Taxes and Death

For those of you who may want a slight chill with your daily edification, I suggest visiting the Smoking Gun website (www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0218102stack1.html) to read the six page rant of that guy (who shall hereinafter be disrespectfully referred to as "The Ass") who flew his plane into the building in Austin, Texas with the IRS office in it. The Ass' selfless act of patriotism resulted in his death and the death of one Vernon Hunter, a Vietnam veteran with two decades of service in the American Army and a father of six, who also happened to be employed by the IRS. Let me say that none of this is the least bit humorous to any sane person and my sarcasm is intended to be biting, but there are more than a few laughable ironies in the Ass' disjointed, irrational, whiney, self-pitying, polemical diatribe against the inconveniences of modern life.

I hardly know where to begin with a critique of the Ass' attempt to justify cold-blooded murder, but for the most part it is a lamentation on the fact that the big fish eat the little fish and that ignorance of the law is no excuse. This is hardly news to us little fish, or first year law students, so it is difficult to see how the Ass is so surprised by it. The Ass seems to have an issue with the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church, and rails against its corruption, which was my first clue that he might not have a complete set of cutlery, but let's be for real; nobody gives a rat's ass about the Catholic Church; even Catholics don't give a rat's ass about the Catholic Church. However, I am going to resist labeling the guy as a nut (which was my first impulse, over "Ass") because that smacks of patronizing Soviet era perversion of the mental health system to marginalize those who have the gall to disagree. Just because somebody has goofy ideas and believes in pixy dust doesn't mean they are crazy, and assigning the "crazy" label to them often just serves to excuse the inexcusable and allows their instigators and co-conspirators to distance themselves from their handy-work.

Reading between the lines and extrapolating from vague references, it appears that some years ago the Ass got involved in some sort of scam to avoid paying taxes and got bitch-slapped by the IRS. He refers to it "costing him $40,000 and 10 years of his life", so apparently the IRS didn't take very kindly to being trifled with. He later talks about his accountant being a retard and screwing up his taxes such that the IRS was again hounding him (it is interesting to note that he didn't kill the accountant). If you feel there is a consistent theme emerging, you are correct; the Ass was periodically not paying his taxes in a timely manner or in an adequate amount, so he got in a world of shit. Anybody that has ever had an issue with the IRS knows how disheartening that can be, but only a very small percentage of citizens with tax issues actually crash planes into IRS offices. The balance of the six pages is a recounting of personal business failures, criticism of government and the stupidity of the nation's citizens, references to divorce and remarriage, and hating on GM executives for "unthinkable atrocities". I am of the opinion that GM executives have clearly manufactured some unthinkable atrocities over the years, for example, the Pontiac Starfire, but I'm not sure that is essentially a moral issue.

The Ass goes on to conclude that "violence is the only answer", although he really never defines the question. If violence is the only answer to bureaucratic inefficiency and divergent opinions in a pluralistic society, then we are in a real mess. If violence is the only answer to alienation and frustration resulting from rapid social change, then we are completely screwed. If violence is the only answer to not being able to tell the difference between maintenance of social order and totalitarian oppression, then let the chaos begin. I don't imagine there are many people who enjoy paying taxes and I have grave reservations about what the government does with a lot of the money I am compelled to give them, but the Ass' research into the philosophical foundation of our republic apparently didn't include the concept of the social contract or the preamble to the Constitution. We probably do need more equity in our tax structure and we certainly need to get our national spending under control, but killing Vernon Hunter is not likely to achieve either.

I have seen some reports of various political figures who say "we, of course, condemn the violence, but we empathize with the plight of the Ass." Should we empathize with intellectual mediocrity and border-line personality disorder? Should we identify with not knowing when to admit you've made a mistake? Should we validate a self-pitying sense of entitlement to positive outcomes? These are all conditions that cause me to whack my children in the side of the head when observed; I can hardly endorse them in the general public. Actually, the Ass' manifesto reads just like my 17 year-old trying to explain how he had time to sneak out, take the car without permission, and visit his girlfriend until two in the morning, but he couldn't find the time to complete his project for history class. Why would any responsible person say anything other than that the Ass is a complete bozo and his tortured self-justification has no merit in a civilized society? Why indeed.

In America, attitudes about the relationship between citizens and their government are ambivalent at best. This nation was conceived of frustration and delivered through violence, and suspicion of authority is just as strong now as it was in King George's day. We want to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, but we have a hard time accepting the social obligation necessary to achieve the objective. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, when responsibility is abandoned with the aim of increased freedom, a nation shall have neither. This is not 1776; we have a system which many have given their lives for which allows us to accept responsibility for ourselves and control the governance of our nation. The system is not broken; we are, and self-righteousness, impatience and murder don't make you a hero, they just make you an Ass.