I.R.S. Blowback
Posted by Alex R. Knight III on Feb 23, 2010 in Commentary • 2 commentsThe recent assault by Joe Stack in Austin, Texas, by small aircraft, on an office building containing an IRS facility had such obvious parallels to 9/11 that few in the mainstream media failed to pick up on it. Indeed, in the wake of the attack, the Pentagon ordered two F-16 fighter jets to be scrambled out of Houston to investigate, and Obama was even briefed on the incident at the White House.
The similarities that were predictably not picked up on, however, were among the very first that came to my mind. Now, I want to give all 9/11 official-story skeptics their due: There are many, many events both surrounding and that occurred on that day that have yet to be explained to my satisfaction. For our purposes at present, however, let’s assume that al-Qaida, or some Middle-Easterners were involved in some way (as many 9/11 skeptics believe anyway). It then becomes incumbent upon us to ask: What makes some people so angry as to do something this wicked? Answer? Antagonism over a long period of time. The American government has diplomatically and militarily needled and provoked the peoples of that region since at least the 1950s, when the CIA deposed the democratically-elected shah of Iran. That was what ultimately led to the 1979 Islamic revolution in which the U.S. embassy was invaded and numerous Americans were held hostage for almost a year. Such continued behavior, in addition to an unabashed bias towards and support of Israel, ultimately led to – at the very least – arabic peoples participating in 9/11. Foreign terrorism, as it applies to America, has a quite apt term to describe it: Blowback. What you dish out comes back to you.
So what could make a man like Joe Stack – by all accounts a peaceful, friendly software engineer and musician from Texas, angry enough to perform a less devastating, but similar action? Well, there’s a little government agency that goes around stealing people’s money under the threat of jail or death so that the interest can be paid on the debt the government has run up with the private Federal Reserve corporation. That wonderful little group squirming lice are known as the Internal Revenue Service – or, IRS, as above. And here in America, they are really little more than domestic terrorists. In contravention of most of their own “laws” and regulations, they require that people declare their earnings as income, file returns, submit to audits, subject themselves to wage withholding (supposedly temporary and voluntary in 1943, now no longer considered as either), and hand over a percentage of their money every year – for businesses, every quarter.
Given this, is it any wonder that there aren’t a whole lot more John Stacks? It remains to be seen, as government grows and becomes ever more intrusive and arrogant, whether there will be.
Irwin Schiff, the great anti-income tax activist (currently American political prisoner) once said something like, “Hating the IRS and not the rest of government is like hating a fist instead of the guy who threw the punch.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s time for Americans to wake up to that simple truth, and reject the very idea of government altogether.
C4SS News Analyst Alex R. Knight III is an author of horror, science fiction, and fantasy tales, living and writing in rural southern Vermont. He is the author of Victoria's Place and Other Tales of Terror (BareBones Publishing, 2008), and numerous other works, including non-fiction and poetry. He is also a regular contributor to the libertarian journal Strike The Root.
I take certain issues with the present article.
One, the Federal Reserve is not "private." Just like Halliburton, it is an arm of the state, and should be treated as such. In fact, in the case of the Federal Reserve, it was created by an act of Congress, and only exists because the Congress grants it the statist privilege of creating money out of thin air through its "open-market operations."
Two, although the author is correct that this is an instance of blowback–just like 9/11 was–there is public misunderstanding about blowback that this article fails to address. When person A describes action X to person B as "blowback," B often assumes that A believes the action, and the manner in which it was carried out, were justified. B does not realise initially that one can accept that blowback exists without sanctioning the method of retaliation.
In both 9/11 and the Austin plane crash, innocent people, people who were not even affiliated with the criminal gang we call the state, were injured or killed. It's important that we note that one needs not support the specific method of retaliation used in order to recognise that these are indeed examples of blowback, and that the best method of ensuring that such things do not occur again is to eliminate theft (e.g., taxation) and militarism–indeed, we would do well to eliminate the entire state apparatus.
Sincerely yours,
Alex Peak
There are a lot more Joe Stack incidents out there waiting to happen. The country is a powder keg and there are lots and lots of angry people. As the calendar winds around again to 15 April, many taxpayers are fed up, out of work, unable to make ends meet.
Individuals interested in a stateless society can find the incipient Joe Stacks and talk to them about agorism. What if Joe Stack had withdrawn? What if he had picked up stakes, disappeared, gotten help getting off the grid? What if he had been persuaded not to kill, but to live? What if, in short, John Galt had gotten to him first?
It seems to me that more than talking about policies, more than expressing outrage about politicians or legislators, the work of the stateless society is in your neighbourhoods, in your schools, in your pubs, around your town, where you can meet people. Who do you know who is already disgruntled? Who do you know who is being audited? Who do you know who is upset?
The answer to the system is not to attack it with violence, even in retribution, even in defense. Because doing so won't work all at once. And whatever one would attack with force the system will resist – it is adept at doing so. It is great at finding scapegoats to blame, magic bullet theories to focus attention, and stirring up the mindlessly patriotic and gung ho "our team forever" types. Attacking the system is certainly tempting, but it is very unlikely to succeed.
Whereas withdrawing from the system has proven merit. It has worked for tens of millions already. Last count, in testimony the IRS gave to Congress in 1998, there were over 60 million Americans who should have been filing who were not. The police state would like to find them. I do my part to help them stay secret.
I mean to confound these buggers. I mean to share the possibilities of agorism with the frustrated, the pissed off, the "touched by government" who are in my community. Wherever that happens to be.
I say let Joe Stack's choices not be in vain, but also let them not be repeated. It is time to do more than go to Galt's Gulch, it is time to share the ideas of Galt with the productive and frustrated.