At the time, pundits were asking why McVeigh didn't choose the IRS building in OK City rather than the Murrah Building. One question I remember reading was whether the level of sympathy for the victims would have been less if McVeigh had bombed the IRS rather than a building with a daycare center. I believe so. It's hard to get me to feel any sympathy when IRS is in the same sentence.

Echelon III isn't really a "federal building" in the sense we're used to. It was a private commercial building housing real estate offices, software firms and a field office for a couple of government agencies. Regardless, his method of attack was not designed to harm a specific person, but rather a non-specific grouping of people in general, and that makes it an act of terrorism.

When do we decide that the election process is not working and that our leaders are actually our enemies? The One and his group will not listen. My Senator even turns her phones off in order to avoid our pleas. I really feel the rule of law is breaking down.

CY asked "Other than scale, what makes Joe Stack's assault on a federal building any less a terrorist act than Timothy McVeigh's?"

The easy, yet troubling, answer is that our politically correct administration refuses to label anyone, except right-wingers, conservatives, gun-owners, and "Tea-baggers". Wouldn't want to offend anyone by smacking a label on them now would we?

No difference between McVeigh, Stack, Hassan, or E.L.F. Domestic terrorists all.

Tarheel Repub Out!

Sounds to me he had a specific grouping of people in mind when he crashed the plane into the building: the IRS.

I would be more inclined to make that determination based on 1) the actual results or 2) the intent of the attacker. And, in the instant case, the intent was to crash an aircraft, flying at full throttle, into a building where he knew, or should have known, that human beings were at work and, therefore, would be killed or badly injured.

That, to me, makes it a domestic terrorist attack.

Yes, this was a "terrorist act".
But the elephant in the room when comparing Austin with Oklahoma City is that Timothy McVeigh never expected to die that day, while Joe Stack, on the other hand, was driven to suicide .. a suicide he wished to share with those who, in his judgement, facilitated his desperation.

Despite the last few paragraphs - where he makes a call to action - his manifesto really reads like a list of grievences. I'd lean toward his actions not being terrorism. Rather a desparate "lash out" at the government and others.

And not without some justification. The mission statement of the I.R.S. is, "to enforce voluntary compliance with the Internal Revenue Code."

Ever since we have a president with a terrorist buddy who lives down the street, we don't call them terrorists anymore.

Obama better not call this terrorism, he's refused to call anything his muzzie buddies do terrorism, so he is at least to this point playing it even...Wait for the fallout though, eventually Obama or Biden will call the guy a terrorist and some on top of it reporter will nail him.

I would submit that lone wackos don't commit terrorism, and that this was an act of revenge. Terrorism usually denotes some sort of organization with political aspirations. Stack seems to have wanted to go out in a blaze of demented glory, punching the IRS in the mouth on his way out.

I'd go with Pablo's line of thought on this - also saw some comments from Ann Althouse on the matter that made sense - a key component of terrorism is the objective of 'creating terror', in an ongoing sense, towards a political objective. With OKC and 9/11, both shared this aspect - that it was a group of people, acting in an ongoing manner, with the capability to repeat/replicate the act(s) of violence. One nut job, acting alone, in a suicidal venture, isn't really an 'ongoing threat' when he takes himself out in his one and only action. He's done.

Unless there's an unrecognized/unnoticed 'Joe Stack is our hero' subculture out there willing to pick up his incoherent banner and replicate his self destructive act of frustrated futility, it's criminal insanity - not terrorism, per se.