony.

Hector?  Do you really, really think an insurance company is going to be like, “Well, usually we don’t pay out on suicides, but in the case of a man who killed two other people while committing it, why not?”

You’re nuts.  His wife won’t get paid.  And I’m guessing she won’t push, either.  The guilt you feel tends to prevent that.

I think that if McVeigh was a terrorist, then Stack would be too. The problem of taxonomy, I think, though, is that Dick Cheney & Co. have (unfortunately) been successful in defining “terrorism” as something separate from “criminal.”

All terrorist acts are criminal acts. I think we kind of accidentally have, through repetition, accepted a right-wing talking point when we begin to ask “is this terrorism OR is this a criminal act?”

A weird side-effect of facebook-friending all the people you went to grammar school and high school with is that you suddenly get perspectives from dudes you were just pleasantly acquainted with by way of a mutual admiration for, like, Voltron or something, who have later on in life become conservative/creepy.

I was astonished to see the most right-wing law’n'order, pro-torture folks so quick to comment when I had a status update to the effect of “This guy’s manifesto could have been written by my lunatic anti-tax uncle who is a proud tea-bagger. Does this mean we get to detain Teabag meeting attendees and waterboard them now?”

The comments from these folks were all, “well, this is a guy clearly suffering from manic depression…” or “I don’t agree with what he DID, but you know, he had a real grievance..”

Like that kid who tried to blow up his balls on a plane wasn’t suffering from some kind of manic depression? Or may have had real grievances?

I mean, this guy FLEW A PLANE. INTO. A. BUILDING. A government building. To send a message. Big black smoke, fire, etc…

How can the people who have staked their identity on being MORE against “terrorists”  than anyone else fail to call a guy who flies a plane into a government building a terrorist?

Anyway, the larger point is that to treat terror attacks differently, as acts of war,  as opposed to thuggish criminal acts elevates them to a status they do not deserve, be it this guy, or Richard Ried or that Mutalib kid.

Amanda,  I hope you’re right about the FBI watching Right Wing terrorists organizations. And yeah, I doubt if President Bipartenship will call this a terrorist attack. He’s too afraid of alienating Teabaggers, John Birchers, Operation Rescue.. Look at how the Dept of Homeland Security (the most Orwellian name imho) folded when they dared to mention that yes, the right wing organizations are a growing threat, and that former military are attracted to them. Goddamn it, the White Supremist movement is loaded with them!!

I can’t understand why this is even a question. He flew a plane into a (civilian) federal building because he hates the United States government and considers it to be illegitimate. Isn’t that the quintessential case of terrorism? I just can’t shake the feeling that the question is being posed by the media because he’s white. If he was brown, particularly brown and non-Christian, no one would have wondered.

He’s a tax-protester and that means he’s an entitled asshole because that’s what all tax-protesters are. They think that they’re so special that they don’t have to pay taxes, and that they’re smarter than the rest of us rubes who pay up. He strikes me as the same sort of person as Dr. Tiller’s murderer and the guy who shot up the women’s gym last year. All three on the fringe of wacked out groups (anti-abortion, MRA and tax-protesters/militiamen) that survive on conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric but stop just short of explicit exhortations to violence (well, generally). It’s not exactly a wonder when one of the more unstable members of these groups actually acts on all that rhetoric, but it is terrorism.

The dude is a terrorist and a tea bagger terrorist.  IMHO, he only wrote a few “leftist” things down to confuse naive people into thinking he wasn’t a right-winger.  The IRS like the census has been a target of the right-wing’s hate.  Let’s expose their agenda.

“How can the people who have staked their identity on being MORE against “terrorists” than anyone else fail to call a guy who flies a plane into a government building a terrorist?”

How can a group of people who have decided that Big Guvmint is always the problem and never the solution (unless we’re talking about the Department of War) be expected to act any other way?

The government has been demonized on the Right since Lyndon Johnson passed and signed laws treating poor people and people of color as Real People.  Before that was FDR and just about everything he did to fight the Great Depression.  Every Republican since Nixon has made animus toward government a central theme.

It’s no different from the Tiller Killer.  He was “inspired” by decades of rhetoric decrying the “evil” of allowing women to have bodily autonomy, including control over reproduction.  So he felt taking out Dr. Tiller was a righteous act.  And the other anti-choicers agreed.  And the ones who didn’t outright decry the man (to pretend they aren’t really about violence) and explicitly support the killing were pretty much nodding in silent agreement.

This dickhead thought flying a plane into that building was a righteous act.  It’s no surprise that the followers of Teabaggery would be hesitant to condemn his act, when they probably wish the same end result, but possibly without the killing…maybe.

The real nuts give cover to the Teabagging Masses.  They can all stand up and say that flying the airplane into the building was wrong, even though they hate government as much and can understand why he would be compelled to act.  In contrast, all they want to do is shrink government until they can (metaphorically?) drown it in a bathtub — an image that is much less explicitly violent, but no different in intention…

(I’m kind of surprised Dana hasn’t shown up to express those very thoughts…)

All terrorist acts are criminal acts. I think we kind of accidentally have, through repetition, accepted a right-wing talking point when we begin to ask “is this terrorism OR is this a criminal act?”

I definitely agree with this.  We’ve somehow set up this weird category where “terrorist” is something completely different and terrifying when really they’re a bunch of assholes who run around killing people so they can intimidate their political opponents.  That doesn’t make them supermen, fer chrissakes.

I’m sure he conveniently skipped over that whole part on how both revolutions are tightly connected.
Comment #37: hypatia on 02/19 at 01:03 AM

Or that Thomas Paine, whom Beck compared himself to, was critical of Christianity, concentrated wealth, and had a kind of Social Security-type program that he wrote down .I>over a century</i> before it’s time. Paine was a liberal and even borderline leftist, and Beck tries to make him in to some conservative hero.

“He made up a lot of bullshit about how the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building today was a follower of the French Revolution (?) and how the Teabaggers are followers of the American Revolution (!!) and how he [Beck] is just like Thomas Paine, or something. “

hahaha That’s really funny.  Especially since the French Revolution was heavily inspired by Thomas Paine.

“Paine was a liberal and even borderline leftist, and Beck tries to make him in to some conservative hero.”

Wingnuts have always tried to co-opt leftist figures for political gain.  Harry Truman was really a “Conservative”, JFK was really a “Conservative”, Martin Luther King was really a “Conservative”.  About the only one they have never made a serious attempt to co-opt is Franklin Roosevelt.

Who knows, maybe even Bill Clinton will be remodeled as “Conservative” by some future (distant future) group of wingnuts…

Paine was a liberal and even borderline leftist, and Beck tries to make him in to some conservative hero.

An article of conservative faith is that Conservatives are teh real libruls. Because they believe in liberty, e.g. not having to pay Federal income tax.

Do you really, really think an insurance company is going to be like, “Well, usually we don’t pay out on suicides, but in the case of a man who killed two other people while committing it, why not?”

No. Unless the insurance policy has a suicide exclusion clause in effect, she should get the money. But the insurance company might delay the payout “until they complete their investigation.” For example, you can’t benefit financially from causing someone’s death. Did the wife somehow cause Stack to get up in that airplane and fly into the building?

Denying her a payout, as Helen suggests, because of some culpability on her husband’s part punishes her, not her husband. And in this country we’re basically opposed to punishing the innocent for the acts of others. There’s no implicit “felony exclusion” that I know of. The widow should not feel guilty for a crime she didn’t cause, anyways. And it sure sounds like she and her daughter need money.

We may never know about his political leanings.  After this article though we can assume he was a wingnut because it’s mentioned about 5 times.

We may never know his partisan leanings, but his political beliefs are pretty well spelled out in that note. He doesn’t think the US government is legitimate. That places him solidly in wingnut territory - right next to the CPAC conference attendees who are taking in a session on Nullification and State Resistance to Federal Tyranny.

Let’s not forget the obvious that the original Boston Tea Party was a revolt against tax cuts on the largest corporation of the time (East India) and the small merchants couldn’t compete with them.  Thom Hartmann makes this point a lot.  The Boston Tea Party was a leftist revolt, not a right-wing revolt.  The modern tea party movement would be the anti-WTO/NAFTA crowd.

@3letterjon, yes Stack’s actions will very likely cause ‘fear’ but that alone does not make him a terrorist. By a simple definition of “terrorism only requires that the actions cause fear” that is extending terrorism to mean almost any criminal activity. Yes, after 9/11 l was scared to go onto a plane, but because of rapes and muggings l don’t like to walk home at night. Does this mean that rapists and robbers are terrorists too? Let’s say Stack had a wife who worked in that building and he got mad at her and went on a shooting spree inside the building and killed her and five other people. That would make the people scared to go to work as well, but those actions would not be considered “terrorism.” One of the commenter mentioned a school shooting and in my mind that would be an apt comparison: again, a single aggrieved party who generalized his rage. After Virginia Tech l was a little nervous about returning to school, does that make Cho Sueng He a terrorist?

Yes, l think jdobbin had an excellent point in talking about classifying terrorism separate from criminal acts.

Authoress:

I think you’re missing the point. If nothing else, it’s meant to intimidate IRS workers—trying to make them think they’re criminals just for doing their jobs. This is almost exactly what Scott Roeder and Eric Rudolph (and even more so John Salvi) were trying to do to people involved in family planning medicine.

This dickhead thought flying a plane into that building was a righteous act.

There’s nothing in his manifesto to suggest that.  My take is this was the last act of defiance of a desperate, disturbed man.  This guy was an engineer, and you don’t get through engine school if you’re a dummy.  You don’t get a pilot’s license without having some intelligence, either.  He knew what he was doing, and I bet he knew it was wrong or would be seen as wrong.  I think he just had reached a point where that didn’t matter to him anymore, his own personal pain overcame his conscience to where taking one last shot at the symbol of the IRS meant more to him than empathy with the normal people inside the building.  Of course, it’s all just guessing; none of us really knows a damn thing about him, we’re all projecting according to what we want to see based on one violent act and a suicide note. 

It may have been terrorism, but all crime involves terrorism to some degree.  The FBI’s definition of “terrorism” is what they use to arrest and prosecute people; it’s not necessarily a good definition to use in all cases.  It may have been terrorism, but was it Terrorism?  I don’t see this guy as being on a long-term campaign to overthrow the government or cause social change, though he might have hoped to contribute to those ends; he just decided that he’d had enough and he was going to burn out rather than fade away.  I don’t get the sense that he thought he was the John Brown of the tax protester movement.

#59:

Read the note. This guy was messed up and he believed he was being singled out & persecuted by the IRS unfairly (even though he had failed to pay his taxes for quite a while from what I’ve read). That’s a right wing meme if there ever was one.

The FBI defines terrorism:

Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.

I suppose this is off the topic, but if the FBI’s definition of terrorism, which Amanda apparently copied from the FBI’s own web site, doesn’t describe a lot of what goes on in front of abortion clinics, I don’t know what does.

This dickhead thought flying a plane into that building was a righteous act.

There’s nothing in his manifesto to suggest that.

Here’s what I was referring to (quoting liberally from the nut’s rant):

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

...

Read the note. This guy was messed up and he believed he was being singled out & persecuted by the IRS unfairly (even though he had failed to pay his taxes for quite a while from what I’ve read). That’s a right wing meme if there ever was one.

He casually mentions his dealings with the IRS were due to other people showing him how not to pay taxes by “following the law”, i.e. he was taken in by tax protester scams, which means he was in contact with the underground far right.

It seems that the only reason that anyone is being hesitant about calling this terrorism is because it did not ultimately cause massive causualties.  And yet, that worked out that way by pure luck - looking at how severely damaged that building was, it easily could have caused a hundred or more deaths if perhaps he had hit a more populated portion of the building.

And if that had happened, and many people had died instead of only two, would there be any doubt in anyone’s mind that this was terrorism?  Would it even be a question?

He wrote a political manifesto. You can’t comfortably slot it into narrow US party definitions, but it was political nonetheless.

He attacked a government building, but targeted civilians.

How can this be anything but terrorism? The Washington snipers were charged with terrorism and they didn’t even get around to writing a manifesto. They killed more than 2 people, but they were targeting them one-by-one: typically that is considered a serial killing spree, not terrorism. Sure they tried to blackmail for money, but I still think that is a bit of a stretch (unless all kidnappers who demand ransom are also considered terrorists).

Yet somehow this guy isn’t a terrorist. Gee, I wonder if it’s because this guy is white and the Washington snipers were black.

Another good example is the Abdulmutalab (sp?) kid… here’s a guy who had underwear loaded with explosives, but failed to accomplish any destruction beyond probably burning his own genitals, and yet there was never even a bit of hesitation about referring to him as a terrorist, because his intention was mass destruction and to instill fear.

Stack’s intention was also mass destruction and to instill fear, and though he failed to cause a huge body count, he did cause more death and physical harm than Abdulmutalab, and as far as destruction and instilling fear goes, the man did destroy a seven story building, causing tens of millions of dollars in property damage, and most assuredly scaring the shit out of anyone who works for the IRS right now.

Yeah, there’s a huge double standard at play here, and I find it disturbing that the story is almost completely gone in the MSM only 24 hours after it took place - I haven’t seen any discussion of it in any of the MSM outlets at all today.  It’s as if they want to pretend it never happened, or that it was a purely isolated incident that has no connection to the current climate of rightwing rage in America today.

It seems to me that the idea “It isn’t terrorism if its a conservative white guy” rule has got to be examined and revoked, or exploded, or whatever the correct verb is. Because seriously, it is getting RIDICULOUS! If we imagine that Stark was any other demographic, it is immediately obviously terrorism.

If he had been a middle-aged Leftist, or even a Canadian-strength Socialist, they would be conflating the ideas of “socialism” and “terrorism” into ONE IDEA already, and undermining all attempts to have a government FOR THE PEOPLE, ever again.

THis is a great opportunity to point out the similarity of the far right and terrorists. It is a great time to FINALLY define anti-abortion groups as terrorists.

I just wonder if the guy managed to deploy his teabag before he hit the building.

There are so many different definitions of “terrorism.” One person’s terrorist is another one’s freedom fighter.

And what difference does his political ideology leans? This motherfucker wanted to kill people to make a point.

Just because one side participates in acts of violence doesn’t make the whole group terrorist aides.

The essence of terrorism is non-state actors using spectacular violence to gain disproportionate psychological leverage over people or governments for political or ideological reasons. If guerrilla tactics are the recourse of the weak against the strong; terrorism is the recourse of the weakest opponents of all. Terrorism is violence as political theater Part of the horror is that they’re willing to kill just to make a point.

Falling Down, the epitome of “I thought I was too smart to be a loser” might be a good reference to thinking about this guy and whether it was terrorism.

I submit that much of the motive is simple, nihilistic fun, as depicted in that movie.  Terrorism is simply a fringe benefit for someone who decided empathy prolly should just be ditched anyways.

Why do Americans spend months screaming and crying for the government to make them feel safer and better (and then cry some more and blame Obama, Napolitano and the Dutch), when some guy burns his leg and kills no one, but hardly a word when a random anti-tax and likely anti-government zealot succeeds with a suicide mission and actually kills people, at the height of a regrettably mainstream and vitriolic movement against the government and government spending in the USA?

Maybe all violence is terrorism.

#79: No, it’s not.

A good example is the Ft. Hood Shooting. Was this an act of terrorism? No, it was a guy who decided to take his frustrations out on random people.

Is a guy who guns down another man for money a terrorist?

Terrorism, very generally, has to be the use of fear on civilians for a political/religious cause.

Falling Down, the epitome of “I thought I was too smart to be a loser” might be a good reference to thinking about this guy and whether it was terrorism.

I thought about that movie too, shah8.  It’s a similar situation in some respects.  I disagree with you on D-FENS’ motives, though; he wasn’t out to have fun, he was out to seek what he saw as justice for himself.  He became a sociopath, but rationalized his actions as simply exercising his rights in a broken-down society.  He totally lost the ability to see beyond himself; and in the end, he was shocked to find out that people considered him “the bad guy.”

On reflection I guess that’s what MikeEss was getting at when he said that Stack thought his act was “righteous.”  Not that what he was doing was itself necessarily a morally good act, but that it might possibly lead to some good in the future.  His end justified his means, in other words.  I can see that.

We’ve somehow set up this weird category where “terrorist” is something completely different and terrifying when really they’re a bunch of assholes who run around killing people so they can intimidate their political opponents.  That doesn’t make them supermen, fer chrissakes.

But it does allow authoritarians to discard the inconvenient Constitutional rights and engage in excessive violence and cruelty towards them. Waterboarding someone 47 times, for example.

Take a look at the people solemnly saying that whatever is done to terrorists is justified.  In the past, they’d be breaking heretics on the wheel and burning witches alive.  THEY ARE THE SAME PEOPLE.

(Incidentally, have you ever read a description of what “breaking on the wheel” actually means? Ich)

Reading his suicide note, it’s obvious that the guy was neither left wing or right, just someone who felt the government was deeply corrupt and didn’t represent him in any shape or form. That’s the definition of those on both the far left and far right. While there are elements that would link him to the right wing, other parts of his note would directly contradict that. I doubt many right-wingers would line up to denounce the current healthcare system, George W Bush, the church (sorry, “the monsters of organized religion), the rich and capitalism in general. From what I can tell, his gripe at the tax system seemed to be that this Reagan-era law directly benefitted big business at the expense of the ordinary worker. And his point that it doesn’t matter who gets in, the government will operate in the same way echoes a lot of the comments on here every time there’s a Democratic party discussion.

But one thing that is clear is that it’s definitely terrorism. Amanda, as a Texan I hope you’re willing to undergo years of anti-terrorist profiling at airports and other public places. It’s for the good of the country.

I’m a federal employee and every time something like this happens, I freak out a little.  I work for a hated agency and the danger isn’t constant, but we really do have to be on guard for weirdos and foaming rage cases. 

Thank you for saying this is domestic terrorism.  All too often innocent government workers (people who don’t have actual power), are targeted.

This guy was a terrorist, pure and simple.

And if he were Black, or Latino, or Arab, or South Asian - and especially if he were Muslim there would be no question about that.

Had this guy been Muslim, as we speak the feds would be doing mass arrests in the Austin area of anybody who even remotely thinks like he does.

Compare the reaction to this guy (who committed a successful terrorist attack and actually murdered a federal employee in the process) to the wave of panic set off by the failed terrorist attack committed by that Muslim Nigerian student, where nobody died and no property was damaged (other than the bomber’s pants and underwear).

As for his lack of membership in an organization - ever read “The Turner Diaries”?

Specifically the part about “lone wolf” attacks and “leaderless resistance”?

I’d bet money that this guy did.

Not only is this jerk (he shall remain nameless in my post - I refuse to help make this cretin famous) a straight up terrorist, he’s also an entitled whiner.

I have had tax problems in RL - and, actually the IRS and the local tax authorities are quite reasonable if you actually negotiate with them

They will make a payment plan you can afford, and they will wait for years to get their money back.

But this cafone actually thought that, somehow, his status as a “self made” White rich guy entitled him to not have to pay taxes like everybody else

He only owed them $ 125,000 - if he hadn’t been such an entitled jerk, he would have just negotiated with them, let them put a lein on his house, garnish his wages/salary/business profits and negotiate a payment plan like everybody else does

Oh and he could have sold his private plane too!

I’d bet that a Cessna in good condition could have netted him $ 20 or $ 30 thousand dollars - and that would have gone a long way to reduce his debt.

It wasn’t like paying the IRS would have broken him and his family - he’s an engineer, his wife is a music professor at a college, they make good money.

But this nimrod seemed to have an ideological problem with the idea that he as a White male self employed professional should even have to pay taxes in the first place!

Instead, this jabroni decides to destroy his home (and all of his wife and stepdaughters belongings) and ram his plane into a building, destroying public property and murdering an innocent 67 year old federal worker who never did anything to anybody.

This guy was an engineer, and you don’t get through engine school if you’re a dummy.  You don’t get a pilot’s license without having some intelligence, either. 
Comment #64: liberalrob on 02/19 at 12:42 PM

Well, there’s two problems with saying that.  One, he’s not an engineer engineer, he’s a software engineer, and he’s older than I am, which means he didn’t get a degree in “software engineering,” he chose that as his description.  Looking back at the software engineers I used to work with, supergenius intelligence is not a requirement.

Friends of mine who fly (or jump out of perfectly good planes) could tell you stories about lack of judgment among licensed pilots.

And even supergenius intelligence doesn’t compensate for lack of wisdom. There’s a reason those two are different dice rolls in D&D;.

# 87 - gorobei.

I’m sorry, but if a person who has a website condemning the IRS goes and bombs an IRS building with an airplane that is terrorism pure and simple.

And if he were a Black man or a Muslim, I know you’d agree with me.

His action lacked the “intimidate or coerce” element.
Comment #87: gorobei on 02/21 at 01:10 PM

As MikeEss quoted from Stack’s “manifesto”:
“I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.”

Well, there’s two problems with saying that.  One, he’s not an engineer engineer, he’s a software engineer, and he’s older than I am, which means he didn’t get a degree in “software engineering,” he chose that as his description.  Looking back at the software engineers I used to work with, supergenius intelligence is not a requirement.

Well said, oldfeminist. 

In addition, not all software engineers, computer programmers, and IT/IS personnel are created equal.  This was the case at the internet startups and an IS department I worked at where it wasn’t unusual to find humanities/social science majors actually teaching or correcting the mistakes of colleagues who actually did major in software engineering, CS, or IT/IS.  Heck, I’ve even had a CS major friend who said it was really scary how most of the CS majors in his undergrad knew far less about computers and operating systems than many non-majors who picked it up off the side like myself and many co-workers…especially an English lit major.

# 90 gorobei - if he were Black, or a Muslim, there would be no question that this was an act of terrorism.

And you know that as well as I do.

Gorobei,

Maybe it’s because I’m a New Yorker who used to work in the World Trade Center, but folks who fly planes into buildings don’t inspire me at all.

And yeah, to me, they are terrorists

And if you “don’t understand the skin color, religion thing” - then you haven’t lived in America very long, have you?

This country has been all about skin color and religion ever since the first slave ship docked at Jamestown, VA in 1617.

The history of this country, built upon the bodies of murdered Indians by kidnapped Blacks in chains, is a history of racism - if you don’t understand that, then you do not understand America at all.

Gorobei,

America is a country defined by race - and, specifically, the persecution of people of color (in particular, African Americans).

To say that you “don’t care about skin color” is to miss the point - because America makes African Americans care about our skin color weather we like it or not.

My point was - and remains - in this racist country a White American like this guy in Austin can commit a straightforward act of terrorism and somehow not be identified as a terrorist.

Gorobei,

Perhaps I’m not explaining myself clearly.

So let’s try this again.

Anybody with a political axe to grind who rams a plane into a building is a terrorist irregardless of race.

Period.

Full Stop.

#96: “This country has been all about skin color and religion ever since the first slave ship docked at Jamestown, VA in 1617.”

Actually, it was 1619.

# 101 - and whiskey tango foxtrot for the nitpick!

Sorry for the correction?

Actually, it’s all one word. Haha!

gorobei,

This guy states in his “manifesto” that he’s pissed off at the government. He used violence to get his point across. That’s terrorism.

FYI, the FBI’s definition of terrorism isn’t the only accepted definition.

Gorobei, This is getting silly.

This guy carried out an act of politicized violence - he hated the IRS, and he attacked an IRS office with a plane, killing an IRS worker.

How can you not understand that this is terrorism?

I’m sure if he were Muslim, you’d - rightly - call him a terrorist.

I’m sure you called that guy who tried to blow up a plane in Detroit on Christmas Day a terrorist - so why can’t you call this guy a terrorist?

What’s with all this “if he was a Muslim you’d have no problem calling him a terrorist” shit? Anyone can be a terrorist.

Politicized violence is always terrorism.

# 110, I’m being a realist - and I know my country and it’s habitual racism very very very well - I know that, had a Muslim bombed that federal building nobody would have questioned calling him a terrorist.

The only reason there is any debate about this chump being a terrorist is because he’s White

Assassinating political leader is just that. An assassination.

But when a person or group uses violence against civilians, to further their agenda/point, it’s terrorism.

Your example reminds me of “The Battle of Algiers,” except the FLN bombed French civilians and the French paratroopers tortured members of the FLN. Good film. Watch it.

I see your point. Not all political violence is terrorism and I retract that. However, most of it is.

Well, the Ft. Hood shooting, in my opinion, was just a guy who went postal. I know he had connections to Anwar al-Awlaki through e-mail, but I hesitate to call the man a terrorist. Mainly because a soldier is still a soldier, even in garrison. Now this blurs the line because most of the time on base, military personnel don’t carry a condition 1 or 3 weapon. We don’t know all the facts. We don’t know if al-Awlaki gave him orders to massacre people. We don’t know if he was possibly self-radicalized or just had all this pent up rage from not getting laid. I don’t know yet. I understand that the guy probably felt a bit isolated on account of him being a Muslim and this probably contributed to his actions, however, to me, he was just a guy who randomly killed his colleagues.

I don’t dispute the fact that these were religiously and politically motivated. I just think a lot of people are jumping to the conclusion of terrorism way to early. When he’s prosecuted, should the army go for terrorism charges or murder charges? Either way, the dude’s fucked.

# 115 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot [WTF],

”...or just had all this pent up rage from not getting laid.”

???

I’ve never heard of anybody getting so angry from not having sex that they went out and murdered 11 people!

I’ve heard of people who haven’t had sex in a while masturbating - or sublimating their sex urge by doing lots of pushups, or playing lots of basketball, or taking lots of showers.

But shooting rampages????

Not so much….

Joke. It was a fucking joke!

# 117, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I never found “jokes” about spree killings particularly funny.

Yeah, because you probably get offended at the most miniscule thing.

Or maybe I am just a cold-blooded jerk.

Your call.

No, I just don’t find killing people to be particularly funny.

Many folks agree with me on this.

And, for something that was supposed to be a “joke” you sure did a poor job of writing it.

It didn’t stand out from your post the way a joke inserted in a serious comment should - it fit into the narrative as if you meant it seriously.

Comedy writing is hard - and it’s easy for poorly crafted jokes to flop (as this one did) - may I suggest writing classes?

Grow up, Mr. 1617.

# 121 W T F who spells out his nickname in military alpha

Actually, I am full grown - grown enough to know enough about writing to actually have been published (go to Amazon and do an author search for “Gregory A. Butler”) - so you might want to follow my suggestion about writing classes.

Actually Greg, it’s the phonetic alphabet.

It’s good to know that being published is grounds for calling yourself a grown-up. Fortunately, I don’t give two shits about unions in New York.

It’s the alphabet used by the military.

Being published is grounds for lots of things - including being able to dispense advice on writing to folks like you.

And, as it happens, the unions in New York don’t give two shits about you either (nor do I)

Final word of advice - you really should get those writing lessons (you need them - badly)

Dude, seriously, you don’t know what you’re talking about. The phonetic alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie) is the alphabet used by the military. I should know. I was in the Marine Corps. That’s what we call it.

Frankly, I’ll never be in a union and I’ll definitely never live in New York, so ha!

Don’t need lessons. I’s a college student.

I see the USMC has lowered it’s standards since my dad was in the corps - considerably.

[Lance Corporal Ronald C. Butler went from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima with the 3rd Marine Division, just so you know - so don’t try to pull rank with that “i was a marine” bull]

BTW, if you get a job at a workplace that’s a union shop, you are required to join the union - but they’ll make it worth your while, with the higher wages, 100% employer-paid health insurance, pension benefits and union representation on the job and all that.

Of course, as New York City is the most heavily unionized city in the nation, we get the best of all of that.

Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?

And with that - I’m done.

Thank you W T F, it’s been real.

Not really. Seeing that I’m majoring in political science, I don’t see myself working in a union.

Who said I was pulling rank? I was simply stating that the phonetic alphabet is just that. And where the fuck is your credibility? Just because your dad was a Marine in WWII doesn’t give you the right to judge the current standards of the Marine Corps. Seriously, what would you know about it?

Now go whittle something.

W T F - I install high end office furniture in CEO’s offices and Wall Street financial houses - no whittling there.

And, if you end up as a professor, depending on the school you could very well end up a union member, so don’t be so quick to beat the Right To Work drums just yet!

Don’t plan on getting my PhD. Just an M.A.

Good luck with that, and with all your future endeavors.

But, with a masters, you might end up as a public schoolteacher - and 80% of America’s teachers are union members.

#132: Chet

Major Nidal also purchased a civilian side arm, and spent a lot of time at a civilian range getting very proficient with it’s use.

As a medical corps officer stationed in the US, he really had no need for a side arm - and if he had been deployed, the Army would have issued him one.

Now, of course, every American has a Second Amendment right to bear arms - including military personnel who do not need a weapon for military reasons - but, in light of what happened, his purchase of a civilian firearm was clearly preparation for the shooting spree.

GAB,
Depending on the state, not even all people working in a “union shop” must join a union.  In NY, you are correct.  I believe also: NJ, CT, and MA.  No so several midwestern and southern states, though they still have things they call “ubnion shops” that you and I would not recognize as such.
Out of curiousity, since you seem so sure everyone has the same exact experiences you do if they are African American in the US or tradesfolk in the US, have you ever been outside of NYC?

#134: helen w. h

I’m a Carpenters Union shop steward, so I really don’t need you to explain the Taft Hartley Act of 1947 (as amended) to me.

I’ve also written hundreds of essays - and an entire book - on labor issues.

There are 22 so called “right to work” states [Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho,  Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma
South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming] they prohibit the union shop, but they do allow “maintenance of membership” “agency shop fees” and other methods that enable unions to promote union membership and collect fees from non members they represent.

And even in the so called “right to work states” unions are allowed to be the exclusive bargaining agent at a workplace.

Of course, in the other 28 states, unions can compel membership.

With public employees, the law is different, depending on the state involved and what it’s public employee collective bargaining laws are.

So, Helen, since I know more on this topic than you do, perhaps you should tone the arrogance and the lecturing tone down, just a little bit!

Your welcome!

Oh, and go to Amazon and buy my book “DISUNITED BROTHERHOODS ..race, racketeering and the fall of the New York construction unions” - you might learn something!

Which is not what you were saying above.  You need to look at being more exact in your language.  If someone joins a “union shop” in AL, they will not be compelled to join a union.
And seriously, between your insistance you know everything about racism and your experience is the only valid one, especially re biracial and multiracial people and unions, you have a load of nerve calling me arrogant.
Also, once again, your focus is clearly NYC.  I have found that some people who have spent all or most of their time in one local or regional area have no clue as to the possibility anyone could have different experiences.  Maybe you aren’t one of those people, but you sure have been post as if you are.
In other words, shove it, jerk.

Helen,

You’re nitpicking, because you don’t want to acknowledge that you know less about labor relations than I do.

And you’re still mad about the racism thing - because it bothers you when Black people speak out against White supremacy (White liberals like you are supposed to speak for us).

And you are resorting to petty regional bias and personal insults.

All of which are examples of epic FAIL on your part.

Your welcome, and have a nice day.

GAB, I’m gonna apply for the Security Studies graduate program. With that, teaching in a public school is the absolute last thing I want to do.

Chet, while I acknowledge that he was in contact with al-Awlaki, I don’t think he was under his thumb. Again, the evidence hasn’t been completely put out for the public, but to me, Hassan was just a disgruntled dude. This guy was seriously unstable and lonely. This doesn’t seem like an act of terrorism. Where are the co-conspirators? When I asked my professor (head of the Security Studies department) about the incident he said the guy wasn’t a terrorist and the massacre wasn’t terrorism. If the expert says it’s not, then I believe him.

WTF

Be that as it may, why the bias against unions?

After all, if it wasn’t for unions, we’d still have a 6 day workweek in this country (unions were responsible for winning Saturday as a day off during the Depression - a little known fact).

And why the bias against New York City?

It’s a great city - with lots of opportunities for professionals in the security and law enforcement fields (except, of course, police here are unionized - and you don’t like unions, so there’s that)

I agree. Unions DID have a place in the Progressive Era. Unions played a huge role in getting workers weekends, eight hour days, etc. My biggest beef with unions are two things:

1) Pensions: pensions are good. Yes. Who wants to work until they’re dead? Pensions were good for companies that wanted to keep workers. A great incentive to stay. Unfortunately, pensions are contributing to businesses going broke. When people retired, business happily offered pensions because (this might sound cold-blooded) people died shortly after retirement. With the advent of modern medicine, people are living into their 80’s, 90’s, and beyond.

2) Outsourcing: unionized workers have this sense of entitlement. They think their labor is worth five times more than those of Chinese, Mexican, etc. workers. I mean, a business has to look for ways to make money. That’s the point of a business. If an American textile worker is demanding to be paid $16/hour and a Mexican textile worker will do the same job for $4/hour, which one seems to be the most viable option.

Also, my dad is a hardcore, mega supporter of his union (Machinists Union) and believes union bosses are infallible, despite the Mafia ties and lobbying. I hate lobbyists.

WTF,

You really should listen to your dad about unions - he knows what he’s talking about!

Actually, it’s corporate America’s crisis of competitiveness and failure to innovate that’s wrecking the economy - since most American workers don’t have pensions, that’s irrelvant.

As for Mexican and Chinese workers, they are as good as us (hell, there are a lot of immigrant workers from both of those countries in the New York building trades, I see them all the time) and they deserve the same wages and benefits we get

Look, the bottom line is, labor creates all wealth - we do the work, and the capitalists expropriate it for their own personal use, paying us a fraction of the true value of our labor.

That’s the fundamental problem of capitalist society - and that’s also why I am a communist who believes in overthrowing capitalism.

Until the working class gets strong enough to do that, unions act as an effective brake on capitalist profiteering - and that’s why I support them.

As for cosa nostra [Italian for “this thing of ours”the real name of “the mafia” ] that’s a long and complex story, as you know I wrote a book about the subject of cosa nostra and labor [“DISUNITED BROTHERHOODS”]  and I suggest you go over to amazon and buy it.

Beyond that, why the beef with New York City?

I still don’t get that.

Wealth is created by a combination of business and industry. Corporatism and labor. The beauty of capitalism is, for example, you can right a book and profit from it.

I have no beef with NYC. I just prefer to not live there.

Actually, no

The only sources of value are labor and natural resources

In a real way, wealth is a form of legalized theft, being as the fortunes of the capitalists come from the portion of the value generated by labor labor that they do not repay to the workers.

Have you ever actually been to NYC?

If so, what didn’t you like?

If not, how can you really say you didn’t like it?

I’ve never been to NYC. But there are a few things I don’t like about it:

1) high taxes
2) high cost of living
3) gun control
4) the Yankees

We get world class public services in return for the taxes we pay.

There are only a handful of American cities where you can live without a car - New York is one of them, because of our 24/7/365 transit system, that can get you anywhere in the city for $ 2.25 cents at any time of the day or night.

It’s worth the taxes.

High cost of living - blame the real estate developers for that (I sure as hell do)

Gun control - well, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, the state legislature here feared an American version of the storming of the Winter Palace, so they passed the Sullivan Law, which is still on the books, and is the strictest gun control law in the nation.

With that said, you can still exercise your Second Amendment rights here - you just have to follow the rules.

I’m a member of a gun club, and my permit is working it’s way through the process - meanwhile, I am allowed to target shoot on the gun club’s premises, with their rifles (you can’t even touch a pistol until the NYPD gives you a permit - but the rules are laxer for rifles)

But, you really don’t need a gun for self protection in a city with the largest police department in the world - the NYPD has over 40,000 officers for a city of 8 million.

That’s more cops than in the entire country of Canada (they only have 36,000 for a population of 29 million).

Again, you don’t need a gun here - all you need is a phone - just call 911 - they’ll be there, in force, in literally 2 minutes from the time you place the call.

About the Yanks…

Really?

It’s just a baseball team and it’s just a game!

But if you’re that serious about sports, remember, if you lived here, you’d have the best baseball team in the world as your home team!

Unless you became a Mets fan, of course….

In any case, whatever works for you…. but you’re missing a bet by not coming here!

There’s a big difference between being disgruntled and brainwashed to hate a state/way of life from the beginning.

The main reason I say the guy is unstable (I’m not a doc) is because this dude was seriously looking for a wife. He was lonely. He was pissed by some of the stories he heard about Iraq. From what I’ve read, he was self-radicalized and not very sociable.

I’m not saying it’s impossible to be a lone-terrorist, just improbable. Terrorist groups, specifically Islamist terrorist groups, work in networks. For the record, if al-Awlaki is found to have some sort of sphere of influence on Hassan or gave any order for such a crime, then our government should persuade the Yemeni government to hand him over. Or just drone the bastard.

I’m not determined to avoid labelling this douche a terrorist for the sake of being PC. Absolutely not. The guy, to me, just seemed like a loner and desperate for his shit life to end. There’s no evidence that al-Awlaki gave him the order to kill a bunch of soldiers. If he did in fact give the order, then by all means, I’ll be the first one to say this motherfucker is a terrorist.

I’ll ask the department head when I get a chance, but I doubt he’s changed his mind.

So Wahhabism isn’t a misinterpreted/misinformed sect of Islam? Wahhabists don’t brainwash? I’m not talking “A Clockwork Orange” type of brainwashing. And who says well-educated/well-off humans can’t be brainwashed into a radical way of interpretation of the teachings of a prophet?

Desperate for a wife. No friends. A feeling of loneliness can do a lot to man. It’s not a diagnosis. Just an observation from someone who has absolutely no knowledge of psychoanalysis. Take it at face value.

I understand that he was in CONTACT with al-Awlaki. There’s just no evidence that the order came from Yemen.

http://www.slate.com/id/2235361/

Considering that the Wahhabi sect is the dominant branch of Islam in one of the most conservative Muslim countries, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (a staunch US ally going back to 1945, BTW) I really don’t think they are “radicals”!

Unless you consider the King of Saudi Arabia to be a “radical” of course!

Considering that Sunnis (the vast majority of Muslims) believe Wahhabism to be radical and heresy, I’d say you’re wrong.

WTF -

What’s your source on that?

Because I happen to know a lot of Sunnis (there are a whole lot of Muslims in NYC) and I’ve never heard any of them say anything like that (even the ones who were Imams and would, presumably, be in a position to know if that was true, theologically speaking)!

Is that some propaganda that some non-Muslim professor taught you in Security Studies class?

Or did some non-Muslim officer tell you that in the Corps?

Either way, so far as I know, that’s not true.