Domestic Terrorism

by Dick Mac

A guy is angry at the IRS. He refuses to pay taxes. He finds himself in a legal wrangle that he cannot win. He owns a home and a private plane. He is not a poor man. He is capable of paying his fair share of building and maintaining a civilization, and he wants to have a piece of the action.

But, he doesn't want to play fair, and he won't pay his taxes.

The stress of fighting with the government becomes all-consuming and he is filled with self-righteous anger. Anger that is defended with facts and analysis of the laws of the land.

He becomes more and more despondent about his situation.

Sadly, he takes his life.

He leaves a long suicide note that discusses his conflict with the government and the weight of his worries and concerns. Yet, he is dead.

The media give the man's suicide quite a bit of sympathetic attention. There are no discussions of the selfishness of suicide, or the plight of those left behind to carry the guilt and pain of his last selfish act.

A truly sad situation, as are all suicides.

His daughter connects with the liberal media at ABC News and explains that her dad is a hero. Fox News agrees. They publish this article: Daughter Calls Pilot in Texas Plane Crash a Hero in which it is reported that his daughter believes he killed himself because " . . . if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished."

But, wait . . .

The real story is not a sad and poignant tale of man's trials and tribulations and a sad suicide. This is the story:

A guy becomes a right-wing, teabagger-type who thinks that by deconstructing the tax code and the Constitution he can absolve himself of any responsibility for paying his fair share of the cost of civilization. He rants and raves, but refuses to pay the piper. He demands freedom of speech and the right to bear arms and the privileges of property ownership, but he doesn't want to pay for the expense of these freedoms and privileges. He blames religion and government for society's ills and demands that he be absolved of any responsibility for community, country, civilization, and society.

He publishes posts on the internet where he explains why he doesn't have to play by the rules.

Things go poorly for him. The IRS applies more and more pressure to get from him everything he owes. he resists. He becomes more maniacal about his insane political position. He decides the government must be taught a lesson and he is the one, the savior, who will make things right.

He sets his house on fire, ostensibly so the government can't take it; leaving his family homeless. He gets in his airplane and flies it into a government building, killing an innocent person and himself, and causing tens of millions of dollars of damage.

The media has handled these stories before: disgruntled person with a grudge against America flies an aircraft into a building causing death and destruction. The media calls these people terrorists. We round-up their associates and family members. Many are imprisoned here in the United States, and some are secreted to black sites in Europe or to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

This time, though, the criminal is a white, middle-class American man, and suddenly the word 'terrorist' is nowhere to be found in the reports. Fox News and other liberal media began a campaign to turn him into a hero. His family is presented as rational victims of the bad government, his associates are interviewed about their opinions, and every one is free to go.

If this guy's name had been Kareem, instead of Joe, and his family's name had been Mohamed, instead of Stack, I think liberal media like Fox News and ABC would be handling this a little differently. I think the Department of Homeland Security would be talking to a lot of people at his mosque, probably would have arrested anyone who had discussed the government with him, and there we be calls to spend more money investigating brown people around the world.

But, a hero he becomes. A poor, disgruntled, white man who was driven to suicide by the mean government.

Sorry, folks: this guy is a terrorist and the media should be calling him a terrorist.