So apparently this guy had some beef with the government. What is most interesting is the suicide note he left behind. While it is somewhat convoluted you can see that he was quite articulate and had formulated some understanding of the world around him. Yet in his rage, as usual, he couldn’t identify exactly what he was against. He goes so far as to quote the communist manifesto at the end and then makes a joke on what the capitalist one would be. After complaining about government and “draconian” restrictions he seems happy to settle with the conclusion that all his problems are caused by what he dubs capitalism. And then he takes a plane and crashes it into a government building. Anyway, I found reading this sort of half suicide note half rant was interesting.
Check out the pdf link below and comment.
Is he just enraged and confused, does he make a point that is consistent with the rest of his message?
I didn’t read that he necessarily blamed solely capitalism. He argued how people are being robbed by the gov’t via taxes. He lamented for most of his note how he had worked hard to accumulate his own wealth to only have it stolen by big business-gov’t collusion. He said “big business” being political cronies to the political thugs. He said that the freedom that people dream that America somehow is, is non-existent. I thought he centered his argument on the loss of freedom and went on to discuss how people need to wake up to this. He blamed not only big business but unions, if you remember his conversation he wrote about concerning the old lady. He was blaming communism and capitalism, at least that’s how I read it. He said Bush was a puppet. He focused on freedom being what he stood for, as I mentioned. But then he took the unfortunate desperate way out when he said the only way to get freedom back is by violence. He even put himself as amongst the people before his event and said there will be more people to come, that will die for freedom. Not that these people that before and after his plane crash are organized, he said this in a very generalized fashion about how people eventually die for freedom and that he is now apart of that crowd.
It was a very in-depth suicide note in which he went into a tremendous amount of detail, even blaming organized religion, mentioned the Catholic Church as being very rich while there remains lots of poor people in the world, and mentions how the government is a total joke. It actually sounded anarchic. I wouldn’t mind hearing other people’s take on this.
I read it and thought it should resonate 10,000 times stronger than the average lone terrorist’s suicide manifesto.
My impressions were that he blames the system as much as the actors. What he seems to advocate isn’t so much capitalism or socialism, but fair play. He didn’t even seem to mind the level of taxation (I’m sure he did, but it isn’t stressed as much as fairness). That big businesses and institutions like the Catholic Church could claim tax credits that he couldn’t pissed him off. That his taxes were going to bailing out big businesses and institutions also pissed him off. And that the IRS treated him like a serf pissed him off.
A great point he made was that our laws are so convoluted they end up having two meanings. If you are part of the establishment, they mean nothing - if not, they mean you are a criminal.
I think that’s really the crux of it. He’s not so much rallying for or against known systems, but for any system that makes the rules of play clearly known in advance and that treats everyone fairly. While he rallied against our specific government, I’m not sure he was against government in general.
That part is true too, that’s why I said it “sounded anarchic” but you’re right, it wasn’t necessarily anarchic. He was mad about the current state of affairs, but he didn’t mention he was against gov’t all together.
I think it is quite astonishing that he would leave such in depth and seemingly sane suicide note behind.
It did not read like the note of a killer or a crackpot, but yet he almost invalidates all his credibility by committing such a random act of violence.
Obviously there was a screw loose, but do you think libertarian organizations like Mises or any other could have saved this guy? I wonder if he was aware.
An absurd and self-serving rant from an arrogant left-wing lunatic. This man believed that he held onto some secret, which only he was able to uncover–namely that the government steals from us. Wow, what a revelation! And of course, like a typical left-wing idiot, he decides to blame capitalism, markets, and religion. I love his pseudo-altruism (how he felt bad for that elderly woman who was married to a steel worker who lost his job), and the fact that it took him twenty something years to realize that he should take care of himself, and not expect corporations or the government to do so. Basically, this is a call for attention, and a plea for action (violent and bloody Marxist revolutions). It will probably influence the socialistically inclined ignorant youth, and emotional masses.
Do you want to make an “E” bet that this dude will not get pinned as a leftist? The “best” that is going to happen is a war between what side this dude was ideologically attached, and even if that happens I think most major media will call him a right winger.
yes. He didn’t come off as a left-wing anticapitalist to me. He made it clear, I thought, that unions didn’t help people, and it was the establishment as he put it, the big business cronies who had ties with political thugs. He made it clear he worked hard and always tried to get involved in the business spirit yet some had political clout in which they didn’t have to follow the same laws that everybody else had to. He made justice an issue. He came off as an ordinary American that wasn’t necessarily trying to follow party lines at all to justify who’s side was wrong or right. He wasn’t explicit about party issues, but ranted long about freedom.
“The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”
Yes. I read that. But it provides no tone. Words without a negative or positive review. I know some people that think that the communist creed is negative in connotation. It’s a stab to label somebody that way. And some capitalists think greed is great, so “each according to his greed” and go forth, be fruitful, and multiply. There’s not enough tone in those sentences.
also. it just occurred to me. remember near the beginning of the note how the guy went on and on and then eventually quoted “no taxation without representation”? Then the plane hits what building… I think you know what that might mean for the sharks looking for blood in the mainstream media.
This whole story seems improbable. Untold numbers of people throughout all history have lost everything they’ve had, every last earthly possession they spent their whole lives working for, without committing suicide. I’m sorry, but after the fishiness of WTC 7, I suspect this is just another Emmanuel Goldstein event. Check out this Wall St. Journal headline: “Tax Protester Crashes Plane Into IRS Office.” Do you think the crooks running Gov’t Inc. can’t see the massive tsunami of tax resistance that’s coming? What better way to torpedo resisters than to paint them as desperate crazies who could turn themselves into suicide killers once their millimeter-long fuse has burnt? “Keep an ear out for tax protesters, and report any suspicious activity to your nearest TSA officer.” Any news story that asks me to believe that a person has acted very far outside of his own self-interest instantly raises red flags in my mind. The more spectacular the event, the bigger and redder the flag. Do you believe that suicide bombers kill themselves without catalyst? I don’t.