Guy flies a plane into a building...
Why won't conservatives refer to the IRS bomber as a terrorist?
Guy flies a plane into a building...
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
Six days ago, a guy with a grudge against the IRS flew a small plane into an Austin federal facility that housed the IRS, setting the building ablaze. Besides killing himself, he killed a 68-year-old employee of the IRS. The dead employe's widow also works for the IRS. The guy who piloted the plane blamed the IRS for his business woes, and declared in a message posted online that "violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer."
Six days later, I am still waiting for conservatives to acknowledge the empirical fact that Joe Stack, who settled his grievance against the government by means of a flying bomb, committed an act of domestic terrorism.
Why do they refuse to call the IRS bomber a terrorist? In his message, he endorsed violence and said that by "striking a nerve," he hoped that people would "wake up and revolt." That appears to meet the definition of a terrorist, as spelled out in the federal code (18 USC, Section 2331). The statute defines "domestic terrorism" as "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any state; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion..."
And here's the official FBI definition: "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."
Yet conservatives, who are often so quick to apply the terrorist label, have been running for cover over the past six days. The columnist Michelle Malkin refers to Stack simply as a "nutball" who was "very disturbed." The Weekly Standard, a magazine that prides itself on its national security vigilance, has posted 62 blog items since the IRS bomber struck - but has mentioned the deadly attack only once. In that lone posting, Stack was dismissed as "all sorts of crazy," because he hated lots of institutions, including unions and organized religion. By making this argument, the Weekly Standard naturally sought to water down the fact that Stack was primarily ticked at the IRS - which is precisely why he flew his plane into the IRS, as opposed to, say, a union headquarters or a church.
Then we have the occasional Republican politician, employing verbal gyrations in order to avoid the T-label. Indeed, the new Massachusetts senator, Scott Brown, said on Fox News that he can feel Joe Stack's pain: "Well, it's certainly tragic and I feel for the families, obviously...People are frustrated. They want transparency. They want their elected officials to be accountable and open and talk about the things affecting their daily lives...No one likes paying taxes, obviously."
No one likes paying taxes, obviously...Hold that thought for a moment.
Let's go now to Iowa congressman Steve King, who was asked about the IRS bomber during last weekend's big conservative confab in Washington. King's comment: "It's sad the incident in Texas happened, but, by the same token, it's an agency that is unnecessary, and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it's going to be a happy day for America. I can tell you I've been audited by the IRS and I've had the sense of 'why is the IRS in my kitchen, why do they havee their thumb in the middle of my back?'"
It's sad, but by the same token...The gist of those two comments is inescapable. Here's the argument:
Flying a plane into a federal building was "sad" and "tragic" (and, as Stack's daughter called it, "inappropriate") - but it wasn't terrorism. Rather, it was an act of frustration against government, and to some extent we all feel that same frustration. The IRS bomber hated paying taxes, and since we all "obviously" hate paying taxes as well, what he did was not terrorism. (A further extrapolation, entirely my own: If you're a violent domestic Muslim frustrated with the American government, you're a terrorist; if you're a violent domestic white guy frustrated with the American government, you're not a terrorist.)
The conservative response to the plane bomber brings to mind a syndrome that I witnessed 15 years ago when I was writing a lot of stories in Northern Ireland. Every time the Irish Republican Army bombed a building and killed some civilians, Sinn Fein (the political party most closely allied to the IRA) would lament the tragic loss of life - while nevertheless contending that the IRA's frustrations with the British government were entirely understandable and thus did not constitute terrorism.
Conservatives here might do well to resist that slippery slope to moral relativism.
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About time somebody called this guy out for what he is. The Tea Party Terrorist isn't any different than Timothy McVeigh, or Randy Weaver, or David Koresh, and he's only a few millimeters beyond the likes of Norquist, Limbaugh, and Beck.— yoda- Bill, could you explain the point you were making with your post? I don't understand what you were trying to say, unless you were simply trying to demonstrate that the Polman quote wasn't civil. As for whether Stack is a terrorist, I suppose by federal definition, he is, as is the Ft. Hood shooter by these definitions. Of course, definitions don't bring any lives back. So whatever you call them, the result of their senseless violence remains the same -- innocent lives taken away.— NigeltheMastiff
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- Dick, you are just an angry man obsessed with silliness.— CD75
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- Mr. Cheese, who exactly do you think Amy Bishop was trying to terrorize? Tenured faculty? Not quite the same as the IRS, I don't think...— yoda
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- Mr. Cheese, please. She didn't shoot the state employees working on the state roads, she shot members of the department committee who recommended against awarding her tenure.— Chris Landee
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- Nigel, Bill's quote was Stack, not Polman. He was being sarcastic. He was using this sarcasm to show that even though liberals like Polman are calling Stack a conservative, and trying to tie him to the republican party, he actually seemed quite liberal in his manifesto. If you read the manifesto, he even criticizes capitalism and lauds communism. The point is that this was a man who was under pressure and being treated poorly by the IRS (not unusual), but he snapped. There are many many people in this country who believe his actions were despicable, but can understand his frustration, and agree about the abuses of government and the IRS. His actions were certainly terrorism. I don't think that there are any conservatives directly denying this point, contrary to what Polman would have you believe. Calling Stack a lunatic does not mean that you do not think that it is an act of terrorism.— pete317
Libs are now in a hurry to label a terrorist a terrorist so they can try to pin this act on a Conservative mindset. Since Conservatives aren't particularly fond of oppressive taxation, it would follow (in a leftists mind) that we're all just this close to pulling a Stack.— jmc
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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