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Originally Posted by The_Dunedan
BS. They, like most LEO agencies, are armed to the friggin' teeth. This is a country where every small-town hick Sherriff's Dept. has a 12-man SWAT team with APCs. The FBI just purchased two NTW-20 20mm anti-materiel rifles last month. What kind of toys d'you think the Infernal Revenue Service has to play with?
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The IRS generally farms out for security, actually. We're not talking Blackwater, we're talking people with certified guard cards and walkies. In an emergency, they call the local police. My high school had more security than your average IRS building.
It's fun to pretend that the government has Jack Bauers at every government building with more than a dozen offices, but the truth is that kind of security is difficult to budget for. It's much easier for them to hire rent-a-cops.
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Originally Posted by The_Dunedan
Why should I be? It's a rare occurance, with or without terroristic/criminal help.
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We've just had a domestic terror attack in which a private citizen gets into a plane and flies it into something he doesn't agree with. In what way is that not supposed to scare people?
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Originally Posted by The_Dunedan
Wanting something and expecting to get it are not the same thing. The 9/11 hijackers were attempting to bring about specific political changes which they believed they would receive. Likewise the IRA, ETA, FARC, the Stern Gang, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, the Irgun, and other terrorist groups. This fellow's actions seem more to me to be an act of grandiose despair and suicide. He does not expect the changes he desires to take place: in fact he even refers to the fact that his death will insure such changes DON'T take place. This is the act of a psychotic or a depressed suicide, not a terrorist.
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Translation: it's only terrorism when it comes from an organization. That argument doesn't work, though.
Based on the note, this is cut and dry terrorism. He attacked a government building in a spectacular way with the intent of furthering his political ends. The only practical difference from the 9/11 hijackers is he worked alone.
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Originally Posted by filtherton
It's been my impression that "screwed by the powerful" is one of the central tenets of the Tea Party movement. I don't think it would exist if people didn't feel like they'd been screwed by the powerful. Obviously, most of them don't lash out.
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The massive, bureaucratic government, the pandering liberal media, the ivy league elites and the Hollywood elites are the persecutors du jour for the Tea Partiers. I've never heard a Tea Partier decry private power like the richest Americans or GM or Wall Street. It seems those set this man apart from the conservative movements.