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I think Joe knew that taxing income was Constitutional, else he wouldn't have first tried to claim that he was a church, and then he wouldn't have tried to hide income. He tried to scam the system. Some people, like you, think this is a form of protest. When your children lie to you, do you think it's a form of protest against parental authority, or do you think they are trying to cover up their own wrongdoing? When a coworker steals credit for your work, protest or scam?
I think we all realize that you think taxing people's income is wrong, and that you identify with Mr Stack because he fought against paying his own income taxes. But his lying and hiding didn't further the tax protest movement. Refusing to pay your taxes is protest. I don't see how lying about your tax liability is protest. If you think the tax laws are wrong, how does lying about your income and your status serve as protest? Isn't protest about proving to others that the tax laws are wrong? It just doesn't seem to me that cheating proves that tax laws are wrong, only that tax laws can be secretly broken. And trying to sneak things by, that's not civil disobedience. People committing civil disobedience want to be caught. Protesters want to be caught. Criminals don't. A large section of Mr Stack's diatribe was about being caught, and his dismay that he was caught. He was angry about being caught. To me, that's a problem for people who want to elevate Mr Stack to hero status. He was trying to sneak past the law and was angry about being caught. I realize that to you he was trying to sneak past the law, but he wasn't sneaking past the law to benefit others, only to benefit himself. That's just not heroic or laudable to me.
DC you make a valid point and I can't wholly disagree with you. But, I think an expansion of thought is required here. Yes, many who engage in civil disobedience do so with the intention and even the desire to be caught and their acts are an attempt to protest something they deem unfair or unjust. These people commit acts of civil disobedience because they recognize and accept, even if tacitly, the authority of the government and its laws. Indeed it is because they acknowledge the authority of the powers over them that they commit civil disobedience with the hopes of changing for the better the way the power structures over them operate in regards to themselves and others.
But there is another type of civil disobedience in which the very term disobedience is a misnomer but applied for lack of a better term. The term disobedience presupposes a deference to an authority in which one acts in disobedience. But this type of "disobedience" is not necessarily intended to instigate social change by working through the existing structures since these structures are not acknowledged as having legitimate power over the actor. Indeed these are in reality acts of a sovereign self-actualized autonomous human being. For these people, acts seen as disobedience serve not to change laws, but to empower others to do likewise and repudiate the supposed power structures which oppress them and live as autonomous self-sovereigns. In other words, it is the ultimate representation of leading by example.
Now, I can't say with certainty that Stack falls into this second category as it would appear that he indeed did recognize and accept the authority of the IRS over him by attempting to use their codes to his advantage. But that was something he had done in the past so perhaps his viewpoint had changed in later life. Either way, despite his ultimate motivation, he did do something that can be recognized as heroic, actually two things: First, he ultimately refused in the end to prostrate himself to the IRS and their Machiavellian tactics and by doing so perhaps empowered others to do the same. Secondly, he went out on his own terms which deprived the "almighty" state from prosecuting him and feeding the collective self righteous egos of those who hide behind state power in order to artificially compensate for their lack of humanity, sexual adequacy, intellectual acumen and their over all self worth.
That is why I STILL regard Stack as a hero.
Last edited by Consent Withdrawn; 03-12-2010 at 10:55 AM..
DC you make a valid point and I can't wholly disagree with you. But, I think an expansion of thought is required here. Yes, many who engage in civil disobedience do so with the intention and even the desire to be caught and their acts are an attempt to protest something they deem unfair or unjust. These people commit acts of civil disobedience because they recognize and accept, even if tacitly, the authority of the government and its laws. Indeed it is because they acknowledge the authority of the powers over them that they commit civil disobedience with the hopes of changing for the better the way the power structures over them operate in regards to themselves and others.
But there is another type of civil disobedience in which the very term disobedience is a misnomer but applied for lack of a better term. The term disobedience presupposes a deference to an authority in which one acts in disobedience. But this type of "disobedience" is not necessarily intended to instigate social change by working through the existing structures since these structures are not acknowledged as having legitimate power over the actor. Indeed these are in reality acts of a sovereign self-actualized autonomous human being. For these people, acts seen as disobedience serve not to change laws, but to empower others to do likewise and repudiate the supposed power structures which oppress them and live as autonomous self-sovereigns. In other words, it is the ultimate representation of leading by example.
Now, I can't say with certainty that Stack falls into this second category as it would appear that he indeed did recognize and accept the authority of the IRS over him by attempting to use their codes to his advantage. But that was something he had done in the past so perhaps his viewpoint had changed in later life. Either way, despite his ultimate motivation, he did do something that can be recognized as heroic, actually two things: First, ultimately refused in the end to prostrate himself to the IRS and their despotic and unethical tactics and by doing so perhaps empowered others to do the same. Secondly, he went out on his own terms which deprived the "almighty" state from prosecuting him and feeding the collective self righteous egos of those who hide behind state power in order to artificially compensate for their lack of humanity, sexual adequacy, intellectual acumen and their over self worth.
That is why I STILL regard Stack as a hero.
Civil disobediance is non-violent resistance to existing laws/conditions that are unfair.
Stack is a murderer. Just b/c he targeted an IRS building to make his killings doesn't qualify his act as civil disobedience. He's a deranged killer.
Does his act inspire you to assassinate the mailman who is a governmental worker delivering an IRS tax deficiency notification?
Or should we have Joe Q. Public round up a few IRS auditors and execute them summarily as a matter of protesting the despotic and unethical tactics of the IRS?
Civil Disobedience is the antithesis of Stack's act.
Would you list some of these depotic and unethical tactics of the IRS?
Would you list some of these depotic and unethical tactics of the IRS?
Forced taxation regardless of the "taxpayers" financial situation.
The obscene audacity of thinking that their tax payments from you and me supercede our own individual obligations.
Being forced to fund through federal taxes, policies that you do not approve of and may even find morally offensive.
The inequity of having your tax dollars which you struggle financially to pay, being used to bail out corporations which is like robbing the poor to give to the rich. No it's not like it, that's exactly what it is.
The fact that most of the "benefits" we receive from our tax dollars come primairily from the local and state taxes. Is that enough examples for you?
Forced taxation regardless of the "taxpayers" financial situation.
The obscene audacity of thinking that their tax payments from you and me supercede our own individual obligations.
Being forced to fund through federal taxes, policies that you do not approve of an may even find morally offensive
The inequity of having your tax dollars which you struggle financially to pay, being used to bail out corporations which is like robbing the poor to give to the rich. No it's not like it, that's exactly what it is.
The fact that most of the "benefits" we receive from our tax dollars come primairily from the local and state taxes. Is that enough examples for you?
The IRS doesnt decide tax rates on their own. You're blaming the executioner for the death penalty.
Point taken which is why I loathe the government itself even more than the IRS.
Why do you continue to live in this country if you hate it so much? There's a big, wide world out there just waiting for you.
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