Surprised and Shocked?

Ok, no one has said it yet – at least not that I know of – so I’ll say it. Am I surprised and shocked that a guy flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin, TX? No. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t happened more often, lately. I’m not condoning what this guy did, just saying it doesn’t really surprise or shock me.


Of course, by admitting this, the loony-left will say that I and all conservatives and TEA party members are cut from the same bolt of cloth, and will now probably lobby for legislation to ban our use of private planes, making possession of them illegal. However, I’ve learned that it’s useless to argue with these left-wing loons; it’s about as fruitful as trying to explain quantum physics to a four year old.

The reason I’m not surprised by this act of rebellion is that however fanatical or radical this one individual was, no one who has been victimized by the IRS can say that they haven’t entertained similar ideas, for at least a few fleeting moments.

Thankfully, most of us are rational, law-abiding citizens who can find more productive ways of voicing our anger and frustration with a system that puts people in the position this suicide pilot found himself. We can voice our disapproval by forming movements like the TEA Party and rallying voters like the ones in Massachusetts, whose voices were clearly heard a few short weeks ago and which – hopefully - will be heard again loudly in November.

Was this guy who flew his plane into the IRS building a criminal? Yes of course. Should he be held up as some kind of hero? No, of course not. But, should we focus some attention on a system that drove a U.S. citizen to the point where this seemed like his only option? You’re damned right we should. We all know we are being taxed to death and that our taxes are being used for frivolous, fraudulent and less than frugal reasons.

We also know that our taxes are currently being used to reshape and re-engineer our society into the vision of some left-wing radical progressives, hell bent on making the government the dominant entity in American life. What’s worse, we also have come to realize the rate at which this spending of our tax money is proceeding - at about warp nine - far in excess of what we are actually taking in, making it woefully unsustainable and ultimately resulting in the inevitable crash, looming darkly on the horizon.

With tax cuts that had been in place for almost a decade being done away with, with the capital gains tax being raised, with the “Death Tax” being re-instated, with self employment taxes at a criminal level (one of the points made in the pilot’s suicide note), with tax rates for some wealthier citizens who drive our economy nearing the 50 percent level and with the advent of the middle class ultimately having to pay higher taxes, as now even THAT promise seems as doomed as any promised C-SPAN programming on the health care debate, it’s not much of a surprise the IRS and the government are in some peoples sights.

Sometimes, even law-abiding citizens can be driven past the point of no-return. It happened once before in our history: July 4th, 1776.