Thursday, February 18, 2010

A Suicide Note I Empathize With

Today, a man flew a small plane into a building in Austin. It's captured our attention for most of the day. It turns out that the pilot was very frustrated and did what is effectively a suicide attack on an IRS office. He also torched his own house with his wife and child in it. It appears that one of his intents was to get the world to read his suicide note. His drastic measures have proven successful.

Although I can't understand or endorse what he did, I found a lot in his note that I agreed with. The main theme was about how so much of American life is gamed by the big guys and how little power the little guy has to stop it. He railed against tax codes that exploited his profession, health care, the legal code, the political system that fails to represent the people, and the Catholic church. He called the church "vulgar" and "corrupt" and bemoaned the fact that they have received tax exemptions that helped make them wealthy. I agree completely with the spirit of his complaints, even though I don't understand the details of his situation.

I'm a reasonably intelligent guy and I cannot for the life of me figure out why the United States gives a tax exemption to the Catholic Church. The Church seems to exemplify the rigged system that we labor under. They have run a pedophile ring for decades in multiple countries and done everything in their power to evade responsibility. I've written about this before. Yes, some priests have received the justice they deserved, but to date none of the scheming hierarchy has seen the inside of a court, let alone a jail. The Catholic Church is a criminal organization that should have its assets seized under the RICO (racketeering) law until a full investigation can be performed. The assets of the church should be used to benefit its victims. I simply cannot fathom why they are still receiving a tax exemption.

To add insult to injury, the Pope has evaded a law suit in the pedophile scandal by claiming diplomatic immunity. Some people think he's the head of some state. Ok. If they want to play that card, then let's make all of the Catholic hierarchy Vatican citizens and revoke their US passports. They clearly have little respect for US law and they're only following orders, like good little immoral soldiers they are. If they are convicted of a crime, they can be convicted or deported like any other badly-behaving alien. They want to have their cake and eat it too. When they can evade laws or screw with other countries, they're a foreign country. When they want to make money, they're a charity. So far, they've been very successful at the game.

I will continue to remind people of the corruption of the Catholic Church, but I don't see them being treated any differently in the foreseeable future. Catholic laity are still deeply loyal to the Church. They appear to be happy to support the pedophilia and corruption because the value their magic crackers and ticket to perpetual orgasm over any sort of human moral virtue. Either that, or they're hopelessly mindlessly ignorant. If a Catholic reader has a more generous interpretation, I'd like to hear it. Perhaps that reader can also explain why anyone should trust them on their woo-woo unverifiable supernatural claims when they spend so much time lying about real-world claims. They're really good at lying, as near as I can tell.

The Catholic Church doesn't run the US legal system. (At least I hope not.) They clearly seem to have help from outside their church. It appears that the majority of Christians value "religious tolerance". What this has come to mean is a situational moral blind spot when the perpetrators of some atrocity happen to be fellow Christians. You also hear it as "Thou Shalt Not Judge". In practice, it's an agreement among thugs: "You don't draw attention to my sociopathic Rapture snuff porn business and I won't draw attention to your pedophile ring." "You let me pray my sick child to death and I won't call you on your faith-healing con game." The list goes on. In the end, practical Christianity is about screwing someone and inhibiting anyone from doing something about it. It's worked well for Christian leaders so far, why would they want to change it? Why would believers risk their ticket to nirvana actually doing something when they can take comfort in prayer (which has the same practical effect as masturbation)?

Lest you think I'm making this up, I have gotten a number of e-mails from Christians who seem to be shocked that I'm rattling the skeleton's in Christianity's closet. (I'm not party to the agreement between thugs.) Their biggest desire seems to be to shut me up. They seem to know what I'm saying is true, but they don't want to hear it. One correspondent actually wanted me to enter a deal where if I lost, I would never say anything bad about a Christian again (even if it was true). That alone speaks volumes about Christianity to me. The moral failings of Christianity are a big part of my motivation to be an outspoken advocate for atheism. They should be a reason why we deny tax exemptions to such blatantly corrupt religious organizations.

Sadly, Christianity's corruption is only part of the overall screwed up situation we're in. I'm doing what I can with the tools I have. I would encourage all of you to do what you can to get us out of the myriad messes we're all in.

43 comments:

  1. "The Catholic Church doesn't run the US legal system. (At least I hope not.) "

    Maybe you haven't noticed that the majority of the Supreme Court is catholic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Can you imagine how much better our situation (and by our, I mean the USA) would be if we got tax money from the churches?! CHRIST, we could use that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Funny story, and one I've wanted to call in about, but I'm a student with a part time job, full time classes and trying to build a portfolio for a master's program so it aint happened yet...

    I went to a catholic high school, and was in it right when the scandal broke. For a final essay in Religion class (we had to read books on ethics or philosophy and build form those books an argument about what could be changed or is accurate about the church) I picked the pedophilia scandal. At the time the teacher was fair (got an A on it) but criticized some arguments I had saying that the church was already doing things about the pedophiles, the hierarchy was against it, the treatment facilities, zero tolerance etc.

    Anyway, come college time I need examples of my argumentative writings. I print up a copy of it and ask him to go over it again and submit it to the college. Now this is 4 years after more details came out.

    His criticism this time? I wasn't hard ENOUGH on the church. Sentences I put in to be kind to the church and appease his stance he stroke out as wrong the second time around and soft on the issue. He didn't even remember that his review of my first draft was what put those points in in the first place! 4 years after the fact, unacceptable, slash it right out.

    Clearly both of us learned something from that assignment.

    ReplyDelete
  4. As an ex-Catholic who still retains some fondness for the Church (I know, I know)... I agree with Don.

    This whole "we're a church / country / giant global NGO / clerical order like the Templar or Malta knights / charity group / pocket society / banking system / what have you / whatever we need to be, circumstances depending" is nothing but a racket.

    If the priests and higher-ups of the RCC honestly believe the Vatican has legal authority over them and they have loyalty to it, then they are officers of a foreign government and should be treated as such. Period. Full stop.

    This would mean, as Don says, that refusal to co-operate with legitimate (secular) authorities on criminal investigations would result in the revocation of their credentials and deportation - at a minimum.

    And for crying out loud... let the poor bastards get laid. I mean, with other consenting grown-ups.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm surprised most of your response was made in regards to the Catholic issue.

    The saddest thing I find about this whole situation is how Joe Stack is going to go down in history as a nutbag loon. Most news sites cite a small sample of his letter, and the most innocuous part at that. Then quickly jump to what the police are doing.

    He may have got his voice heard, but it won't matter to the great mixing board of the media. As atheist we all know how quote mining and twisting can go.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "ne correspondent actually wanted me to enter a deal where if I lost, I would never say anything bad about a Christian again (even if it was true)."
    Without knowing anything more, I'm also willing to bet dollars to donuts that the deal was absurdly shunted in his favor as well.

    In the same light, I have seen numerous youtube video responses where a theist makes a rebuttal to some atheist video and promptly closes his address by calling on the atheist he's responding to to accept that s/he is wrong, delete all his/her videos and close the channel.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Joe believed that laws were published against him, that the response to 9/11 was against him, the dot-com crash was against him, his accountant was against him, his family was against him, all while everybody else was unfairly advantaged. He didn't give a toss if he made other innocent lives miserable including his own wife and daughter. He was a nutbag loon.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I grew up in a Catholic society and in a Catholic education system. Learning to become a good Catholic is basically learning rituals (that's the fun part) and learning to excuse any bad behavior on either temptation or faith. The straw in the eye parable, they love it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. On the one hand, I can see being sympathetic to someone's expressions of frustrations at feeling ineffectual in the face of a system that seems stacked against you at every turn. But you know what? Most of us manage to get by. Most of us either deal with our frustrations comfortably enough, or learn to fit in in other ways. Life ain't fucking fair. Do I wish there were no IRS or crappy job market to deal with? Sure, we all do. But there's a line you cross where understandable frustrations become undeserved feelings of entitlement that a narcissistic, callous sense of inflated self-regard justifies gratifying by any means necessary. Joe Stack, like so many others before him who've lashed out violently, crossed that line, and that's where my sympathy ends.

    I mean, hell, if I owed back taxes, and happened to own a light plane, I'd sell the plane. Just sayin'.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I read his letter and while i agree, there were things in it i could empathize with, i thought he came off as sounding like a big loser.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am not sure I empathize with this note as much as Don. I often look at suicide as an inherently selfish act and find that to be the case here. This man decided that he had been wronged and that it made him special. So special that his wife and daughter did not count. Just who did he think he was going to injure. The IRS director is not in Austin. It is little different from Timothy McVey (sp. ?) setting off a bomb to get back at the FBI.

    Certainly life is not fair and our society is more like an oligarchy than a democracy. This is nothing new and things were probably worse in the era when the robber barons of industry controlled everything. Certainly the government is not ideal but congress can make laws and give the IRS the authority to collect taxes. Mr. Stack speaks of running his own business. For anyone like myself who has been in business, the kinds of tax problems Mr. Stack was having, sound a bit like the result willful ignorance.

    Don's response to the note regarding the abuses of the tax exempt Catholic Church seemed inflated beyond the content of the suicide letter. I have not use for child abusing priests and even less for the hierarchy that hid them. I think the current pope should be in the dock for crimes against humanity rather than being venerated. That being said I can't help wondering about the true extent of the abuse. It just does not seem to square my experience with the Catholic clergy. I spent a number of years at a Jesuit University and dealt with many fine people who were priests.

    Of course as a life long heathen and outsider what do I know?

    ReplyDelete
  12. I think Martin pretty much bulls-eye'd it.

    I stand by what I said about the RCC and still agree with Don that the Church's slippery, mutable, opportunistic legal status must be addressed once and for all.

    That said, any consideration of Stack's manifesto must be cautioned by the knowledge that the man was psychotic at best, if not wicked.

    It will be interesting to see how people of various political stripes spin his words, to the extent they can be spun.

    Right-wing nut, left-wing nut or just plain nuts?

    ReplyDelete
  13. When I read this note, I felt a little ashamed. I would never condone the act of violence towards other people, yet I found myself moved to agree with nearly everything Mr. Stack had to write. It troubled me -- because I am now starting to wonder if we live in a world where violence is the only way to begin changing things or getting heard as an average person. I dearly hope not.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "Mr. Stack speaks of running his own business. For anyone like myself who has been in business, the kinds of tax problems Mr. Stack was having, sound a bit like the result willful ignorance."

    I read his name as Stark at first and found the image of Iron Man ramming the IRS building oddly hilarious...


    "It will be interesting to see how people of various political stripes spin his words, to the extent they can be spun.

    Right-wing nut, left-wing nut or just plain nuts?"

    George is right here and it shows the problem of the binary political model. No clue whether he as a left wing or right wing nut, but I'm sure both sides will spin it that way. I think he was just a paranoid nut who should have gotten some help and a mood stabilizer.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The Catholic Church (or churches in general) love the separation of church and state when it is convenient for them. like when they get tax exempt status, but not so much with what gets taught in science classes.
    ---------------------------
    The Atheist Perspective

    ReplyDelete
  16. If I can read between the lines, it sounds like Mr. Stack was trying to get out of paying his taxes. Looks like he didn't succeed and got fined/jailed ("10 years of my life").

    Oh well.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Is separation of church and state the actual reason for their tax exempt status? That doesn't even make sense, the taxes are for land not for what is on the land. Jeez, I don't want to fly into any IRS building, but sometimes the tax laws just make me want to...@#$!!@!!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. More dittos for Martin.

    If your life sucks and you've had some bad breaks, you deserve some sympathy. If you choose to kill yourself over it, you might deserve sympathy or you might just look too pathetic to warrant any at that point. If you take some people out with you, all bets are off.

    Regardless of whether Stack's beliefs about the IRS and religion were accurate or not, these weren't the bad guys that he attacked. The people working in that buildings were working schmoes like himself. He chose to attempt murder on some of them in order to make a point. Any claim he has on having a reasonable ideology is out the window now.

    Furthermore: What kind of idiot would think that he can get positive attention for his belief system through this kind of act? Inevitably, whatever he says he believed will be used to try to discredit that belief. For example, without having looked, I'm going to place 2:1 odds that Sal Cordova or some other Discovery Institute contemptible ghoul has used his remarks about "organized religion" to smear atheists.

    If a guy like that was smart, he'd write exactly the OPPOSITE of what he believes in his suicide note, to flip a middle finger at some hated group.

    Then again, if he was smart, he wouldn't try to murder innocent people for his beliefs.

    ReplyDelete
  19. What kind of idiot would think that he can get positive attention for his belief system through this kind of act?

    Well, Kazim, don't forget that America is a country of shitheads. With disheartening predictability, right-wingers are taking time out from masturbating to videos of Sarah Palin to praise Joe Stack as a hero. Apparently crashing planes into buildings is only evil when dark-skinned non-Christians do it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. @Jeremy-To be fair, the Catholic Church do recognises evolution, the Big Bang and al. They are not as anti-science as many Christian denominations, not officially anyway. But as I said here before, there is an ocean oof difference between what is recognised by the Vatican and what is preached to the flock.

    @Martin and Kazim-I'm with you on that one. There is nothing remotely excusable about what this murderous madman did.

    ReplyDelete
  21. @ Martain

    Wow I just threw up a little...How the hell are they patriots when they cheer on someone attacking the country?

    ReplyDelete
  22. "One reason anti-government groups are embracing Stack, rather than distancing themselves from his extreme actions, is that he does not seem to be crazy, Potok said. It's a characteristic that troubles forensic pyschiatrist and ABC News consultant Dr. Michael Welner.

    "It's easy to get a sense that someone like snaps," Welner told "Good Morning America" today. "But this is the kind of crime that's planned for a long time... I don't find it to be psychotic. That's the problem here. It's rational." "


    What the fuck is that shrink smoking? How the hell is it 'rational'? Hell, how is it not insane if it's planned. A paranoid person can plan for a while to kill Frank Salisbury form Cleavland Ohio because he blames Mr. Salisbury for his marriage falling apart. That's still not flipping 'rational'.

    ReplyDelete
  23. This guy killed at least 1 innocent person and tried to kill more. He's a cowardly and pathetic POS as far as I'm concerned.

    ReplyDelete
  24. How the hell are they patriots when they cheer on someone attacking the country?

    Because, Ing, they've been brainwashed by all the raving coming out of RushFoxBeckistan that the country has been taken over by evil socialist commie Nazis led by a president who, in addition to the unforgivable sin of Not Being White, is also an illegal alien and quite possibly possessed by demons, and so guys like Joe Stack are in fact the "freedom fighters" out to "take America back."

    Seriously dude. America is in worse shape than anyone imagines. The lunatics are running wild. Much as I try to avoid hyperbole, I'm becoming convinced the nation will no longer exist, geographically, in its current form by 2050.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Can you imagine how much better our situation (and by our, I mean the USA) would be if we got tax money from the churches?! CHRIST, we could use that!

    95% of the USA's churches would simply shut their doors if they were taxed.

    ReplyDelete
  26. But there's a line you cross where understandable frustrations become undeserved feelings of entitlement that a narcissistic, callous sense of inflated self-regard justifies gratifying by any means necessary.

    Amen!

    Violence is sometimes justified in fighting for justice (as a last resort), but violence against innocents (such as anonymous office workers who happen to be employed by the IRS) is never justified. Whatever legitimacy Stack's complaints had were nullified when he decided that indiscriminate murder and destruction would be an act of justice.

    A truly revolutionary political act would have been something like fasting outside of the IRS headquarters in Washington with the stated intent of starving to death. That would have gotten international attention and harmed no one except himself. Flying a plane into a building is simply desperate wanna-be terrorism from a self-obsessed nutcase.

    ReplyDelete
  27. "Because, Ing, they've been brainwashed by all the raving coming out of RushFoxBeckistan that the country has been taken over by evil socialist commie Nazis led by a president..."

    RushFoxBeckistan is popular because they express and personify the ideology of millions of Americans -- not the other way around. Nobody is being brainwashed here. They already believe all that claptrap.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Perhaps I ought to have said "validated."

    ReplyDelete
  29. I'm not sure there isn't any brainwashing going on.

    A lot of these people may have been conditioned to accept certain things uncritically when they were children.

    It isn't just things about the Bible or any other holy book. Just a mindset instilled into them.

    Mind you, as adults, they are responsible for what they believe unlike when they're 12 years old and don't really understand what's being drilled into them.

    I think in most cases it's a little bit of both: conditioning (brainwashing, if you will) during childhood and willful ignorance as adults. It raises the question, though: were they taught as children to be willfully ignorant?

    ReplyDelete
  30. My initial reaction to reading this guys rather protracted "suicide note" was that it was an fine recipe for a conspiracy theory.
    Take a few disparate facts, add them together with a sense of "the man is against you" add some of your own personal bad luck, then run wild with your conclusions. Leave this to stew for a couple of decades and you see the result.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I'm new to the blog. Been watching the show for a few months going backwards (@~show 699 now). Two things:

    1. Don, I'm impressed with your candor and the strength of forthright assessments here. I can imagine it's been said before, but, it would be great to see this translate more completely to the show. You are going to offend people: Might as well be straight up about the delivery!

    2. As a 'theoretical' anarchist as well as an atheist, the suicide bombing last week had I suppose a different impression on me than it seems it does on the previous 30 commenters. I find almost every comment to be apologetics for the State in much the same way that Catholics might defend their church.

    It disturbs me (of course, I'm an anarchist) that past all the bickering about why this bloke was wrong there seems to be a common half-baked (half-hearted?) willingness to straw-man him in order to prop up some agenda or other. To me, as an 'outsider' to what looks to me to be 'other thinkers, statist kind', the agenda is the state, and the ambiguity is violence.

    Its as if some of you are unwilling to flatly condemn the action sans the man...(roll in ad hominem variants and strawmen here) or would rather look past the event to its political implications.

    I take this discomfort as a sign that all is not right within the statist camp (never is, but different here of course).

    Maybe I'll post my own take on his actions and what I think of him. I did read his entire letter (if it's true that it is his letter that I read...never know :) ), but I thought I'd just drop off these percolations for now to say hello.

    Thanks for the article Don. You were fantastic on the Church, and I can relate on the bombards too :)

    ReplyDelete
  32. "Its as if some of you are unwilling to flatly condemn the action sans the man...(roll in ad hominem variants and strawmen here) or would rather look past the event to its political implications."

    Really? We're really going to go with the "you name calling, meanies" card? No his writings were insane, he was a looser who needed help, and his "activism" was to kill pencil pusher salerymen. He wasn't blowing up Parliament to kill off The Leader, He's not trying to humiliate Captain Hammer, he was trying to sacrifice innocent people to make a 'statement'. So yeah, I'm going to say he was an asshole to think that, in big picture sense, his minor problems were worthy of slaughtering others. Fuck that noise.

    Would it be good not to have to pay taxes or deal with govornment bullshit? Yes...it'd also be good to ride a Dire Unicorn to work and have Superman around to solve natural disasters.

    For anarchy and anti-taxation you'd have to get rid of
    a) military
    b) police)
    c) roads
    d) school system
    e) the capitalist controls that keep "the man" from owning you as debt slaves like chatel.
    f) Darfa and independent research

    Yeah, what HAVE the Romans ever done for us?

    If you want anarchy Somalia and the like are taking volunteers.

    ReplyDelete
  33. "I find almost every comment to be apologetics for the State in much the same way that Catholics might defend their church."

    I stopped reading right there.

    (BTW: The verification word generated for this entry was 'nolord.' Apropos, no?)

    ReplyDelete
  34. Jesus...I wind up on the same side of George politically at a frightening rate...maybe I am too conservative ;)

    ReplyDelete
  35. While I do somewhat sympathise with him, it sounds as though he was embittered re: his personal financial outcomes, and not all of the idealogical stuff he mentioned. I doubt very much that he'd have done this had things turned out differently for him. I'm sure his concern for ''the little guy'' wouldn't have been so great....

    Did he make some legitimate points? Sure, but he made them amongst some flawed ideas and conspiracy sounding b.s.

    Either way, it's a sad situation all around.

    ReplyDelete
  36. I've never understood these kinds of actions. These morons rail against the rich and powerful then attack the poor and powerless.

    Not that I am advocating any form of violence whatsoever but if you want to make a change, not just a statement, you have to go after the leaders of the thing you hate not the helpless grunts. Kill a soldier and no one cares, they're a dime a dozen, but kill a leader and people pay attention. Again NOT advocating or condoning violence in any way I'm just talking effectiveness.

    On to the murder's suicide note:
    He says he was exploiting a tax loophole and it got closed. It seems he was angry that others still got to exploit tax loopholes, namely the Catholic Church, while he couldn't.

    He doesn't argue against corruption itself but is instead angry that some get to be corrupt and others don't.

    Ironically he then writes that there is no justice because people more powerful than him do what they want with no regard for those less powerful.

    So how does he fight this injustice of the rich and powerful over the poor and powerless? He burns down his $230,000 house almost killing his terrified wife and blameless 12 year old daughter. He then gets into his private airplane and crashes it into a building killing a low-level manager and attempting to kill an entire building of innocent people.

    He's no better than those he claims to despise; he was just pissed he wasn't one of them.

    P.S. Love both shows AA and NPR.

    ReplyDelete
  37. @ Kludge:

    Exactly what I was saying, just better articulated. I'm literally in 100% agreement with you.

    ReplyDelete
  38. "Really? We're really going to go with the "you name calling, meanies" card? No his writings were insane, he was a looser who needed help, and his "activism" was to kill pencil pusher salerymen. He wasn't blowing up Parliament to kill off The Leader, He's not trying to humiliate Captain Hammer, he was trying to sacrifice innocent people to make a 'statement'. So yeah, I'm going to say he was an asshole to think that, in big picture sense, his minor problems were worthy of slaughtering others. Fuck that noise."

    The point of describing something as 'ad hominem' is generally to show that an argument is fallacious, not to complain about the content of the "name calling, meanies" statements. You've mischaracterized what I said by describing it as complaining about name calling. This is strawmanning my 'argument' though I've only put forward my conclusions in the manner of stating an opinion or hypothesis. I suppose if you silence an argument that way before it is made you do win something.

    You've then gone on to describe this person's intentions without indicating how you arrived at this conclusion. As a counter-opinion for point of argument I would suggest that your assessment of his intentions doesn't really align with what he wrote, or what his actions suggest. Since we don't have any other way to assess this information I guess we'll have to refrain from putting intentions in other people's brains, in the past. At least I will. A statement of non-demonstrable and extinguished fact from the past is untestable.

    You conclude that "I'm going to say he was an asshole to think that, in big picture sense, his minor problems were worthy of slaughtering others. Fuck that noise.", suggesting that some problems are worthy of slaughtering others? At any rate, your conclusion is to brand the guy "an asshole" for thinking that "In big picture sense my minor problems are worthy of slaughtering others" (to paraphrase and test him as the subject of your 'argument').

    ReplyDelete
  39. I think you're suggesting here that the degree to which someone has problems is the degree with which they should 'resort to violence' to solve those problems. That is curious in itself, but to the point it distracts from other possibilities about his motivations and what was or wasn't right about his actions: EG: That Stack wasn't trying to solve his problems. His letter doesn't indicate that he's going to kill himself to try and do anything. It doesn't seem he's trying to solve his problems, his family's problems, the problem of the State, the IRS, or anything at all, by what he actually wrote, or did. Rather, it seems to me that he had simply 'had enough' (his words) and was acting out of intense frustration and despair.

    Let me ask you this: If someone who had no particular problems with their life, no difficulties with the IRS, no beef with the Catholic Church, etc.. had done what he had done (including writing the same words about it beforehand, minus the personal suffering bit), would you still call them an asshole? I think you would. And I'd probably agree with you too, at least in conclusion. But what does this say about your argument above? You've used the wrong criteria to define your condemnation of the action. If you can make the argument against violence of this type (to get heard, to 'make a statement', to deal with overwhelming despair, whatever) without having to suggest he did it 'because of his minor problems', then you've made a better argument, and one that does not rest on some subjective 'fact' of that person's intentions.

    So that's what I mean by "Its as if some of you are unwilling to flatly condemn the action sans the man...(roll in ad hominem variants and strawmen here)". I could show examples from the previous comments I was referring to, but I think this will suffice.

    I'm not pointing this out to differ with your conclusions per se, and certainly not to try and recruit for the Stateless crowd. That is tangential in that I think that these things happen when defending any argument from authority. Rather, I'm offering what I hope will be helpful criticism and observation from a point of view I don't think is too common around the show's fanbase (anarchism). I don't mind your attempt to slam me. I expect it around arguments from authority. I do hope my comments will be useful to you or someone else in the future. Cheers. -GF

    ReplyDelete
  40. Since you were dismissing anarchism here, I guess in a way to attempt to dismiss my opinions above (via another relation of ad hominem, this time 'poisoning the well'): "Would it be good not to have to pay taxes or deal with govornment bullshit? Yes...it'd also be good to ride a Dire Unicorn to work and have Superman around to solve natural disasters.

    For anarchy and anti-taxation you'd have to get rid of
    a) military
    b) police)
    c) roads
    d) school system
    e) the capitalist controls that keep "the man" from owning you as debt slaves like chatel.
    f) Darfa and independent research

    Yeah, what HAVE the Romans ever done for us?

    If you want anarchy Somalia and the like are taking volunteers."

    I thought I'd offer some helpful links:

    Roads (a classic question!): www.strike-the-root.com/72/bill/bill1.html

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

    http://question-everything.mahost.org/Socio-Politics/BasicAnarchy.html

    http://liberatingminds.forumotion.com/portal.htm

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/
    and etc.... So, be well, drink juice, and enjoy.

    ReplyDelete
  41. "I'm not pointing this out to differ with your conclusions per se, and certainly not to try and recruit for the Stateless crowd."

    To put it in context on my stance for this "stateless bull" my loyalty to a state is the akin to a symbiot to its host. I'm willing to play nice and support it and pay dues as long as it's a viable structure to keep people from screwing me over or the like. I'm Hobbian in my state loyalty. My country has an ok track record and it's one of the better ones and has good ideals so I'm sticking with it for now. If we start going with kill the gays and all that I'll pull my support and jump ship if possible.

    ReplyDelete
  42. "You conclude that "I'm going to say he was an asshole to think that, in big picture sense, his minor problems were worthy of slaughtering others. Fuck that noise.", suggesting that some problems are worthy of slaughtering others?"

    Hitler was a problem.

    ...Do I get a prize for bringing out the fascist card before the anarchist?

    ReplyDelete
  43. "I've never understood these kinds of actions. These morons rail against the rich and powerful then attack the poor and powerless.

    Not that I am advocating any form of violence whatsoever but if you want to make a change, not just a statement, you have to go after the leaders of the thing you hate not the helpless grunts. Kill a soldier and no one cares, they're a dime a dozen, but kill a leader and people pay attention. Again NOT advocating or condoning violence in any way I'm just talking effectiveness."

    Grant Morrison I believe actually did a good send up of this in one of his comics, retelling the story from a member of a villain's redshirt army who was killed in an earlier episode.

    ReplyDelete

PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.

This blog encourages believers who disagree with us to comment. However, anonymous comments are disallowed to weed out cowardly flamers who hide behind anonymity. Commenters will only be banned when they've demonstrated they're nothing more than trolls whose behavior is intentionally offensive to the blog's readership.

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.