In case you haven’t heard, a man, Joe Stack, angry at the IRS crashed a plane into his local IRS chapter. I don’t have much to say about the issue itself. Obviously, I disagree with crashing airplanes, or other means of transportation, into buildings. I also disagree with violence in general. The man left behind a suicide note on his site (which the FBI promptly removed) that detailed his hardships with the government during his life and why he did what he did. I don’t agree with what he did, but, save the last page, I do agree with most of what he said.

I’m posting what’s left of the suicide note on here in the form of images (all that was left of it).

The part that struck me the most:

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.

I’m posting this because I agree with what was said. I believe that America is a wasteland of deceit where gains are privatized, and losses are socialized.

Like I’ve said and believe firmly, violence never solves anything… it continues cyclically and endlessly. It’s important, though, to see why violence happens and not just pass it off as “terrorism.” Yes, terrorism exists, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason behind it, no matter how misguided.

My heart and thoughts go out to those who lost their lives as a result of this incident. Yes, they were part of this unjust, corrupt system, but isn’t everyone? They were obvious targets but we’re all in this together, and it’s not fair they should pay when everyone involved (everyone) is just as guilty as the politicians and corporations.

UPDATE – found the original text, linked on what used to be Joe Stack’s website.

As much as I love science and the idea of a using science to create a cloud of swarming insects that replaces the sky with eternal darkness, I have to protest. I was browsing through the articles on one of my favorite sites hackaday.com when I happened across a post on controlling beetle flight remotely. Well, that’s cool. Someone built a robot beetle that can fly, like in the movies when you see a spy fly that buzzes deep into enemy territory and sniffs out where the terrorist nukes are.

But no, these ain’t no robots. An group of engineers from UC Berkeley “restrained” a beetle, implanted electrodes into its brain, and used a remote to force the creature into controlled flight. I have to say this is a pretty disgusting act. As humans, we’ve now taken another life form, a being with its own free will and consciousness, and stripped it of just about all that makes it alive, and made it dance a jig for us. It still breathes and exists (for how long I wonder) but its very actions are now controlled by some group of people who did it just to see if they could. Congratulations on making the human race as a whole a just bit more repulsive than it was before.

Also, I don’t buy the “relax, it’s just a beetle” bullshit. Torture is torture, it doesn’t matter who it’s happening to. None of us can imagine what it’s like to have electrodes implanted in our brain administering continuous electrical shocks…and to justify a wrong by saying it happened to something small in size, or happened to something with an exoskeleton is no excuse. What makes it so separate from us? It’s a living, breathing, procreating biological machine that feels and responds to its world…just like us. The only real difference between a beetle and a human is that the human falsely thinks there is a difference between the two.

First article from Feb – insect control
Article on flight control – flight control

It is my firm belief that everyone who participated should be subject to remote control neural implants for a day, with a retarded 6 year old behind the controls.

We’ve all heard of proposition 8 in California…the ban on gay marriage. It was a dark, bloody political battle that ended in tears, anger, but also joy and a feeling of sanctity for those that won. Let me say that I do not support prop 8. Not because of the rule itself so much as it being a constitutional amendment, not a law. The very document that lists the rights of the residents of the state of California was amended to tell a specific subset of people that they cannot partake in a religious ceremony that binds them for life.

I don’t support state-sanctioned gay marriage. Not in any way shape or form. I don’t think the state (political state, not geographic state) has the right to marry two men or two women. Neither does it have the right to marry a straight couple though. Marriage, although deeply ingrained in our society, is a religious ceremony. It’s a dance two people do to signify their unending commitment.

The state has absolutely no business supporting this ritual. I believe separation of church and state has been defiled by the state taking it upon itself to say who can marry and who cannot. Is that not up to the specific religion the couple in question are marrying under? What moral right does the state have to support a religious ritual and then only for a specific set of people?

I believe the state has overstepped its bounds. I believe the state, as it already does, should allow civil unions between partners, giving them the applicable tax breaks they would receive as a married couple, but not marry people. Marriage is a religious institution and as such should be completely unrecognized by the state.

Note that this would solve all conflicts surrounding marriage. Two gay men can get married at the devil-worshiping, blood-drinking, child-molesting church down the street, and Mr. Conservative who goes to the bread-eating, jesus-praising, child-molesting church up the street doesn’t have to recognize the two gay men’s marriage. It didn’t happen at his church or under his rules, so in his mind, the marriage can be null and void… but the state gives the two gay men their civil union, and then politely bows out of the conflict, letting the upstanding Christian and the society-destroying gays fight it out between themselves.

Everyone wins, and the state can wash its hands clean of all moral conflict surrounding a religous institution.