Plane Crashes into building in Austin, Texas

[Count Chocula]

I concede on Malkin. Credit (reluctant, but due) to her, and to you.

[FSTargetDrone]

I concede on Malkin. Credit (reluctant, but due) to her, and to you.

Nothing to concede. It just seemed an odd grouping. Figured it was simply a mistake.

[ThomasP]

I'm curious now - any of you non-American members, do you see similar trends with your respective tax-collecting agencies?

The IRS has that reputation for being a hard-assed agency that you don't mess with, and for having some dubious practices on occasion. I'm wondering if kind of perception exists in Europe or elsewhere, or if this is just a product of the US system and/or citizenry.

[Phantasee]

Canada Revenue Agency isn't particularly hard on anyone. My dad just got audited a few weeks ago and I was concerned because I wasn't there for it, but it turned out just fine without any harshness (even though they did fuck it up on their end, to their favour, they got it sorted quickly enough). Although, last I heard there were some billions of dollars in uncollected taxes that they might not be able to collect soon because of a sort of statute of limitations imposed by the courts (I don't remember what it's called if it's not an actual statute). This may cause them to be harder and more aggressive in the future.

[ShadowDragon8685]

No, motherfucker he did NOT "confine" his direct acts. What fuck is wrong with you? He torched a house in close proximity to other houses. He put firemen at risk. The building he hit was NOT exclusively an IRS building, it also had other businesses and other people who were put at direct risk to life and limb. Today, not only are the IRS employees out of work so is everyone else in that building. Do you not see that?

That is leaving aside the economic ramifications of his actions.

Of course I see it. I never said it wasn't true. However, the fact that other businesses or offices were housed in the same building as the IRS seems to have been incidental to the reason for his attack; if he'd wanted simply to cause the most mayhem, destruction, or loss of life, there would have been far better choices than an office building that was apparently lightly populated, judging by the low death toll.

It was a direct attack on the IRS, not IRS agents, not other involved parties. Does that excuse it, no it does fucking not and I'll thank you to fucking stop saying that I am trying to excuse it. However, what I am saying is that it explains it, and even offers it a modicum of nominal nobility compared to, say, if he had decided to crash into a day care or the city hall or a fire department or a hospital or whatever.

I'm not saying it was noble, but I am saying that at least this shitstain managed to stay on target instead of deciding to just cause as much havok as possible.

How about you SAY THAT next time? Clearly, you have failed to clearly communicate. Work on that.

I never claimed to be a master of communications, did I? How about you tighten up that sarcasm drip you've got there.

No - he left them homeless and penniless. Do you think that's not harmful in some way? There's a woman and 12 year old girl who have lost everything, who are now utterly dependent on the charity of strangers, who don't even have a place of their own to fucking sleep at night. No, they're not dead, they're not maimed, he deliberately put them in that position. Again, NOT negligence, NOT an accident!

Let's see... While their house was burned down, it seems likely that anything left in the banks remains there. It's also likely that, in light of the huge publicity of this case, the IRS will choose to forgive any and all outstanding debts owed by Joe Stack that they could otherwise try to extract from his widow, otherwise they'd be legitimizing his grievances after the fact. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it seems likely that he's bought his wife and daughter reprieve from the tax debts he incurred, which would have remained even if he had swallowed his gun or crashed his plane into a field.

And after she issued that appology, well... They'd have to be colossal fuck-ups to go after her for Joe Stack's pile of debt, and if they did, one call to the media would be enough to get their nuts roasted thoroughly. It's possible, albiet unlikely, he took a long-view on this matter; penniless and homeless in the short term, but freed from his bad mistakes long-term which would most likely have rendered them homeless and penniless later on, in a worse time with no public outpouring of sympathy to them as the victims of a madman.

From here:

According to California Secretary of State records, Stack had a troubled business history, twice starting software companies that ultimately were suspended by the state's Franchise Tax Board.

He started Software Systems Service Corp. in Lincoln, Calif., but that business license was suspended in 2004 for nonpayment of back taxes totaling $1,153, KCRA-TV in Sacramento reported. Another company, Prowless Engineering Inc. was suspended in 2000 for failure to file a 1994 tax return, according to KCRA.

Stack listed himself as chief executive officer of both companies.

Also USAToday, and as mentioned KCRA.

Ah-hah.

Yeah, I'd call that idiotic, stupid and criminal douchebaggery, too.

Right - he bitches about Arthur Anderson and Enron "getting away with stuff" - um, they don't exist anymore. The Catholic Church? Right or wrong they've been tax exempt since the country was founded, no cheating there. GM? The government owns their ass.

Is the system unfair? Yes. Somehow the rest of us cope without flipping over into homicidal. Vigilante killing is not how the system gets changed.

I hate to point it out to you, but what you meant is to say "Vigilante killing is not how the system should be changed." In that I'd entirely agree, however I feel compelled to point out that far too often violent radicalism is the only way to affect change, any change, for good or ill.

I am not saying it's justified, but then, I think the founding fathers would argue that in some cases it is. In this case, it really does look much more murky, and the line between justification and indefensible seems to be written in success. Suppose Joe Stack, instead of crashing an aeroplane, somehow managed to ignite and win a war to overthrow the U.S. government and reform it in some way? Come 2090, the history books would be explaining how clearly he was justified in his war against unjust taxation regulations.

Would that be a world I'd like to see? Hell no! But those who live in glass houses ought consider their acts between throwing stones. Often the line between wrong and right is written by the victor.

No, he tried to get out of paying taxes entirely. Something even the big corporations can't do. If he wanted to get exempt he should have started a church rather than an engineering company.

Later-on, yes, but where is there any indication that he tried to dodge taxes entirely rather than torturously game the system in the '80s? I'm not saying failure to file his taxes was right, or justified. I'm just saying that we're looking back over the life of a madman and you're letting his later acts color his earlier ones, which seems to be putting cart before horse.

Do you know what Google is? A search engine? Here's a tip: http://www.CNN.com Seriously do some fucking research on your own if you're going to come into a breaking news thread and start arguing.

I said it was a sad, tragic, morally indefinsible act of extremism, but understandable and even to a point sympathetic. People assumed that means I must be defending Joe Stack; I am not. What he did was ridiculously excessive and shitheaded, and frankly if he'd managed to survive (by like, bailing out or whatever,) I'd probably be holding my tounge when all the ITGs are baying for his ridiculous execution, even though I am nominally in favor of abolishing the death penalty.

But I'm also saying that, understanding the depths of Mafia-esque cartoonish depravity the IRS is capable of descending to, it's understandable how a man could be driven past wits' end by them; rightly or wrongly, I can understand it and to some degree sympathize with some bastard who finds himself engaging in a fued with the IRS.

No, he just scared them so bad his wife took her daughter and FLED from the house the night before. Isn't that a clue that maybe something was seriously, seriously amiss in that house? Do you think she did that for fun? On a whim?

Had she called the cops, maybe Joe Stack would've been arrested instead of murdering people. Are we to blame her now?

I never said it wasn't a clue that something was wrong. It could also have been that he drove them out specifically to get them out of harms' way. If he had been a truely dedicated family-eliminator, it seems unlikely he'd have simply let them go, however. It's atypical, which makes me think that, at the least, he didn't intend to murder them.

No, he launched an airplane at a building that housed a LOT of people with no connection whatsoever to his grievances.

And which also did house people and offices which were connected to his grievances. And apparently he researched the building well enough to know where the IRS offices were, instead of hitting some unrelated part of the building. He aimed for the target; yes, he put unconnected others in harms' way, but that's incidental. A lot of people will argue that if a military planning board is sited on the top floor of a hospital that you should bomb the hospital and blame the bombees for placing the hospital at risk by co-siting it with a military target. In this whack-job's mind, that was probably the logic behind this: the IRS placed them in peril by co-siting with them.

Not defending it, not excusing it, but again, explaining how it was probably working in his head. Reprehensible, yes, but it could have been much moreso.

Apparently, there is now some evidence (according to this evening's NBC broadcast) he ripped out the back seats on his airplane and loaded a drum of fuel in the back for a little extra "oomph". This was NOT done on a whim! He planned to do this, and he planned to kill people.

When did I ever suggest that Old Joe Stack just up and decided to go kill some IRS agents by crashing into their place?

Never. I never suggested this was unplanned, it was quite fucking obviously planned. Only a retard fails to plan, and that gets you shit like the glasgow jeep attack or Mr. Incindiary Underwear. I never suggested it was a fucking whim, please stop placing words on my keyboard.

Except it couldn't be done without risking life - firemen are going to fight fire regardless of what's burning. IRS offices don't exist in isolation in most locations, they're attached to other buildings or next to other offices, burning them down would destroy the livlihood of other people who are not connected to the IRS. As I pointed out earlier, not only are the IRS employees out of work today so is everyone else in the Echelon building. Right, "just" property damage.

I never said it could have been done, merely that that was apparently his intent.

Married to someone who had huge debts before you married them? They'll come after you.

Then maybe you should know who're you're marrying before you get hitched, hmm?

So, now you're saying you should run an FBI-level background check on someone you deeply love before saying I Do? What if the shitstain concealed his debts, mmmh? The IRS doesn't give a damn; they will go after you, even if you had nothing to do with whatever it is they're angry about, simply because you're remotely connected and they know that if they threaten you enough you will pay up.

Frankly, it's looking like you're defending a government agency using tactics they ripped from the playbook of the fucking mafia.

I'm sorry - are you unclear what marriage is? You're forming a legal partnership with someone. There is risk as well as gain there. This is why people shouldn't get married without careful thought.

I feel sorry for someone who, after marriage, has a spouse that gets into hot water - THAT person is well and truly screwed - but know who you're marrying before you get hitched.

So, run background checks and give someone you're emotionally affectionate towards the fucking fifth degree...

Actually, yeah, I'm with you on this one. If more people did that, they'd get into the furious financial arguments before marriage and call it all off. Then only the truely dedicated would get married.

The fucking SAY THAT next time! I'm not a mind reader, and neither is anyone else here.

I'm sorry already! I thought it was evident, clearly it was not!

Whether there is intent to harm a human being or not, ANY arson - and make no mistake, this was arson - that results in the death of a human being is tried as murder. There is no "mere" here, not with other buildings in such close proximity. House fires can spread with great rapidity. Sorry, not good enough. WHY are you defending this jackass?

Why are you assuming I'm defending the shitstain? But every devil deserves an advocate, I'm just saying I can understand why and how he was driven to such extremes, and I'm not unsympathetic for those causes.

As for the arson, the question then is twofold: did anyone die in the house fire, and did it spread to nearby homes? Evidently not, therefor no murder, no ruining of anyone else's property but his. Does that make it right, no of course not. It was fucking arson, but it's not like he strafed his block with burning avgas from a cropduster or something.

Maybe the little guy shouldn't have spent thirty years playing tax evasion, hmm? Like I said, if you keep pointing the vicious beast with a pointy stick don't whine when your ass gets bit.

So you're saying it's okay for a juggernaut to abuse people arbitrarily, making up and enforcing it's own rules and neither beholden to nor accountable to no-one? That's the way the IRS rolls, and while Joe Stack did provoke them, the IRS tends only to have one method of retaliation; grossly disproportional.

Apparently the State of California seems pretty clear on his failure to file and pay taxes. Oh, but maybe they have a "vendetta", too.

Just because someone has done very wrong things doesn't automatically mean he's not also a victim, too. Two wrongs not making a right and all that?

Let's see... he spends decades playing games with his taxes, not filing, not reporting, not paying (the rest of us hate the IRS, too, but we pay our fucking taxes - why is HE privileged?) and finally it's time to pay the piper. Then it's somehow somebody else's fault he's fucked himself over?

Ooooooh, my words really liked that one, but they'd like it a little lower and to the left.

I never said that anything justified, or excused, his not paying his due.

Tell me - WHY would the accountant deliberately conceal income from both Joe Stack and the IRS? What's the motivation to do that?

The IRS has been known in the past - purely anecdotally, of course, but anecdotes often indicate outliers, and this situation certainly qualifies - to strongarm or intimidate people's accountants into backing off. It's not impossible that they strongarmed Mr. Ross into deliberately getting his client into further shit so they could fuck him royal, or that he simply, for some reason, didn't like Joe Stack and decided to fuck him over. Would that be a violation of professional ethics, fuck yes it would be.

But it was alleged, dismissing it out of hand based on bad things Joe Stack has done is premature at best.

Stack, on the other hand, had a history of concealing shit from the IRS.

So, which is more plausible - Mr. Game-the-System got caught AGAIN or a randomly selected accountant hired to prepare taxes is going to deliberately fuck them up? What would the accountant get out of this?

He might get breaks for himself for throwing Joe Stack under the bus, breaks for a more favored client for fucking one the IRS already has it out for. He might have taken a hate-on to Joe Stack and decided to toss him under the bus for reasons unknown. The IRS might have bullied him into doing it by threatening to audit him procotologically... There's quite a few explainations that pop to mind.

Yes, Joe Stack being a douchewad is one of them, but even in that case, abandoning the client would still be a violation of professional ethics.

Maybe he should have consulted a professional tax lawyer prior to deciding that some of these laws applied to him.

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

He did.

There is a penalty for stupidity in the real world. You do know that, right?

Yes, but I was pointing out that you called 'insanity' citing a definition that didn't apply.

If you want to play at the big boy's table you have to be a big boy first. That's a brutal fact of life, regardless of whether you think it's wrong or right.

Our legal system nominally says it's wrong; nominally, there's not seperate laws for rich and poor. Legally, there's only one law for rich and poor, and it applies equally to both.

In practice, well, that's another matter.

Oh, I see. You're still a larval human being. Well, kid, get back to me after you've had a real job in the real world for a couple years.

I never said he was right, I just was pointing out that you sarcastically assumed it was self-evident to me when it was not. If they all come with gigantic cover papers which in BOLD, CAPITAL RED LETTERS proclaim that all of the money inside is tax-deferred, not tax-exempt, that's inexcusible, but if it's relatively hidden in a way that's easy for the human brain to overlook, somewhat more understandable.

February 9, 2010

Fair enough, but the plural of anecdote is not data. Most people don't read EULAs, not being lawyers enough to understand them, and most people don't read tax code, not being accountant enough to understand it either. My point is that most people gloss over the shit they don't understand, or hire someone who does.

The "you must pay tax on IRA withdrawals" is not a "wall of text". It's one sentence. Some variation of "You are obligated to pay tax on a IRA withdrawal". Also a 401(k) withdrawal, and all the other variants of personal retirement accounts.

Get back to me when you have a real job with a real defined contribution plan.

Is it in BIG BOLD LETTERS or placed where it's easily overlookable? Frankly, the IRS loves to get people into trouble with them for the same reason the mafia does, because they then can arbitrarily decide what they want the person to pay and will break their knees if they don't.

And neither of THOSE excuse or even mitigate premeditated murder.

Please, go ahead, my words want it a little lower still.

I never fucking said it did excuse or mitigate premeditated acts of extremism.

OK, you DO understand that different parts of the tax code apply to different entities, yes? That a 503(c) charity operates under different rules than a church which operates under different rules than a corporation which operates under different rules than a person? That's not "cheating". These guys were looking for a way to get out of paying taxes. They fucked up. They need to man up and accept the consequences of their mistakes.

And what he wrote doesn't seem to be that he tried to pull a $cientology. Maybe he did, maybe he tried to start up the Church of Stack, whose worship services are remarkably similar to programmers' brainstorming sessions or whatever, but - owing to what he wrote, which I admit is not unsuspect, but which I am trying to get you to admit isn't automatically dismissable - it doesn't seem that way to me.

You are, however, apparently defending him. Or at least attempting to mitigate his guilt and explain his actions.

I am not attempting to mitigate his guilt!

You can explain someone's reasons and express that you feel sympathy for the plight that drove him crazy without excusing his actions, you know.

On the other hand, it IS possible that "party X" might, in fact, be entirely to blame for something. Or even if parties W, Y, and Z share blame that this somehow excuses criminal action on the part of party X.

Ooooooh! My words just got off on that one. They'd like another, please, mistress/master.

I never fucking said it excused or mitigated the shitstain's fucking actions, Broomstick! Never! Fucking! Once!

I never said "I wish more people would do what he did" because I don't, for a plethora of reasons, chief amongst them being it's bloody fucking heinous! I never said "A blow well struck against the Man," because while I may think the Man often needs to be struck, violent extremism is not the way to do it in this country, it's neither called for nor justified.

Alright - you're claiming he's somehow in the right. Please produce something to support your claim. Reference the parts of the tax code that are there to be gamed, as you put it. Please, point this out. Or shut the fuck up about Stack being "right".

IANAA. However, it's commonly accepted today that our tax code is a byzantine, labyrinthine mess because it offers tax dodges and cheats to those wealthy enough to hire a team of accountant-ninja to legal-jutsu their debts away. Joe Stack, by his own allegation, and a group of his lay person friends - bright, but not accountants by trade - congegrated under people he alleges were that tax-code-ninja of their day in order to learn from them and become their own team of tax-ninja, and got royally reamed.

[FSTargetDrone]

Of course I see it. I never said it wasn't true. However, the fact that other businesses or offices were housed in the same building as the IRS seems to have been incidental to the reason for his attack; if he'd wanted simply to cause the most mayhem, destruction, or loss of life, there would have been far better choices than an office building that was apparently lightly populated, judging by the low death toll.

It was a direct attack on the IRS, not IRS agents, not other involved parties. Does that excuse it, no it does fucking not and I'll thank you to fucking stop saying that I am trying to excuse it. However, what I am saying is that it explains it, and even offers it a modicum of nominal nobility compared to, say, if he had decided to crash into a day care or the city hall or a fire department or a hospital or whatever.

I'm not saying it was noble, but I am saying that at least this shitstain managed to stay on target instead of deciding to just cause as much havok as possible.

I'm sorry, but just NO. There is ZERO "nobility" in what this hat-fucker did! And what do you mean it wasn't "not" an attack on "IRS agents"? He murdered a man who worked for the IRS! Was that death a mistake? Was it collateral damage? What the fuck does it matter?

Did Stack call ahead with a threat and give warning so the place could be cleared out? No, he set out to kill people, people who in his mind screwed him over. Maybe not the specific people he dealt with in the past, but some IRS people.

Of course we can "explain" it. There is obviously a reason or set of reasons behind his actions. It's dishonest to say otherwise. But it is NOT a noble act. Not in the slightest.

I really don't see, for all your insistence about how you don't excuse his actions, you can continue to describe him as the least bit noble. From the moment he torched his home and proceeded with his insane plan, he lost any and all credibility. And that is being far too generous.

[Patrick Degan]

Shadow Dragon, you are making a complete ass of yourself trying to dredge up some reason, anydamnexcusewhatsoever, to label Joe Stack's act as the least bit noble or understandable. Stack was murderously irresponsible in committing a de-facto act of terrorism with the object of killing people and inflicting maximum destruction as he was capable of carrying out with the resources he had at hand. He targeted a building with an IRS office in it and struck with no regard to collateral damages or "incidental" deaths. What you personally choose to believe were his "justifiable" reasons for his outrage is utterly irrelevant. By his actions, Stack showed a total disregard for human life. This erases even the palest shade of nobility from his decisionmaking. That other businesses were in the same building with the IRS office is irrelevant. That "only" the IRS was his intended target (and the reasoning by which you can say that individual IRS staffers were not intended targets is frankly bizarre) and nobody else is irrelevant. The "byzantine" nature of the tax code is irrelevant. That the building was at low capacity at the time of his strike is irrelevant —especially as he could have chosen any time of the day for his suicide flight when there would have been considerably a higher number of occupants in the building and subsequently a much higher number of casualties. The only thing the timing of his strike represents is a random variable, nothing more. That Stack "could" have supposedly chosen to strike a hospital or a school is irrelevant —especially as neither of those locales housed the focal point of his rage, which renders this supposition of yours even more irrelevant. Stack's motives, his self-pity, his bank balance or lack thereof, his timing, are all irrelevant compared to the fact that the man decided that the only way to make a political statement was to fly a plane into a building and kill people, with zero consideration to whomever else would get diced in the strike.

I really do suggest you rethink your entire position on this thread before the curbstomping begins.

[SirNitram]

A short analysis on CBS, basically pointing out this guy is not 'noble' or 'upstanding', or anything other than a guy who repeatedly and fully aware of his actions, antagonized the IRS. Link

The rambling note posted suicide flyer Joe Stack before he crashed a plane into an Austin IRS office indicates that he may have hit every hot button tax authorities have, putting him into a "no mercy" category that's reserved for a relative handful of Americans.

The IRS won't talk about Stack, simply saying in a prepared statement that it is working with law enforcement to thoroughly investigate the events that lead up to the crash. Otherwise, the agency says it's top priority is ensuring the safety of its employees.

However, tax experts say that if you want to really annoy the IRS, you could do one of three things: Fail to file a return completely; loudly maintain that the tax code doesn't apply to you; or cheat on employment tax filings for your workers. Stack appears to have done all three. And if the tone of his letter is any indication, he not only hit all of these IRS hot buttons, he hit them with a belligerent attitude that could have further exacerbated his tax woes.

"The IRS is toughest on people who reject the whole concept and authority of the system, who are not accepting that we do have income tax laws that we are all subject to," said Philip J. Holthouse, partner at the Santa Monica tax law and accounting firm of Holthouse, Carlin & Van Trigt. "If the anger expressed in this posting is consistent with how he interacted with the government representatives, it would not have enhanced their compassion."

Stack's note refers to meeting with "a group" in the early 1980s who were holding "tax readings and discussions" that zeroed in on tax exemptions that make "the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy." He said in the post that he then began to do "exactly what the 'big boys' were doing."

"We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done."

Since Stack wasn't a church, this is like waving a red flag at a bull. The IRS apparently considered this foray into tax avoidance the real corruption. Stack's letter says: "That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000."

Incidentally, the notion that anyone (other than a legitimate charity) doesn't need to pay income taxes is one that's well familiar–and refuted–by not only the IRS but every legitimate tax preparer in the country. So-called tax protestors or "tax defiers" take bits and pieces of the law, string them together in incomprehensible ways to come up with arguments that they say exempt them from tax. They can sound convincing, so the IRS publishes a long list of "frivolous" tax arguments on its web site, explaining when and where each argument was refuted, in an effort to keep innocent taxpayers from drinking the tax protest KoolAid.

But that wasn't all. Stack also says in his letter that he drained a retirement account and didn't pay tax on any of that money–didn’t even file a return. The penalties for not filing a tax return are roughly 10 times worse than for not paying your taxes. That's one of the reasons that accountants tell their clients to file returns, even when they don't have the money to pay, said Holthouse.

Finally, Stack rails about independent contractor rules.

Experts said the only way this rant could make sense is if Stack started a company that employed other people, who he maintained were independent contractors rather than employees. If an employer maintains he's hired only independent contractors, he doesn't need to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on their wages. But the IRS audits these claims carefully. When an employee is improperly classified as an independent contractor so that the employer can avoid these taxes, the IRS prosecutes aggressively because it considers it tantamount to stealing from workers Social Security and Medicare accounts.

Notably, the IRS has a Taxpayer Advocate's office that helps resolve disputes when taxpayers have a legitimate problem with the agency. People who can't pay tax bills promptly; have a dispute over the validity of a deduction or think they've been improperly penalized are often given some slack.

But these are not areas where you're going to get a lot of sympathy.

Frankly, this guy is clearly a tax-cheat whose upset he got found out and couldn't scream 'AMERICA' to fix it.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Of course I see it. I never said it wasn't true. However, the fact that other businesses or offices were housed in the same building as the IRS seems to have been incidental to the reason for his attack; if he'd wanted simply to cause the most mayhem, destruction, or loss of life, there would have been far better choices than an office building that was apparently lightly populated, judging by the low death toll.

It was a direct attack on the IRS, not IRS agents, not other involved parties. Does that excuse it, no it does fucking not and I'll thank you to fucking stop saying that I am trying to excuse it. However, what I am saying is that it explains it, and even offers it a modicum of nominal nobility compared to, say, if he had decided to crash into a day care or the city hall or a fire department or a hospital or whatever.

I'm not saying it was noble, but I am saying that at least this shitstain managed to stay on target instead of deciding to just cause as much havok as possible.

I'm sorry, but just NO. There is ZERO "nobility" in what this hat-fucker did! And what do you mean it wasn't "not" an attack on "IRS agents"? He murdered a man who worked for the IRS! Was that death a mistake? Was it collateral damage? What the fuck does it matter?

DID YOU EVEN FUCKING READ THE SECTION YOU HIGHLIGHTED?!

Allow me to point out the key words: modicum and nominal. I never claimed this shitstain was remotely an upstanding knight in shining armor, but I am saying that at least he kept his eyes on the target instead of doing what most of these fucking lunaticks do when they go off the deep end and just slaughtering any and every human being he can manage to harm starting with those in nearest proximity..

Did Stack call ahead with a threat and give warning so the place could be cleared out? No, he set out to kill people, people who in his mind screwed him over. Maybe not the specific people he dealt with in the past, but some IRS people.

Yes he did, and that was fucking shittastic. I never claimed otherwise.

Of course we can "explain" it. There is obviously a reason or set of reasons behind his actions. It's dishonest to say otherwise. But it is NOT a noble act. Not in the slightest.

My words really love it when you give 'em a good twist!

I never claimed it was a fucking noble act, you disingenous dogpiler. I said it was noble that he didn't go on a mindless rampage until he got brought down by cops, aiming to create as high a death toll as possible, ala any of the infamous shootings of the past hundred years, not that it was noble he got into an aeroplane loaded with a bowser of avgas and rammed it into a fucking building!

I really don't see, for all your insistence about how you don't excuse his actions, you can continue to describe him as the least bit noble. From the moment he torched his home and proceeded with his insane plan, he lost any and all credibility. And that is being far too generous.

I've just explained it, and the key words there is 'least bit'. The least bit imaginable, in fact, but not entirely 100% devoid. Let me state this again: His actions were not in the least fucking bit noble, how many times do I have to say it? It's in refraining from doing what most shitstains do that he earns the tiny bit I stated; instead of, say, deciding to bring that plane crashing down where he could have maximized the amount of lives lost, he at least stayed on target and brought it down on the people he blamed for ruining his life. Was that noble - of fucking course not! Terrorism never is. If you think I'm saying otherwise, you're either disingenious or you're not fucking reading what I am saying!

Shadow Dragon, you are making a complete ass of yourself trying to dredge up some reason, anydamnexcusewhatsoever, to label Joe Stack's act as the least bit noble or understandable.

I did not lable his act noble, I labled his inaction noble.

Stack was murderously irresponsible in committing a de-facto act of terrorism with the object of killing people and inflicting maximum destruction as he was capable of carrying out with the resources he had at hand. He targeted a building with an IRS office in it and struck with no regard to collateral damages or "incidental" deaths.

Stack was fucking monstrously heinous in commiting an act of de jure terrorism, and I never claimed fucking otherwise.

What you personally choose to believe were his "justifiable" reasons for his outrage is utterly irrelevant. By his actions, Stack showed a total disregard for human life. This erases even the palest shade of nobility from his decisionmaking. That other businesses were in the same building with the IRS office is irrelevant. That "only" the IRS was his intended target (and the reasoning by which you can say that individual IRS staffers were not intended targets is frankly bizarre) and nobody else is irrelevant.

I never said his reasons were justifiable, only explicable and to a point, sympathetic.

As far as individual IRS staffers not being his intended target, if he'd been going after any particular agent, he'd have hunted them down with a gun and shot them in their homes. He attacked the institution, with a complete and total disregard for collateral damage. Was it wrong - fuck yes, and I never claimed it wasn't wrong!

The "byzantine" nature of the tax code is irrelevant. That the building was at low capacity at the time of his strike is irrelevant —especially as he could have chosen any time of the day for his suicide flight when there would have been considerably a higher number of occupants in the building and subsequently a much higher number of casualties. The only thing the timing of his strike represents is a random variable, nothing more.

Or that he chose that time specifically in order to pick the daylight hours (when he could see well enough to hit) when the building would be as empty as possible. Defensible, no, justifiable, no, but a damn sight better than if he'd struck at, say, 10 AM when the place would have been completely packed. Was it random - apparently not. He ran his wife and child off the night before, he could have picked any time of day to do so. Being an experienced pilot, it seems unlikely the timing was random, as he almost certainly would have known when he would be there.

That Stack "could" have supposedly chosen to strike a hospital or a school is irrelevant —especially as neither of those locales housed the focal point of his rage, which renders this supposition of yours even more irrelevant.

I think that's my point. When most of these people go off the deep end, whether or not their rage is directed at anyone or anything in particular, they usually wind up on a rampage, out simply to cause as much mayhem and damage as possible. He didn't do that.

Stack's motives, his self-pity, his bank balance or lack thereof, his timing, are all irrelevant compared to the fact that the man decided that the only way to make a political statement was to fly a plane into a building and kill people, with zero consideration to whomever else would get diced in the strike.

Nothing is ever irrelevant. Did he behave like a fucking monster, yes he did, and I'm not saying he didn't. But that doesn't forgive the way the IRS behaves. If a bully beats up on someone until one day they snap and take a bat to the bully's head that little son of a bitch is guilty of assault with a deadly, but it does not excuse the bully's actions, either.

I really do suggest you rethink your entire position on this thread before the curbstomping begins.

Gee, like I've never been flamed for winding up in an unpopular position before.

Every devil deserves an advocate. Joseph Stack was a pure fucking shitstain, and I've never argued otherwise. But the causes that drove him to smear himself all over Austin were not entirely in his hands; did he break the rules, yes. But instead of simply doing what the justice system does to all the other guys who break the rules, the IRS is free to make their own rules, and they positively delight in creating as much havok and turmoil as possible. Frankly, he should've just been thrown in jail after his second failure to file and have had done with it, but they preferred to keep swinging 'round for another run at his life so they could hoover more money out of him.

A short analysis on CBS, basically pointing out this guy is not 'noble' or 'upstanding', or anything other than a guy who repeatedly and fully aware of his actions, antagonized the IRS. Link

Frankly, this guy is clearly a tax-cheat whose upset he got found out and couldn't scream 'AMERICA' to fix it.

You could apply that same argument the other way 'round - that they're not anything 'noble' or 'upstanding', simpling a monolithic mafia-like entity that repeatedly and fully aware of their actions, antagonized Joeseph Stack.

It's bullshit, flying both ways it's bullshit. It fucking reeks. Having the legitimacy of governance behind you doesn't excuse you when you go around shamelessly stealing the Mafia's playbook. I never said Joe Stack was remotely noble or upstanding, but I did say that it's understanding how someone could be driven to such extremes by the IRS.

He is a tax cheat, and there's no defending that. However, the actions the IRS engages in are equally reprehensible. Two wrongs don't make a right, and neither does one massive wrong on the side of party A forgive all the wrongs party B engaged in. If you think I'm not sad about the two poor fuckers that paid for Joe Stack's final flight with their lives, you're fucking wrong! It's a goddamned tragedy, and I never said it wasn't.

[SirNitram]

You could apply that same argument the other way 'round - that they're not anything 'noble' or 'upstanding', simpling a monolithic mafia-like entity that repeatedly and fully aware of their actions, antagonized Joeseph Stack.

Only if you're an anti-government retard. Stack knowingly violated the Laws of the State. He flaunted it. Only a gibbering retard would think flaunting the laws openly and provocatively is the legal institition empowered to monitor and enact those laws are is 'antagonizing' him.

Your true colours are showing, Anarchist. You view governments and their enacted laws as 'mafias'.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You could apply that same argument the other way 'round - that they're not anything 'noble' or 'upstanding', simpling a monolithic mafia-like entity that repeatedly and fully aware of their actions, antagonized Joeseph Stack.

Only if you're an anti-government retard. Stack knowingly violated the Laws of the State. He flaunted it. Only a gibbering retard would think flaunting the laws openly and provocatively is the legal institition empowered to monitor and enact those laws are is 'antagonizing' him.

Your true colours are showing, Anarchist. You view governments and their enacted laws as 'mafias'.

Well, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

Really, what else can you call an organization which is exempt from normal rules of search and seizure by Federal agencies, which is exempt from normal rules of entry? The IRS doesn't need a warrant, they can enter your home at any time they want.

And, as I've mentioned before, they see absolutely nothing wrong with fucking a person over simply to get them into a position to owe them more money, and they'll quite cheerfully go after anyone they can go after, even if those people had absolutely nothing to do with the wrongdoing they have a grievance about.

If you piss the cops off, they don't throw your wife and children in prison because you're on the lam and they can catch your wife and children. But if you're in the hole to the IRS and leg it, they'll quite happy bankrupt your wife and children, even if they provably had no part of your misdeeds nor profited from them.

The IRS, specifically, behaves like a mafia. I do not view governments in general as mafias, I do not view laws as strongarm tactics, nor do I view taxes as racketeering. However, the IRS, as an agency, is massively abusive, with what oversight it actually answers to being funded from it's own payroll. When they put their mind to fucking someone, they can and do employ tactics popularized by the mafia.

However, the actions the IRS engages in are equally reprehensible. Two wrongs don't make a right, and neither does one massive wrong on the side of party A forgive all the wrongs party B engaged in.

You keep saying this, but do you have any actual, solid examples of the IRS being reprehensible bullies? Anecdote, of course, but all my own experiences with them have been pretty good. (well, as good as I expect from paying taxes. High, confusing taxes too, with me being an independent contractor, but they weren't bullies.).

If you are honest with them and talk to them, like many bill collectors, they try to work with you. And like with most government interaction, you can ask for a lawyer to help you through it, at no cost, if you meet certain circumstances.

If you screw up, or things come up in your life, talking to the IRS can help you out. The law, and the employees, in my experience anyway, generally understand that people make mistakes and shit happens. But, if you lie to them, especially over and over again, they don't take it anymore.

I found that website I'd read a while ago, or at least an archive of it, here. While it does appear that the information contained was solicited with intent to levy a class-action suit against the IRS, and hence is not unbiased (and you'll never find such a thing as an unbiased review of the IRS' activity,) the fact that they collected 655 stories of abuse, neglect and general shitcannery from November '95 to May '03 is telling.

Do I think all IRS agents are monsters, no. But I think that the potential for abuse is there, it's vast, and it gets used. The IRS has enforcement, search, and seizure powers that we don't even afford to those investigating cases of homocide, torture and rape, because we consider such powers to be anathema to our society, yet when the tax man's involved those powers are apparently back in force. The IRS can, and does, ruin lives, maliciously, with the opportunity to screw people over with it's arbitrary decisions on it's own rules, with the only court of appeals they answer to being fully funded by its own payroll.

I'd call that Mafia-esque.

btw, the minimum income to file was $400 in 2009 - I think someone said $1000 back on page 1. I don't think you'll owe money at $400, but you do have to file. Something to keep in mind there.

I never said Douchebag was innocent of wrongdoing. He absolutely should have fucking filed his papers on time. I never said he was exempt from the rules. I'm just stating that in fairness, those in charge of enforcing these particular rules have nasty habits of enforcing them maliciously and without oversight.

Also about this guy's wife - she might not have been liable for his tax debt even if things happened differently. If she can show evidence of fraud on his part, or if she can she that she honestly didn't know, there's provisions in the law to protect her.

While that's true, laws aren't worth the paper they're printed upon unless there's a court of competant jurisdiction to hand down rulings. In this case, that court is funded by the IRS - the judges are literally on their payroll. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the impartiality and competancy of such courts.

[bobalot]

So when you are actually asked to provide evidence to prove that the IRS are nasty bullies and have acted as such on a regular basis, you can't provide anything other than some hand waving bullshit about their special powers.

[Phantasee]

So when you are actually asked to provide evidence to prove that the IRS are nasty bullies you can't provide anything other than some bullshit hand waving about their special powers.

He did give us that link of people's accounts of IRS abuse. Pretty depressing reading.

[bobalot]

So when you are actually asked to provide evidence to prove that the IRS are nasty bullies you can't provide anything other than some bullshit hand waving about their special powers.

He did give us that link of people's accounts of IRS abuse. Pretty depressing reading.

What this bullshit link? A bunch of unverified one sided stories? How do we know they are even true? How do even know they aren't arseholes like this Joe Stack guy, who turns out to be a tax cheat?

600 unverified "abuses" over 15 years (I note one of the complaints were from the 80's, so the time period maybe longer) is apparently evidence enough that an organisation that does that is responsible for the tax collection and tax law enforcement for millions of individuals and businesses has a systematic culture of reprehensible bullying?

What the fuck is this bullshit?

[SirNitram]

You could apply that same argument the other way 'round - that they're not anything 'noble' or 'upstanding', simpling a monolithic mafia-like entity that repeatedly and fully aware of their actions, antagonized Joeseph Stack.

Only if you're an anti-government retard. Stack knowingly violated the Laws of the State. He flaunted it. Only a gibbering retard would think flaunting the laws openly and provocatively is the legal institition empowered to monitor and enact those laws are is 'antagonizing' him.

Your true colours are showing, Anarchist. You view governments and their enacted laws as 'mafias'.

Well, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

Really, what else can you call an organization which is exempt from normal rules of search and seizure by Federal agencies, which is exempt from normal rules of entry? The IRS doesn't need a warrant, they can enter your home at any time they want.

I call it a legal institution enacting it's legal procedures to deal with those violating laws. You're clinging hard to this notion that the IRS is bad and nasty, but it's doing it's part to ensure the General Welfare clause of the Constitution, by making sure it's paid for.

And, as I've mentioned before, they see absolutely nothing wrong with fucking a person over simply to get them into a position to owe them more money, and they'll quite cheerfully go after anyone they can go after, even if those people had absolutely nothing to do with the wrongdoing they have a grievance about.

Which is completely irrelevent to a situation where this asshat knowingly and blatantly violated the law, and was butthurt because screaming 'AMERICA' and 'MAFIA' didn't get him out of his legal position.

If you piss the cops off, they don't throw your wife and children in prison because you're on the lam and they can catch your wife and children. But if you're in the hole to the IRS and leg it, they'll quite happy bankrupt your wife and children, even if they provably had no part of your misdeeds nor profited from them.

The IRS, specifically, behaves like a mafia. I do not view governments in general as mafias, I do not view laws as strongarm tactics, nor do I view taxes as racketeering. However, the IRS, as an agency, is massively abusive, with what oversight it actually answers to being funded from it's own payroll. When they put their mind to fucking someone, they can and do employ tactics popularized by the mafia.

'They follow the laws they are required to follow! HOW DARE THEY! I SHALL CALL THEM MAFIA'.

Fuck off. You're an angry child or a selfish retard. Your argument boils down to 'I hate the legal duties of the IRS, therefore it's wrong, and I can excuse ANY level of active, flagrant lawbreaking by screaming IRS=MAFIA over and over again'. That's not a real argument. Try backing your argument up with facts, not your personal dislikes.

[SirNitram]

So when you are actually asked to provide evidence to prove that the IRS are nasty bullies you can't provide anything other than some bullshit hand waving about their special powers.

He did give us that link of people's accounts of IRS abuse. Pretty depressing reading.

What this bullshit link? A bunch of unverified one sided stories? How do we know they are even true? How do even know they aren't arseholes like this Joe Stack guy, who turns out to be a tax cheat?

600 unverified "abuses" over 15 years (I note one of the complaints were from the 80's, so the time period maybe longer) is apparently evidence enough that an organisation that does that is responsible for the tax collection and tax law enforcement for millions of individuals and businesses has a systematic culture of reprehensible bullying?

What the fuck is this bullshit?

A website which bills itself as the 'Highest IQ's(Integrating Qoutients) In The World'. Which includes articles like:

The Formula For Immortality.
Zonpower From Cyberspace.
Riches From Another World.

It is called 'The Society Of Secrets' with a 12 level categorizing some sort of ascention of mankind.

What a credible source![/Sarcasm]

[Simon_Jester]

If ever there was a good candidate for a "terrorist," [Stack] fits the bill very nicely. He was a small man who took out his frustrations on people who had nothing to do with his troubles.

Yes.

As far as 'negligent,' I was calling that strictly on the house-torching.

How about you SAY THAT next time? Clearly, you have failed to clearly communicate. Work on that.

Seemed pretty clear to me on my first read.

Married to someone who had huge debts before you married them? They'll come after you.

Then maybe you should know who're you're marrying before you get hitched, hmm?

Broomstick, I have to say, this isn't a very strong position to defend, especially not with arguments of the form "you should have known what you were getting into!"

Yes, they should have known. But there's still something morally objectionable about pursuing a debtor's spouse for payment of taxes even after they divorce the debtor. It may be lawful, but I don't think anyone should be expected to like or approve of it. Especially bearing in mind that it's possible for the debtor to try to hide the evidence from someone they hope to marry.

I don't think "You ought to know that your intended owes the IRS money, and either not marry them, or be prepared to pay their debts even if you divorce them later on" is as good an argument as "you ought to know that money taken from an IRA is taxable." The latter is pretty much ironclad; the former... not so much.

Plus the obligatory Bush-bash, natch, on top of all the other groups/people he hated. Of course, that didn't stop Time Magazine, Michelle Malkin, The Daily Kos, or the Wahington Post from claiming he was a Tea Party/Tea Bagger/Republican. Oooopppsss. I eagerly await their retractions.

Turns out crazies can be of any political stripe. THAT's a revelation, *I'm a smarmy asshole*?

This guy's a weird case because he combines a lot of political views from one wing with a specific few political views from the other. I wouldn't place him on the right or the left myself; I think he's just an opportunist who grabs whatever mass of random incoherent political catch phrases that justifies his own actions. Since his greatest troubles in life revolve around taxes and large corporations, that means both anti-tax and anti-corporate stuff... which are on opposite ends of the political spectrum in the US for historical reasons.

Crazies tend to get pigeonholed on whichever side hails them the loudest.

I call it a legal institution enacting it's legal procedures to deal with those violating laws. You're clinging hard to this notion that the IRS is bad and nasty, but it's doing it's part to ensure the General Welfare clause of the Constitution, by making sure it's paid for.

...This is a little troubling, because I'm not sure how it can be used without justifying everything the government does that nominally fulfills one of the objectives in the Preamble. A similar argument could (wrongly) be used to justify waterboarding at Guantanamo because it involves the military trying to "provide for the common defense." Even if there were laws that said the Army could (Hell, must) do that, those laws would be wrong- they wouldn't make it morally acceptable for the Army to be doing that, and they wouldn't make it childish to criticize them for doing that.

So while I'm not calling the IRS a mafia, I think it's fair to say that the IRS should face limits on things like "unwarranted search and seizure," similar to what the police face. They should at least have to make a credible case to an outside authority that you've been cheating taxes and depriving them of money before they can turn around and deprive you of money. Otherwise, it's too easy for them to blame you for problems you bear no responsibility for.

What this bullshit link? A bunch of unverified one sided stories? How do we know they are even true? How do even know they aren't arseholes like this Joe Stack guy, who turns out to be a tax cheat?...
What the fuck is this bullshit?

A website which bills itself as the 'Highest IQ's(Integrating Qoutients) In The World'...
What a credible source![/Sarcasm]

Since I was curious, I went looking myself.

I found a lot of stuff by political-fringe types that I'm not sure whether to trust, of course. I can't prove they made up their allegations of IRS abuse, but I can't prove they can't. Most other things I found were old, and can therefore be called into question by a skeptical audience.

On the other hand, there are undeniable problems with some of the ways the IRS enforces its own attempts to collect taxes- such as the predictable effect a lien has on a delinquent taxpayer's ability to pay their back taxes in the future. Comparing them to the Mafia is grossly excessive; saying there is a problem... may not be.

[SirNitram]

I do support IRS reform, I should point out. However, that's a far cry from this guy's insane frothing, so I didn't feel the need to point it out to the fellow sane people.

[Simon_Jester]

I do support IRS reform, I should point out. However, that's a far cry from this guy's insane frothing, so I didn't feel the need to point it out to the fellow sane people.

When you say "this guy," do you mean Stack, or ShadowDragon?

While I disagree with ShadowDragon about the extent of the problem with the IRS, I don't think ShadowDragon's posts are outside the bounds of sanity.

Although I think we've got a groupthink problem here. Everyone reads all the other posts with accusations that ShadowDragon is defending the indefensible, and it colors their attitude towards those same posts. People are seeing a lot more defense of Stack's actions than I think is really there, and they seem to be selectively ignoring statements critical of Stack.

[Patrick Degan]

Shadow Dragon, you are making a complete ass of yourself trying to dredge up some reason, anydamnexcusewhatsoever, to label Joe Stack's act as the least bit noble or understandable.

I did not lable his act noble, I labled his inaction noble.

What "inaction"? Selecting his target somehow qualifies as "inaction" because it wasn't a non-IRS potential victim?

Stack was murderously irresponsible in committing a de-facto act of terrorism with the object of killing people and inflicting maximum destruction as he was capable of carrying out with the resources he had at hand. He targeted a building with an IRS office in it and struck with no regard to collateral damages or "incidental" deaths.

Stack was fucking monstrously heinous in commiting an act of de jure terrorism, and I never claimed fucking otherwise.

DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT SAY THIS:

It was a direct attack on the IRS, not IRS agents, not other involved parties. Does that excuse it, no it does fucking not and I'll thank you to fucking stop saying that I am trying to excuse it. However, what I am saying is that it explains it, and even offers it a modicum of nominal nobility compared to, say, if he had decided to crash into a day care or the city hall or a fire department or a hospital or whatever.

I'm not saying it was noble, but I am saying that at least this shitstain managed to stay on target instead of deciding to just cause as much havok as possible.

You keep pretending that Stack's not choosing to target a school, hospital, daycare centre, city hall, whatever, offers this "modicum of nobility" to his action. You keep trying to have it both ways: claiming that you're not excusing Stack while at the same time trying to argue that his reasons were understandable and somehow a bit more noble as a result of his choices.

What you personally choose to believe were his "justifiable" reasons for his outrage is utterly irrelevant. By his actions, Stack showed a total disregard for human life. This erases even the palest shade of nobility from his decisionmaking. That other businesses were in the same building with the IRS office is irrelevant. That "only" the IRS was his intended target (and the reasoning by which you can say that individual IRS staffers were not intended targets is frankly bizarre) and nobody else is irrelevant.

I never said his reasons were justifiable, only explicable and to a point, sympathetic.

Bullshit. The man was a would be mass-murderer, plain and simple.

As far as individual IRS staffers not being his intended target, if he'd been going after any particular agent, he'd have hunted them down with a gun and shot them in their homes. He attacked the institution, with a complete and total disregard for collateral damage. Was it wrong - fuck yes, and I never claimed it wasn't wrong!

He targets an IRS office after the beginning of business hours when IRS staffers would at their jobs in that office and you somehow think this was not intentionally targeting IRS staffers simply because of his chosen method to kill them? Are you insane?

The "byzantine" nature of the tax code is irrelevant. That the building was at low capacity at the time of his strike is irrelevant —especially as he could have chosen any time of the day for his suicide flight when there would have been considerably a higher number of occupants in the building and subsequently a much higher number of casualties. The only thing the timing of his strike represents is a random variable, nothing more.

Or that he chose that time specifically in order to pick the daylight hours (when he could see well enough to hit) when the building would be as empty as possible. Defensible, no, justifiable, no, but a damn sight better than if he'd struck at, say, 10 AM when the place would have been completely packed. Was it random - apparently not. He ran his wife and child off the night before, he could have picked any time of day to do so. Being an experienced pilot, it seems unlikely the timing was random, as he almost certainly would have known when he would be there.

Bullshit. If he'd really been so hot-shit eager to minimise his casualties while striking at "the Man", he'd have picked dawn as his time of attack, when the building really would have been empty except maybe for a cleaner or two. The Weather Underground terrorists took more care in their bombings than Stack could be bothered to do, so this so-called "objection" doesn't obtain. Especially as he did crash his plane into the building at 10am local time. Try again.

That Stack "could" have supposedly chosen to strike a hospital or a school is irrelevant —especially as neither of those locales housed the focal point of his rage, which renders this supposition of yours even more irrelevant.

I think that's my point. When most of these people go off the deep end, whether or not their rage is directed at anyone or anything in particular, they usually wind up on a rampage, out simply to cause as much mayhem and damage as possible. He didn't do that.

And your so-called point makes no point, which renders any argument based on it spectacularly irrelevant. But you will just keep trying to play this game of yours to have it both ways: claiming that you're not excusing Stack while at the same time trying to argue that his reasons were understandable and somehow a bit more noble as a result of his choices.

Stack's motives, his self-pity, his bank balance or lack thereof, his timing, are all irrelevant compared to the fact that the man decided that the only way to make a political statement was to fly a plane into a building and kill people, with zero consideration to whomever else would get diced in the strike.

Nothing is ever irrelevant. Did he behave like a fucking monster, yes he did, and I'm not saying he didn't. But that doesn't forgive the way the IRS behaves. If a bully beats up on someone until one day they snap and take a bat to the bully's head that little son of a bitch is guilty of assault with a deadly, but it does not excuse the bully's actions, either.

The worst thing the IRS supposedly did to Joseph Stack was to fuck up his financial life —and that because Stack, as it becoming increasingly evident, was incapable of doing what millions of ordinary independent businessmen and contractors find themselves quite capable of doing with regard to keeping up with their records and tax obligations, and in fact appeared to have contempt for doing so. The worst thing Joseph Stack did in reply was to destroy a building, kill two people in the process, put everybody else who worked in that building out of work, burned out his own house which rendered his family homeless, and undertook all these actions with no regard to collateral deaths or damage he might cause. To take your fundamentally broken analogy to the parent of a bullied child as a true comparison to Joseph Stack, that's the same as if said parent beat the bully to death with the ball bat, then set fire to the bully's home and tried to run over the bully's family as they fled the house, without caring if the fire he set might spread to other houses on either side. You have no argument.

I really do suggest you rethink your entire position on this thread before the curbstomping begins.

Gee, like I've never been flamed for winding up in an unpopular position before.

That's because you're obviously too stupid to take a hint.

Every devil deserves an advocate. Joseph Stack was a pure fucking shitstain, and I've never argued otherwise. But the causes that drove him to smear himself all over Austin were not entirely in his hands; did he break the rules, yes. But instead of simply doing what the justice system does to all the other guys who break the rules, the IRS is free to make their own rules, and they positively delight in creating as much havok and turmoil as possible. Frankly, he should've just been thrown in jail after his second failure to file and have had done with it, but they preferred to keep swinging 'round for another run at his life so they could hoover more money out of him.

Except the IRS might not have come after Stack as they did if Stack hadn't repeatedly attempted to evade paying his taxes over the course of multiple years or kept up his business records to prove his liabilities, as any competent businessman manages to do every fucking day of the week. And as for Stack screaming "MAFIA BRRRRRRRRR", frankly, the rantings of a clearly immature mind hardly constitute a substantive charge against anybody.

I never said Joe Stack was remotely noble or upstanding, but I did say that it's understanding how someone could be driven to such extremes by the IRS.

And there you go again, trying to have it both ways while claiming you're not. You're position fundamentally contradicts itself.

He is a tax cheat, and there's no defending that. However, the actions the IRS engages in are equally reprehensible.

Last I heard, the IRS weren't burning people out of their homes, their businesses, or actually killing anybody. Go play in traffic.

[Broomstick]

The accountant Bill Ross has released a statement, from this article on CNN

Austin, Texas (CNN) -- The former accountant for Andrew Joseph "Joe" Stack III -- who officials say flew his plane into a Texas building housing an Internal Revenue Service office -- says Stack had never threatened him, a spokesman for the accountant said.

CPA Bill Ross was mentioned in a 3,000-word message on a Web site registered to Stack, which railed against the government, particularly the IRS. The online message believed to have been written by Stack criticizes accountant Ross for "representing himself and not me."

Ross had not heard from Stack since October, when his client "disengaged" services in a letter, spokesman Chad Wilbanks told CNN. According to Ross, Stack had not expressed any threats toward the accountant or the IRS, Wilbanks said.

"Mr. Stack contacted my firm to help with his personal taxes in 2008. He failed to provide me with all his income and other information resulting in an IRS audit," Ross said in a written statement Saturday. "Unfortunately, Mr. Stack ignored the audit and my advice which only complicated his situation, at which time our firm disengaged our services with Mr. Stack whom we have not been in contact with since October 2009."

Ross did not provide any further details in the statement on his work with Stack. Wilbanks said Ross, who has worked as a CPA for at least 30 years, thinks Stack located him in the phone book. They only met four times and did not have a personal relationship, Wilbanks said

The rest of the article is prior information. Sounds like the accountant is claiming Stack withheld information, ignored an audit notice, and failed to heed the advice of professional. Apparently the IRS has nothing against Ross (it would if they suspect he, Ross, had withheld information or done anything hinky).

[LadyTevar]

I've had enough of this.
OFF to HOS with you.

[Darth Wong]

There is definitely a bit of a pile-on taking place here, with people exaggerating Shadowdragon's position somewhat. However, Shadowdragon has done himself no favours. He always clarifies his situation to say that he's not defending the man ... BUUUUUUT he insists on invariably adding that somehow, his actions are mitigated by <insert generic anti-IRS rant here>.

He seems incapable of letting a post go by without attacking the IRS. He reminds me of the rabid anti-abortion fucknuts who will say that yes, it was wrong to murder an abortion doctor, BUUUUUUT ... the bastard deserved it.

PS. I moved this back to N&P because I don't think Shadowdragon is trolling.

[Broomstick]

Of course I see it. I never said it wasn't true. However, the fact that other businesses or offices were housed in the same building as the IRS seems to have been incidental to the reason for his attack;

It was "incidental" that there was a daycare center in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City, too, but that was no consolation to the parents of dead children, and no comfort to the maimed children. Timothy McVeigh was convicted for murdering those children, along with his intended adult targets, and he was executed for his crimes.

Saying "but it was collateral damage!" doesn't get you off the hook.

if he'd wanted simply to cause the most mayhem, destruction, or loss of life, there would have been far better choices than an office building that was apparently lightly populated, judging by the low death toll.

More likely, the low death toll was because 1) some people inside the building saw Stack's kamikaze approach and sounded the alarm before the actual impact and 2) because there are 900+ threats against the IRS and its employees in an average years, some of which become actual attacks, the agency and its personnel are serious about disaster drills so when the alarm was sounded the evacuation commenced immediately. Since 9/11 did bring awareness of the possibility of airplane attack on a building to general awareness there was probably no hesitation on the part of people to get out of the way of danger.

It was a direct attack on the IRS, not IRS agents, not other involved parties.

"Hey Mr. IRS man" - that's not directed at the IRS employees? WTF are you smoking?

How about you SAY THAT next time? Clearly, you have failed to clearly communicate. Work on that.

I never claimed to be a master of communications, did I? How about you tighten up that sarcasm drip you've got there.

LEARN. Fucking LEARN. Admit your fuck-ups and make the effort to improve.

No - he left them homeless and penniless. Do you think that's not harmful in some way? There's a woman and 12 year old girl who have lost everything, who are now utterly dependent on the charity of strangers, who don't even have a place of their own to fucking sleep at night. No, they're not dead, they're not maimed, he deliberately put them in that position. Again, NOT negligence, NOT an accident!

Let's see... While their house was burned down, it seems likely that anything left in the banks remains there. It's also likely that, in light of the huge publicity of this case, the IRS will choose to forgive any and all outstanding debts owed by Joe Stack that they could otherwise try to extract from his widow, otherwise they'd be legitimizing his grievances after the fact. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it seems likely that he's bought his wife and daughter reprieve from the tax debts he incurred, which would have remained even if he had swallowed his gun or crashed his plane into a field.

What he HELL makes you conclude that the IRS won't go after Stack's estate? (What's left of it) Mrs. Stack needs to hire a good tax lawyer right now to minimize the damage to her. She needs to convince the IRS that she had no part of her husband's wrong-doing which might be possible but won't be automatic.

My guess, from what I know of the IRS, is that there was already a lein on the house for back taxes and the household bank and other accounts and assets frozen. If the house is insured they'll have a claim on the insurance money. No doubt you will wail about that, but like it or not those actions are LEGAL for the IRS under current law.

And it sounds like the grievences were entirely legitimate. Taxes are an obligation of being a citizen. There is evidence Stack did not fulfill those obligations.

And after she issued that appology, well... They'd have to be colossal fuck-ups to go after her for Joe Stack's pile of debt, and if they did, one call to the media would be enough to get their nuts roasted thoroughly. It's possible, albiet unlikely, he took a long-view on this matter; penniless and homeless in the short term, but freed from his bad mistakes long-term which would most likely have rendered them homeless and penniless later on, in a worse time with no public outpouring of sympathy to them as the victims of a madman.

No, his death does not, unfortunately, get his family off the hook.

However, given the circumstances, and with a good lawyer, Mrs. Stack could make her case to the IRS. It will certainly go better for her if she takes the initiative here instead of waiting for them to show up at her door.

No, he tried to get out of paying taxes entirely. Something even the big corporations can't do. If he wanted to get exempt he should have started a church rather than an engineering company.

Later-on, yes, but where is there any indication that he tried to dodge taxes entirely rather than torturously game the system in the '80s? I'm not saying failure to file his taxes was right, or justified. I'm just saying that we're looking back over the life of a madman and you're letting his later acts color his earlier ones, which seems to be putting cart before horse.

You're saying he's a "madman" like that somehow excuses his action. From what I see he wasn't mentally ill at all. His actions were illegal, not irrational. When he found himself so far backed into a corner he couldn't get out of it he decided to kill people rather than face the music.

But I'm also saying that, understanding the depths of Mafia-esque cartoonish depravity the IRS is capable of descending to, it's understandable how a man could be driven past wits' end by them; rightly or wrongly, I can understand it and to some degree sympathize with some bastard who finds himself engaging in a fued with the IRS.

Remember my contractor friend I mentioned? He was audited by the IRS at one point and notified he owned $186,000 - an amount FAR in excess of the $40,000 Stack claimed he lost. Hell, yes, my friend disputed it. He was told he couldn't sell his house until the matter was settled, and there was a pile of other horseshit, but he didn't have his business shut down, he wasn't turned out of his house, he was able to pay his bills in the meanwhile and even take out a loan to finish a project while the matter was being settled. The result? They cleared up all but $82 of the IRS's claim against him. Eighty-two dollars! Even in my current destitute state I could handle that amount. Granted, that's just one anecdote, but it demonstrates that the IRS is NOT a cadre of jack-booted thugs who enjoy kneecapping for its own sake.

My parents were audited at one point when I was young. Again - they were told they couldn't sell their house, but again, they could pay their bills, they had a place to live, we were fed....

Funny, isn't it, how my own life and those of my friends/acquaintances seems to run counter to your repeated assertions that the IRS descends upon the helpless and picks their bones clean.

Another friend/business acquaintance fucked up his taxes for ten years running - he was a freelance artist who decided to save money by NOT consulting a professional accountant and wound up making costly mistakes. After the audit was over he owed something like $30,000 plus interest. He immediately started negotiating a payment plan. It took him a long time to pay it off, but he did and, again, his life wasn't "ruined" nor was he pursued subsequently by the IRS.

I know it fucks with your preconceptions, but MOST tax disputes are settled without people being stripped of all assets and without attacks on IRS agents. After all, the IRS wants the money - and if you're left homeless and jobless they ain't getting nothing, are they? It really is in the interest of BOTH sides to work out a solution.

No one likes paying taxes. No one like audits. But most people cope with all of that without resorting to violence.

No, he just scared them so bad his wife took her daughter and FLED from the house the night before. Isn't that a clue that maybe something was seriously, seriously amiss in that house? Do you think she did that for fun? On a whim?

Had she called the cops, maybe Joe Stack would've been arrested instead of murdering people. Are we to blame her now?

If he hadn't, at that point, actually DONE anything there would be nothing for the cops to do. Should she wait until she or her daughter are actually hurt, or should we praise her intelligence for leaving BEFORE violence occured?

Apparently, there is now some evidence (according to this evening's NBC broadcast) he ripped out the back seats on his airplane and loaded a drum of fuel in the back for a little extra "oomph". This was NOT done on a whim! He planned to do this, and he planned to kill people.

When did I ever suggest that Old Joe Stack just up and decided to go kill some IRS agents by crashing into their place?

What the FUCK do you think happens when you crash a vehicle into an bunch of offices during business hours? What kind of apologetic bullshit are you spewing? Fuck yes he intended to kill people - that's why he crashed into an office building at 10 am on a weekday!

Never. I never suggested this was unplanned, it was quite fucking obviously planned. Only a retard fails to plan, and that gets you shit like the glasgow jeep attack or Mr. Incindiary Underwear. I never suggested it was a fucking whim, please stop placing words on my keyboard.

Your own words are the problem. By the way - although the attacks failed, the Glasgow attacks and Mr. Toasted Nuts did, in fact, plan their attacks in advance. Holy shit, are you stupid. Not to mention ignorant and uninformed.

Why are you assuming I'm defending the shitstain? But every devil deserves an advocate, I'm just saying I can understand why and how he was driven to such extremes, and I'm not unsympathetic for those causes.

Two points here. First, if you're playing devil's advocate here YOU NEED TO STATE THAT CLEARLY, IN ADVANCE. Try starting with "I'm playing devil's advocate here...." Second, a lot of us are entirely UNsympathetic to this piece of shit. Especially the 700,000 pilots in the US who are getting sick of the shit that falls on us everytime some shitstain decides to use an airplane in a bad way.

Maybe the little guy shouldn't have spent thirty years playing tax evasion, hmm? Like I said, if you keep pointing the vicious beast with a pointy stick don't whine when your ass gets bit.

So you're saying it's okay for a juggernaut to abuse people arbitrarily, making up and enforcing it's own rules and neither beholden to nor accountable to no-one? That's the way the IRS rolls, and while Joe Stack did provoke them, the IRS tends only to have one method of retaliation; grossly disproportional.

YOU have not proved that. Whereas I, in my own personal life, have evidence to the contrary. No, the IRS is not your friend, but neither is it the vendetta-loving draconian monster you portray it to be. I've know many people who were audited - none who were stripped of everything.

If they all come with gigantic cover papers which in BOLD, CAPITAL RED LETTERS proclaim that all of the money inside is tax-deferred, not tax-exempt, that's inexcusible, but if it's relatively hidden in a way that's easy for the human brain to overlook, somewhat more understandable.

It's not hidden. End of story. You're wrong. Deal with it.

The "you must pay tax on IRA withdrawals" is not a "wall of text". It's one sentence. Some variation of "You are obligated to pay tax on a IRA withdrawal". Also a 401(k) withdrawal, and all the other variants of personal retirement accounts.

Get back to me when you have a real job with a real defined contribution plan.

Is it in BIG BOLD LETTERS or placed where it's easily overlookable?

You can't miss it. You're wrong. Deal with it.

Frankly, the IRS loves to get people into trouble with them for the same reason the mafia does, because they then can arbitrarily decide what they want the person to pay and will break their knees if they don't.

Actually, believe or not, the IRS is not actually permitted to break any part of your body. Strictly speaking, the mafia isn't permitted to do it either, but they do it anyway, which is why they're a criminal organization.

I never fucking said it excused or mitigated the shitstain's fucking actions, Broomstick! Never! Fucking! Once!

Your own words condemn you. You were wrong. These are YOUR WORDS:

However, what I am saying is that it explains it, and even offers it a modicum of nominal nobility

IANAA. However, it's commonly accepted today that our tax code is a byzantine, labyrinthine mess because it offers tax dodges and cheats to those wealthy enough to hire a team of accountant-ninja to legal-jutsu their debts away.

I am not an accountant, either, yet I have made some attempt to read and understand at least somewhat those tax laws that apply to me. So I don't have to go with "commonly accepted", I have seen the tax code and can draw my own conclusions. You might try getting out of mom's basement a little more often. For free, here's how you do it: go to your local library. Ask to see the tax code - the reference librarian will probably ask you to specify Federal, state, or local. Pick any one. Start reading. Or, if that's too difficult, go to the IRS website and start there.

Or that he chose that time specifically in order to pick the daylight hours (when he could see well enough to hit) when the building would be as empty as possible. Defensible, no, justifiable, no, but a damn sight better than if he'd struck at, say, 10 AM when the place would have been completely packed.

You FUCKING MORON!!! Do you listen to the news? Can you fucking read? He DID crash at 10 in the morning! You goddamed, retarded turd. He deliberately chose a time of day when people were most likely to be in the office!!! Holy shit, are you digging yourself a hole. Stack REALLY DID mean to kill people. Period. End of Story.

If you piss the cops off, they don't throw your wife and children in prison because you're on the lam and they can catch your wife and children.

Goddamn, are you fucking naive - if someone commits a crime their family sure as hell can be compelled to spend time with the police as potential accessories. The family and friends can be arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting a criminal. How the fuck are you going to survive in the real world being that damned ignorant?

Your "proof", consisting of about 600 alleged cases over 15 years, 15 years where the IRS dealt with over 100 million households? 600 fuckups in 1,500,000 interactions with the public is .0004%. That's a fucking low rate of problems. Of course, abuses and errors should be rectified, but get real - even if every single incident on that website was true it is hardly proof of some sort of institutionalized sadism.

Married to someone who had huge debts before you married them? They'll come after you.

Then maybe you should know who're you're marrying before you get hitched, hmm?

Broomstick, I have to say, this isn't a very strong position to defend, especially not with arguments of the form "you should have known what you were getting into!"

Yes, they should have known. But there's still something morally objectionable about pursuing a debtor's spouse for payment of taxes even after they divorce the debtor. It may be lawful, but I don't think anyone should be expected to like or approve of it. Especially bearing in mind that it's possible for the debtor to try to hide the evidence from someone they hope to marry.

If you file jointly you're also assuming joint responsibility - that's why BOTH parties have to sign the tax form. Now, if a married couple files separately then there is a stronger argument for saying "I didn't know." IF you marry someone with extensive debts then, among other things, filing separately helps protect your assets from being applied to the other parties' debt.

If fraud occurred then there is recourse to get the spouse off the hook - but it has to be proved. Mrs. Stack is not doomed to be raked over the coals, but she needs a lawyer right now. Given the publicity of this particular case she might even get one pro bono.

The fact remains, though, that you should get to know someone before you marry them. Whirlwind romances of just a few months resulting in a Las Vegas drive through marriage is a recipe for disaster. The older the parties involved in a wedding the more caution should be exercised because both parties have more history. Second, third, etc., marriages might well have legal complications from prior marriages, such as child support. I'm sorry if it kills some of the romance, but yes, this sort of stuff SHOULD be considered prior to saying "I do". I'm well aware that people don't do this, but then that's one reason a lot of marriages turn into nightmares.

[FSTargetDrone]

There is definitely a bit of a pile-on taking place here, with people exaggerating Shadowdragon's position somewhat. However, Shadowdragon has done himself no favours. He always clarifies his situation to say that he's not defending the man ... BUUUUUUT he insists on invariably adding that somehow, his actions are mitigated by <insert generic anti-IRS rant here>.

He seems incapable of letting a post go by without attacking the IRS. He reminds me of the rabid anti-abortion fucknuts who will say that yes, it was wrong to murder an abortion doctor, BUUUUUUT ... the bastard deserved it.

PS. I moved this back to N&P because I don't think Shadowdragon is trolling.

Alright, I was out most of Saturday and hadn't a chance to respond to ShadowDragon8685 before this was initially HOSed, but everything I was going to say about the "nobility" and "sympathy" business has already been addressed by Degan and Broomstick, so I won't rehash it. I'll step away from this particular angle of the thread for now unless ShadowDragon8685 requires a response from me directly, but I am not conceding my views.