Texas suicide dude influenced by Tea Party Movement?

Fifty-three-year-old Joseph Andrew Stack III deliberately flew a stolen Piper Cherokee PA-28 into an Austin federal building that housed the local office of the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday.

It seems a number of media outlets (with liberal tendencies) are thinking out loud: "Boy, this Stack dude's suicide letter/manifesto sort of resembles - you know, that Tea Party rhetoric." I paraphrased all that.

A Washington Post blog read: "His (Stack) alienation is similar to what we're hearing from the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement." And Time magazine's online write-up twice included links to a background on the Tea Party movement - but those have since been removed. Removed? Why?

Chris Rovzar of New York Magazine stated, "In fact, a lot of his (Stack) rhetoric could have been taken directly from a handwritten sign at a tea party rally."

"Similar"? "Could have been?" Remind me to approach some random man in the street, punch him in the face because he looks as though he might be thinking about possibly assaulting me...and worry about the ramifications of my actions later.

I hate politicians. I hate the media. Liberals accuse the conservatives of fear mongering and chastise Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. Then the liberal media turns around and surmises that Stack's beliefs are somehow/maybe/possibly/perhaps/almost like the Tea Party's platform. Ergo (third time I've used "ergo" in a blog post in the last two months), the Tea Party's philosophy is as whacked as a guy who embarks on a airplane suicide mission. Am I assuming too much? Like the liberal media is? That IS what they're saying, right?

New York Magazine attributed its assertion (I don't know that you'd call it an "assertion") to portions of Stack's suicide letter:

"We are … brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was "no taxation without representation." I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a "crackpot" traitor and worse."

Sound like the Tea Party? Maybe it does. I agree with the above statement. I know a lot of people who agree with that statement. And they're not all conservatives and Republicans. Don't worry - I don't know how to fly one anyway.

Here's another excerpt from Stack's letter: "While very few working people would say that they haven't had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainly that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say."

Gotta agree with Stack on this one as well - though I might not go as far as to say "never been". Can any of us really be sure of our elected officials' motivations? I realize they're supposed to be working SOLELY for their constituents; I also know that Washington politicians are taking monies from special interest groups for their reelection campaigns and then voting the way those special interest groups want them to vote. Is that working for me - or you?

One more. "It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their "freedom" … and they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them."

Well - I believe, even while this country is trying to pick itself up from last year's economic fuck-up, most Americans feel the United States is the best country in the world. Think about the shit going on in Haiti, Iraq, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Africa, parts of South America - we have it good. But people are pissed. People are out of work. They lost their savings. And homes. This Stack guy is just one man. I don't know...maybe he wasn't whacked. We may not ever know. Maybe he was perfectly sane and simply wanted to drive home a point by giving up his life for his cause.

They've been doing that in the Middle East for thousand of years. And they don't have a Tea Party over there.