While the Tea Party movement started out with normal, conservative people with legitimate gripes about the way the US was going, now it seems to have been taken over by the fringe who worship nutball self promoters ranging from Beck to Palin. There have already been calls by some wacko TeaBaggers to kill the President, so I wonder if they’ll make Stack their patron saint and we’ll see more of this kind of thing as they get madder at Obama and the government.
Seven Deadly Traits: Decoding the confession of the Austin plane bomber
Joseph Stack spent months on his manifesto. He was adamant about convincing us—or himself—why flying his plane into an IRS building was an act of charity.
The five-page rant the software engineer wrote before his performance murder is illogical, hysterical, hyperbolic, and deeply dishonest. Stack’s convoluted arguments explain nothing, and the thumbnail sketch of his impoverished life is absurd. And that’s exactly why it’s so revealing. The software engineer tried to con us with a deceptive self-portrait, but the real Joseph Stack reveals himself in the way he concocts it.
I’ve spent 11 years studying routes to mass murder, in particular for a book on the Columbine school shootings, and it’s startling how similar all the manifestos sound. Many of Stack’s passages were practically lifted right out of the diatribes of Eric Harris, the Columbine mastermind. Yet while the notes are the same, the tune is not. Harris was a textbook psychopath, and Stack doesn’t read that way at all.
[...]
I spoke with several experts in mass murder Thursday, and we identified seven deadly traits of impending danger in Stack’s manifesto.
Read the article to find out what they are.
#59 LibertyLover – You took the argument right from my tongue, man! Thanks! Essentially, government attempts to preempt crimes from occurring with the threat of punishment after the fact, but as you said in your post, it isn’t very effective. Instead, the government passes laws that only disarms the victim. A law banning firearms isn’t going to stop criminals from getting them. And in the end, the victim gets no restitution. Instead, the victim has to not only pay by being victimized by the perpetrator, he is victimized a second time by having to pay for the jail cell the perp is being held in. How is this justice???
#60 tcc3 – Touche.
#54 GregA – I’ll be back later to answer those questions and more…
#61 Lordy, another tiresome libertarian wingnut. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and bubbling with ideas, 99.9% of them wrong. Or is it just LL in disguise?
#62, Don’t force me to use logic on you again.
You know how much you hate it.
The “logic” of a loser: “The government taxes people to make and enforce laws. People still break the law. Therefore we should have no taxes and no government.”
Ha, ha.
What dopes.
There is honest disagreement. There is spin oriented douchebaggery. Then there is just plain stupid–aka==libertarianism as an absolute.
#62 Phydeau – Yes, it’s so easy to just write me off as a libertarian wingnut. But where’s your logical rebuttal…it seems to be missing. Just because my views aren’t mainstream doesn’t mean they aren’t valid. Try thinking instead of regurgitating whatever party line talking points you imbibed from whatever cable talk show host or radio pundit you listen to every morning.
#54 Greg Allen – To answer all your questions, I’d have to write a book. Which is why I suggest reading “A Market for Liberty”. Once again, it’s free to download. Give Shakespeare a break buddy.
I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about the free market. But, as I stated before, this wouldn’t be done overnight. Now I know it’s a lot to chew on, but let me ask you this, would you agree to limit government to only courts, police and military for mainland defense purposes only, and leave everything else to the free market?
Now I don’t have answers for everything, that’s the point of the free market. Millions of minds and efforts coming up with solutions, as opposed to dictates coming down from above from our supposed leaders who are mostly a bunch of lawyers.
The street example is simple. Everyone needs roads to travel between home and where they’re going. Companies could rent the roads in front of your house, set up EZ pass on the telephone poles, and use that money to maintain the roads, etc.
Firemen could be paid for by home insurance. Without having to pay for licenses and regulatory fees to the government, not to mention lobbyists, etc. they could use some of the money you pay every 6 months to fund a fire station in your general area. If the neighbor’s house is responsible for my house catching on fire, either his insurance company would pay for restitution or he would, kind of like how a car accident works.
Please don’t try your fear tactics on me, they are baseless. Denouncers of the free market often neglect to observe the difference between corporatism and capitalism. Corporations have the government and its regulations and justice system of which to take advantage to protect themselves from wronged consumers and upstart competition. If there were no government to provide corporations that service, they’d have to compete for your business. Therefore, you’d have more choices, and that means better quality for cheaper prices. Hence, if an unregulated electrician is known for mis-wiring homes, he’d go out of business. Also, he’d be sued for restitution of your home and anything you lost due to his faulty work. Electricians who do a good job would get all the business and prosper. Same with sellers of Chinese baby food & bad insulin.
And I’ve caught you using faulty logic. You see, there is government in rural Pakistan. They just don’t have the resources this government has. And at the rate this government is going into debt, it’ll end up just as ineffective as Pakistan’s. The only thing progressive government brings about is tyranny. It is progressively taking away your rights.
#65–BBadthedope: you say: “They just don’t have the resources this government has.” /// Please illustrate this “resource” other than a tax base?
Another too simple comment on the free market: without rules, there is no freedom==just a cesspool. Just like basketball. Why not just two sides, a ball and a hoop? Want to play that game or have rules and a referee?
Grow a brain. WHAT taxes don’t you like and why? Stop being an IDIOT.
BmoreBadBoy – the problem with your system when it comes to safety is that its reactive, biased and not always honest. This is the system we had before the turn of the century with unscrupulous meat packers, snake oil sales men, etc. Sure impropely prepared meat would make people sick and might eventually go under – but how many people get sick and die before that happens?
How long do shysters sell “home remedies” that do nothing before people figure it out?
How well would an unregulated EM spectrum work? is everyone free to noisy up the airwaves until there’s no communication/broadcast capability at all?
The funny thing is these thing still happen to a small degree – even with the regs. I cannot imagine how bad things would be if no one had to follow the rules.
#66 bobbo – You resort to name calling because you have no counter argument. All you can do is shout your feelings loudly to try to drown out reason. Of course the tax base is government’s only resource. Without it, government has nothing with which to operate.
I never said there should be no rules. I said the rules shouldn’t be dictates handed down from above by self serving politicians. The free market regulates itself. How? Simple. Businesses compete with each other for customers and employees. The customer gets to vote everyday with his money, instead of voting every 2,4 or 6 years in a meaningless election between 2 non-choices.
#67 tcc3 – Of course the free market is not perfect. And as you said, these things happen already with regs. What you fail to see is that with government, huge corporations get to get away with scams, but the small guy gets destroyed once caught. In a free market society, you might have small time shysters here and there, who would have to keep moving in order to keep it up, but the huge corporation doesn’t have the government to protect itself from competition and grievances from customers. A small time shyster could sell snake oil once. Then he’d have to move on. Now, with regs, pharmaceutical companies sell their FDA approved pills for years before millions die, then it gets pulled off the shelf, with minimal consequence to the corporation.
Like I said, I don’t have answers to everything. In a free market society, people would have to learn to get along with each other without nanny state stepping in. I don’t know what would happen with radio/tv stations, but anybody with an internet connection, webcam and mic can start streaming live.
Oh, and need I remind you of the huge peanut factory scandal that happened last fall??? Right after FDA inspections? The system we have now is reactive, biased and dishonest. Don’t be fooled by the man behind the curtain calling himself the wizard which is government.
#68–bboy==yea, thats right. Ignore what is actually said and continue with the dogman/bumper stickers.
I wish I could give your “position” the credibility you pose as desiring yourself===but there is no doubt about it, some positions, LIKE YOURS, are just plain stupid. To give them any more credibility is a false equivalency.
Everything you post is STUPID!!!!
As in: “I never said there should be no rules. I said the rules shouldn’t be dictates handed down from above by self serving politicians.” == ok, prove me the fool, what would be the source of rules we should follow if not from politicians?
BBoys alternative to rule by the self governed is: ______ (fill in the blank) but none of us will be waiting for your gibberish.
Cue Loser. ((If is “ignore list” is not turned on??===ha ha!!))
BmoreBadBoy said,
“Where I get confused once again is how is paying taxes patriotic???”
Definition of patriotism: support the government
To directly support the gov you can volunteer for military service, become elected and/or pay taxes. Taxes being the means by which the state funds everything they do. Does a lot more than flag waving.
The US Govt. was involved in crashing planes into the World Trade Towers and a missile into the Pentagon and no one is calling them a nut.
#68,
http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/60258
This works great for bobbo, too.
# 18 BmoreBadBoy:
“… He starts off making a lot of sense when denouncing government (which is self-serving), taxes (which is just a glorified form of extortion)…”
The difference is what use they put the money to: most extortionists use the money for big cars, big houses, fancy jewelry and clothes; tax money mostly goes to things like roads, schools and schoolteachers, laws, cops and courts, clean air, water and food, etc.
# 43 BmoreBadBoy:
“#38 Greg Allen – If all these things are so great, why does the government have to force you to pay for them? [...]“
Because there are a lot of selfish cheapskate bastards out there who, like the willful two-year-old, don’t want to share. “MINE!” they shout, and lash out at whoever is closest to them. (Sound familiar?)
Then there are the whole groups of certifiable nutjobs like the ones Stack fell in with. From the article:”… a fringe group or groups who believed they were exempt from the federal income tax.” These people have managed to convince themselves of all kinds of ridiculous rationales, such as that a court has no jurisdiction because the flags in the courtroom were the wrong flags, or they were arranged incorrectly. It is a very particular kind of mental illness far beyond the two-year-old’s mean selfishness, even though that may have been the seed for it. They seem to believe that if they hold their tongue a certain way or call “S.O.E.” in just the right way, they can weasel out from under the normal rules.
# 48 BmoreBadBoy:
“… Good people can live in a society where you aren’t forced to do anything you don’t want to do. [...]“
Yeah, and they can starve to death, too!
Aha! I finally understand where he’s coming from! It’s the old “A-in-the-circle” Anarchy! The old “Nobody has to do what they don’t wanna!” conflated with the fairy-tale Garden of Eden, Deus-ex-Perfect Free Market!
Don’t you understand, youngster? Haven’t you heard the news? Mankind was kicked out of the Garden of Eden for being a lazy-ass, selfish, violent son-of-a-bitch! Human nature is the reason the “Perfect Free Market” doesn’t exist without strong regulation — just read a little about the millions of American children poisoned and sickened to death by unscrupulous milk sellers (in competition in a “Free Market” with other milk-sellers) until cities and states started passing laws regulating the production, distribution and sale of milk in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Infant mortality in New York City dropped from 17% to between 3% and 4% almost immediately! That’s only one example. Dig those ipod earbuds out and read some history, for Pete’s sake, and stop hanging out with and reading books by only one small group — that’s what pushed Stack over the edge, says the author of the article, and he has a point.
Just one more:
# 65 BmoreBadBoy:
“… Just because my views aren’t mainstream doesn’t mean they aren’t valid. [...]“
No, but it’s a clue! Try and figure out what percentage of the population believe as you do. If you come up with a figure higher than 2% to 3%, tops, try again. And wonder why it’s so small…
#73, Human nature is the reason the “Perfect Free Market” doesn’t exist without strong regulation
You use an example and then misrepresent it? Perhaps it’s you who should read up on his history.
The milk problem was resolved through totally voluntary means.
In 1889, two years before the death of his son from contaminated milk, Newark, New Jersey doctor Henry Coit, MD urged the creation of a Medical Milk Commission to oversee or “certify” production of milk for cleanliness, finally getting one formed in 1893 (5).
By joining with select dairy experts, Coit and his team of physicians (unpaid for this work, by the way) were able to enlist dairy farmers willing to meet their strict standards of hygiene in the production of clean, certified milk.
And guess what . . . it worked!
It wasn’t until the 1940s that pasteurization became law — with the help of a few campaign donations.
http://tinyurl.com/yaalc4r
#73, No, but it’s a clue! Try and figure out what percentage of the population believe as you do. If you come up with a figure higher than 2% to 3%, tops, try again. And wonder why it’s so small…
They are becoming more mainstream than you think. I’ve seen different sources quote percentages from 23% to 35%. The truth is more than likely dead center. That is a much higher number than just one year ago.
And more and more Libertarian-minded officials are being elected all over the country at the local and regional levels than ever before.
I, myself, am running this spring.
Fortunately, the people are waking up.
BmoreBadBoy, for your information, all the things you’re saying in this forum have been said already by LibertyLover, and have been dissected, discredited, and dismissed. He keeps on plugging (gotta give him credit for perseverance) and he can get a response from new people. But he keeps saying the same stupid things over and over, so there isn’t much point in us old-timers debating him, or you. FYI.
376, dissected, discredited, and dismissed.
Dismissed, maybe, but certainly not dissected or discredited.
Once you’ve been logically proven to be incorrect, you always run away.
#77 You’re inspiring, LL. Deluded, misguided, but you sure are determined.
#70 Tim – Ah, color me corrected. What I meant was blind patriotism is a fool’s errand. Paying taxes to a corrupt government isn’t laudable. I don’t want to support greedy politicians who do not represent my interests.
#72 LibertyLover – Nice script. I don’t mind arguing with sheep like bobbo though, because it is the best way to expose them and give others something to think about outside the lame stream talking points.
#73 Uncle Patso – If only that were true, I wouldn’t have such a gripe with government. First of all, the ends don’t justify the means. Even if every government bureaucracy were full of saints who spent every penny for the good of the citizenship, stealing money from anyone at the point of a gun at the threat of loss of property and liberty is plain wrong. Second, bureaucracy by its very definition is wasteful of money and inefficient. Dictionary: a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation. Add on top of that, it is safer to assume the people who run these bureaucracies are self-serving (as opposed to altruistic). That opens the door to corruption. These people aren’t even elected, meaning there is little check on their authority, and since government is a monopoly, there are no market forces for them to react to either. That’s why education is failing, justice system is horrible, air, water is polluted and food is getting so regulated one day it’ll be illegal to eat tomatoes grown from yourown garden.
To be continued…
#78, And that’s how you justify “dissected” and discredited,” with insults?
Come on, show us a situation where the U.S. government did a better job, not defined in the Constitution, than private enterprise, and didn’t have the regulations written by the same people who were to be regulated.
You won’t find a single one. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. That’s why you resort insults and when confronted with the truth carry your ass off somewhere else.