As published in the Winter Park/Maitland Observer, Thursday Jan. 3, 2012 Edition Offers... Read More »
IRS Employees Threatened with Death if they Enforce Healthcare Provisions
“You can’t always get what you want.”
- The Rolling Stones -
Mick Jagger might have been thinking about democracy when he wrote that line.
I don’t like the new healthcare bill. I think it’s too expensive and I think it’s bad for the economy. Still, I accept it as the law of the land because it was passed by a majority of both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President.
That’s the way our democratic system works. When you buy into the system by voting, you buy into it even when you don’t win. Stated another way, it’s juvenile, ignorant and hypocritical to profess love for democracy when you’re in the majority and condemnation for it when you’re in the minority.¹
I guess it’s to be expected that in a nation of more than 300 million people there will be a few sarcastic fringeheads that are too synaptically challenged to understand the simple concept of majority rule.
Jana Winter of Fox News.com reports that the United States government is investigating dozens of online death threats directed at IRS employees after last week’s passage of healthcare reform:
The health care law has sparked protests on radical anti-tax and anti-government Web sites and within their private, password-protected e-mail lists and message boards. Some writers have labeled March 21 — the day the House passed the bill – “Bloody Sunday,” and they see it as a call to violent action against IRS workers.
In the days following the House vote, animosity toward the IRS intensified, and many heated online protests included specific discussions about the best way to go about killing tax agents.
Hundreds of comments were posted in response to an incendiary story on infowars.com, the radical far-right Web site owned by radio host Alex Jones.
The story, entitled, “The Cost Of Defying Obamacare: $2,250 a Month And IRS Goons Pointing Guns At Your Family,” focused on the “increasing militarization of the IRS” and its expansion of powers under the new health care law.
Here’s just a sampling of the illegal calls for violence:
- “If they actually try to do this, there is going to be a whole lot of thugs start vanishing. This is the last line in the sand. Those fools have just signed their death warrants!!!”
- “There’s gonna be a lot of IRS agents needing healthcare if they try to terrorize us Americans.”
- “Come and take them… they will have to hire so many IRS agents because… well, when 10 a day get killed… you do the math.”
Moron Alert: The first amendment does not give you the right to incite violence. The above statements and those like it are criminal and I have little doubt that those making them will be hunted down and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
And they should be prosecuted. There are apparently far too many people circulating amongst us who lack the benefit of an intact frontal lobe.
Footnotes:
¹ In 2008 we wrote about this syndrome when Melissa Etheridge said that she would stop paying taxes because a majority of California residents voted for a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage.
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Seems to me that the threats of violence are an entirely predictable response, from a measurable, if not large, segment of society, to the deliberate lies and hysteria spread by Limbaugh, Beck and virtually all of the Republican Party. Presumably those are folks who do have intact frontal lobes (though Limbaugh’s may be somewhat drug-impaired), and they should be held responsible for inciting the morons.
Steve,
By golly, I think you just incited violence against Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck!
By the way, was it understandable when left-wing loons made movies about assassinating George Bush, called for his execution as a war criminal, threw shoes at him in a press conference and called him a baby killer after lobotomized and insane radicals like Al Franken, Keith Olbermann, Frank Rich, Pete Stark and Randi Rhodes spread their “deliberate lies and hysteria” about him?
Finally, I defy you to show me a single instance where Limbaugh or Beck encouraged people to be violent.
Remember when dissent was patriotic?
LOL.
I respectfully disagree with the assumption that threats are entirely predictable. I do however agree that some individuals are more likely to make threats, and that populist commentators are exploring how far they can go with their rhetoric. Sometimes on the ‘left’, and sometimes on the ‘right’ of an issue.
I always hope for better, though.
Hoping for Better,
Thanks for the comment.
Mr. Zorn makes a common error when he assumes that Beck and Limbaugh created the widespread disenchantment with the profligate deficit spending of the Obama administration. The truth is, mob dissatisfaction with government created Beck and Limbaugh. They merely tapped into a sentiment that was already there.
People like Mr. Zorn have very selective memories. I remember when Republicans were called prudish moralists for wanting to put warning labels on hip-hop records, violent video games and R rated movies because they believed it would encourage and cause teens to commit violence.
Liberals told us then that mere words don’t cause people to do violent things. Now, Mr. Zorn and his fellow left winger moralists are telling us that talk radio causes people to do violent things.
You gotta love irony.
So much heat in here probably because april 15 is near. Happy tax season people!
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