fear and loathing over government

[colourwheel]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57566816/alabama-child-hostage-situation-enters-third-day-with-shooting-suspect-boy-holed-up-in-bunker/

 

Recently on january 30th in MIdland City Alabama a 65 year old man shoots a bus driver and abducts a 6 year old kid from the bus as a hostage to hold him up in an underground bunker on his property. The hostage situation is still undergoing as I am making this post and the man has made no real demands yet other than stating he is fed up with government.

 

I can understand people being upset about government but to be moved to murder and abduction is completely crazy.

 

It would be interesting to see what other people think about this and why anyone would do this over being "fed up" over the government... Or if this has anything to do with being "fed up" with government at all....

 

edit: I know the artical has no mention of the man being "fed up" with government but MSNBC has reported him as making no demands other than being "fed up" with government. Yet it being known the 65 year old man is very anti-government and anti-social...

Edited February 1, 2013 by colourwheel

[HeyYou]

Another tidbit of information that I think should be out there.... He is a Vietnam veteran. They didn't exactly getting the nicest treatment from their government, or their fellow citizens, upon their return to civilization. For the longest time, the fed just wanted them all to disappear... and treated them as such. I can understand why he is pissed..... and also that his past experience has shaped the person he is today. Now, I don't agree with him kidnapping some random child from a bus, nor do I condone him shooting the bus driver that was only trying to protect his charges. I have no clue just what motivated him to think that was a good idea, but, he IS gonna have to face judgement for his actions, and if anything happens to the child, he can look forward to a needle in the arm, if a bullet in the head doesn't get him first.

[Ghogiel]

Happens from time to time> Going postal. I don't think it is at all significant what the guy is fed up with tbh.

[sukeban]

That is bizarre story if ever I heard one. A bus driver hardly seems like the most high-profile symbol of government authority, but perhaps it was just the lowest hanging fruit available at the time? In any case, the individual in question sounds pretty well bent and probably had some form of latent mental illness. Not that that is any excuse.

 

I'd tend to agree with Ghogiel, that is speaks louder about the individual circumstances of the man than it does about any sort of extrapolated anti-government narrative. As HeyYou mentioned, the guy was probably trashed coming home from Vietnam and then fed that (justified) anger by delving ever-deeper down the rabbit hole of crazed libertarianism, confusing his personal memories of coming home with government as a whole. If not anti-government, he probably would have found some other fringe crusade to join and, living such an isolated and bitter life, might have "acted on" them at some point or another. But the dude just sounded like a mean and nasty hombre; he'd been trashed at one point in his life so he seemed to dedicate the rest of it toward the trashing of others.

 

The only real narrative I can make of this is just that the fringe right-wing has convenient answers (the government) for everything that is wrong in your life. Listen to that for long enough + are mentally unwell with bad life circumstances = this. As Ghogiel said, going postal but in a slightly different packaging.

Edited February 1, 2013 by sukeban

[rizon72]

A government can be dangerous if given too much power. Simply put the more power our government appears to have the more you will find people like this guy.

[sukeban]

A government can be dangerous if given too much power. Simply put the more power our government appears to have the more you will find people like this guy.

 

This is true, but the same can be said for anything else (corporation, religious faith, individual). I don't know about the rest of ya'll, but I don't exactly feel dominated by the government these days (unless, of course, PATRIOT Act provisions have them snooping my Nexus Inbox, but then again--ignorance is bliss!). I would think that people would experience the heavy hand of government coercion more directly back when there were drafts on--WW1, WW2, Vietnam, (don't know about Korea)--as that was the government literally forcing you to risk your life on its behalf. There were also things like forced rationing of metals, rubber, and such during WW2 and gas rationing during the Oil Crisis. Taxes are also lower now than in those days (especially during WW2!). Far as I can see, for the individual, nowadays is relatively government-free compared with past epochs of our history.

 

Sure, my health care premiums have gone up with an assist to federal healthcare reforms, but that isn't so much government domination as it is the healthcare industry exploiting its consumers because it can get away with it, and they were already going up before any reform had ever been passed. And yes, there are many regulations on businesses and some of them are asinine, but I still don't think that qualifies as a heavy-handed state. People un- or under-employed shouldn't directly blame the government either; rather they can feel like the man in Metropolis holding back the hands on the clock, knowing that they're pitted against both machines, software, and other men in ways that never existed or were comprehended before. But that isn't the fault of government--they're not the ones hiring people in Bangalore or Guangzhou instead of Cincinnati or replacing them with software because software doesn't demand wages.

 

Anyway, certainly government is involved in some of these things (mandating health coverage) and could be doing other things better (education, regulations), but many of the most gripping problems facing us today (IMO) have arisen because government has abdicated many roles that it used to assume (enforcing trade laws, regulating the financial sector, investing in human capital and infrastructure). So I dunno, looking around today I don't really fear the government so much as nondescript guys is 20k suits scheming to loot this country and its people for every cent that they've got. And unlike the government, they don't answer to us. Kinda makes one pine for good old "Trust Bustin'" Teddy Roosevelt, armed with the power of the state, breaking up "Too Big to Fail."

[HeyYou]

He killed the bus driver because the driver wasn't going to willingly hand over some child to him. Simple as that. WHY he decided to kidnap some child in the first place is well beyond me.....

[Ghogiel]

He killed the bus driver because the driver wasn't going to willingly hand over some child to him. Simple as that. WHY he decided to kidnap some child in the first place is well beyond me.....

Me either. Surely he should be kidnapping the president.

[Kendo 2]

He's obviously a conservative.

[Gracinfields]

Well on Monday the 4th of February the Hostage taker was put down by Law enforcement no details other then a Stun/flash grenade was used. The Boy was rescued and has been taken to a hospital for a check up and likely debriefed with the parents present.

 

What I think on the issue is how this person was even allowed to own a firearm after several firearm related incidents between him, and his neighbors and local law enforcement prior to this incident. Not to mention it was also reported that he had beaten one of the Neighbors dogs to death with a lead pipe when it gotten on to his property.