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Man drives plane into IRS building: "...violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer." With men making up the majority of the mancession, and the villainy of corporate America, I expect to see more of this stupidity

[deleted]

February 18, 2010

3 upvotes

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100218/ap_on_re_us/us_plane_crash_texas;_ylt=Al8BIMhfOi5jCMZfJDLRvWWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNrbTloOWI1BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwMjE4L3VzX3BsYW5lX2NyYXNoX3RleGFzBGNjb2RlA21vc3Rwb3B1bGFyBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRwdANob21lX2Nva2UEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yeQRzbGsDbWFuYW5ncnlhdGly

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Title	Man drives plane into IRS building: "...violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer." With men making up the majority of the mancession, and the villainy of corporate America, I expect to see more of this stupidity
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	3
Comments	13
Date	February 18, 2010 10:26 PM UTC (16 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/b3sek/man_drives_plane_into_irs_building_violence_not/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/man-drives-plane-into-irs-building-violence-not.1050724 https://theredarchive.com/post/1050724

Comments

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points6 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago* (12 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (11 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points1 point 16 years ago (10 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points4 points 16 years ago* (9 children) | Copy Link

He is not a dog, he is a human. Suffering doesn't strip us of free will, and it doesn't absolve us of taking responsibility for our actions. Do I see the reasons for what he did? Of course I do. He made it easy by spelling them out in his manifesto. But having a reason is not the same as being blameless. A mugger who kills a kid on the street for his shoes has a reason. Jim Jones had his reasons. These men had their personal reasons. They are still murderers and so is Joseph Stack.

Inexcusable. He was mad at the world, even legitimately, but he chose to kill. There are other ways he could have dealt with his anger and frustration.

Were these people really innocent? Stack didn't think so.

What was their capital crime? The majority of people in that building never personally wronged him, they just worked for an agency he despised. I am sure their husbands/wives/parents/children would agree that they were innocent. You know who else was in the building? Probably janitors. Security guards. Some guy's wife bringing him his lunch.

Yes, he suffered. Poor him. He was still a man, still human, still free to control his own actions. Yes, he was at the end of his rope. He should have just hung himself with it instead of trying to rob other people of their lives in his bitterness. Then, I would be sad for him.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

Suffering doesn't strip us of free will, and it doesn't absolve us of taking responsibility for our actions.

This is the problem. If you really believe in pure free will you need to be posting in /r/drugs. At some level most people seem to recognize the absurdity of it.

By saying "taking responsibility for one's actions" (or similar language) the debate is framed in a rather obvious yet really quite stupid way. Does anyone argue against taking responsibility? No. Of course not. But what can be argued against is a "pure free will" conception that holds a person entirely culpable for their actions without regard to circumstance.

Why is this absurd? Because everyone has a breaking point. Some higher than others. But everyone has a point where they are done; finished. Where there is nothing left. These limits are there, most people will never meet them. They're when you're hallucinating from heat and dehydration and don't know what time; what day; why you're there. If you don't believe me, set the world mile record. It's 3:43. All you need is a pair of spikes, a clock, and you should be good to go.

You're not going to though. Not just because you lack the physical strength, VO2 Max, ect. But because well before you'll ever dip below say 4:00 you'll encounter hard lines of where you can't physically go.

For one man, the limit was not physical, it was mental. He could not live his life seeing the hypocrisy, corruption and abuse of power that makes up the modern world (well, historical too, but that's another matter). Most people deal with it by ignoring it. Some, bless them, try and make it better. But really sitting down and staring at how fucked by "the system" most people are is a pretty depressing thing. Every day there are stories on reddit of people being abused by cops, corporate authority being used to destroy lives. At some level, we ignore it.

One man couldn't. This doesn't excuse his actions. They're wrongheaded and ineffective. They're certainly harming precisely the wrong people. But don't pretentiously judge him as an ignorant being. I read his "manifesto". He wasn't right. He's not a martyr. But he's someone who needed help that he never got. And that's sad that humans lost their lives because of that.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

But don't pretentiously judge him as an ignorant being.

I never did. I was arguing precisely the opposite, that he was informed enough to be held culpable for his actions.

Of course people are influenced by their circumstances. Of course everyone has a breaking point. But it's what you choose to do at your breaking point, when you have nothing to lose, when you're done that is in question here. Plenty of people have hit their breaking points and didn't murder anyone.

What he chose to do is a testament to the quality of HIS character, not to the bleakness of his circumstances.

Everything I was arguing was in response to the OP stating that he didn't blame Stack for his actions at all, because "society" had apparently driven him to it. Well, I do blame him for attempting to murder innocent people because that's what he did. I understand his reasons, and I understand that he was in dire straights. But he didn't commit suicide. He didn't run away and start a new life. He didn't do any of the countless other things available to him. He flew his plane into a building full of people. And that's the bottom line.

But he's someone who needed help that he never got. And that's sad that humans lost their lives because of that.

With all due respect, this is a flimsy argument. You could say that people lost their lives because Stack's mother gave birth to him. Or they lost their lives because they were working for the IRS. Or because air traffic control didn't do their jobs when he failed to fill out a flight plan. But honestly, the primary cause of their deaths is that Joseph Stack went on a murderous rampage. Plenty of people in worse situations than he did not do what he did.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points1 point 16 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

Ok, let me try this from a different angle.

Do you love anyone? A girlfriend, brother, father, best friend? What if a suicidal family man, angry at a law firm for firing him unfairly in the midst of a recession and causing him to lose his home, blew up the firm's headquarters while your loved one was in the building getting some legal advice? Would you still admire the bomber? Would you hold him blameless? What if YOU were in he building and were confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life because some guy was wronged by a corporation? He didn't give you a choice in joining his righteous fight against The Man, he blew you up when you didn't fucking want to be blown up.

Here's the problem with "repaying society in kind." Society is composed of individual people. People who were all wronged by someone, somehow. People who don't get a choice whether or not they die to publicize your cause.

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points1 point 16 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

Try from as many angles as you like. I stand by what I said, precisely because his actions do not touch me and mine. Let's make a few things clear: I am amoral and heartless. I do not have a sense of community. My loyalty is to myself first, and a few select individuals. So when a stranger kills a bunch of other strangers, it doesn't matter to me, though I may amuse myself by defending his actions as an intellectual exercise.

As far as I am concerned, society is everybody but me and mine, and society is welcome to go get fucked. Society only notices me when it wants something from me, so I have no particular loyalty towards society or affection for it. By all means, point out that the victims had lives and loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, and it didn't matter to Stack.

The death of a loved one is a tragedy. The deaths of strangers are just a few more line items on the butcher's bill.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 16 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 16 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] -1 points0 points1 point 16 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link