Trendsetter?

Man angry at IRS crashes plane into Texas building
Feb 18, 2010 (5:18p CST)
By JIM VERTUNO (Associated Press Writer)

AUSTIN, Texas - A software engineer furious with the Internal Revenue Service launched a suicide attack on the agency Thursday by crashing his small plane into an office building containing nearly 200 IRS employees, setting off a raging fire that sent workers fleeing for their lives. At least one person in the building was missing.

The FBI tentatively identified the pilot as Joseph Stack. A federal law official said investigators were looking at a long anti-government screed and farewell note that he apparently posted on the Web earlier in the day as an explanation for what he was about to do.

In it, the author cited run-ins he had with the IRS and ranted about the tax agency, government bailouts and corporate America's "thugs and plunderers."

"I have had all I can stand," he wrote in the note, dated Thursday, adding: "I choose not to keep looking over my shoulder at 'big brother' while he strips my carcass."

So a man who's fed up with it all decides to off himself and, he hopes, take a few IRS employees with him. Is this the start of a trend of Americans pushing back against a tyrannical government? I seriously doubt it, at least when it comes to this course of action. Generally speaking, Americans don't have the stomach for what it would take for a real revolution. Sure, we talk about a second American Revolution, but it ain't going to happen. Instead, we content ourselves with Walter Mitty fantasies, stockpiling ammunition, and swallowing pointless political rhetoric.

But who can blame us? TPTB are far too strong and insidious to even think of prevailing against. To try is to do what this man did: commit suicide. No, this production will have to play until its final act, where the lead actors--the Federal government and various state governments--become so thoroughly weakened through fiscal ineptitude, not to mention moral turpitude, that they can no longer meet their obligations to their minions who use force to keep it all functioning. At that point, the entire system will come to halt, and that is the place for a revolution for liberty. Until then, we'll just have to persevere and savor the (very) occasional victory/triumph for liberty.

Take care.
DAL357