Facebook encounter

A friend of mine posted a link and some comments about the guy who crashed his plane on a building while whining about taxes. I commented that I thought his post seem to treat the crazy guy as a hero and I didn't think he was, I characterized the guy as a lunatic who tried to kill people trying to do their jobs. My friend responded that I was mistaken, he did not consider the guy heroic. It would have been the end of the conversation except this one guy responded with this comment

"It's not only mentally deranged people who kill you know.

I have noticed that many people who are so quick to condemn and demand that others do so as well... when its someone in uniform who does the killing, they are suddenly all praise as if those in power could do no error.

We must all recognize that the IRS and BIR destroy lives. Even the Bible specifically mentions tax collectors in the same breath as prostitutes which society roundly condemns as extra sinful. With a prostitute, they at least know that what they are doing is immoral and don't delude themselves into thinking they are contributing to the development of the country.

Have you ever seen an innocent person wrongly accused in a tax court? Of course not.

You are automatically a tax evader, guilty until proven innocent with your named smeared through the media.

And if you are by some miracle acquitted, you are not innocent. You are considered to be an "escaped tax evader" who has somehow weaseled out of your proper deserves.

So Roy, please keep your demands for condemnation to yourself. Joe Stack stands before Divine Judgment, not yours. Who are you?

With the breaking world economy, I fear this is only the beginning. We must not take the easy way out and try to write this off as the work of a single lunatic. That would be only sticking our heads into the sand. This is only a symptom of a much bigger illness.

When you deprive someone of his life, his liberty, his property, and his dignity and push him to the wall leaving him with nothing left to lose... don't be surprised when he pushes back."

Normally, once I have expressed my opinion on a subject, I leave it alone. Other readers i figure can make up their own minds, at least I have made explicit a different viewpoint for them to consider. But this guy pushed my button, he addressed me directly made a lot of assertions and did not provide any evidence to his assertions. So I responded thus:

"Leviticus 11, ver 10 -12

"But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to detest. 11 And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and you must detest their carcasses. 12 Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you. "

If you have ever eaten crabs or any kind of shellfish, then you are also as abominable in the eye of your god as the prostitutes and tax collectors you condemn.

Jesus also says,

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Your appeal to the bible as a measure for morality is meaningless as anybody can find passages from the bible to support any contention.

The fact that not only mentally deranged people kill does not invalidate the fact that this deranged person killed, your point is we must not condemn the killing of people doing their jobs?

Or is your point that we must only condemn those who kill people we like? Because you sure are quick to condemn all the members of the IRS and the BIR and the all those in uniform who has killed.

Double standard much?"

I tried to point out to him that using the bible to support his contention that tax collectors are sinful is meaningless because the bible is 1) full of arcane laws (like the shellfish one) that nobody (at least in the Philippines) follows and that 2) it is full of contradiction that two conflicting position can both have support from bible verses. Also, I tired to point out that his post contradicts his assetion, he does not want me to condemn the crazy guy because his jusdgement is in the eyes of god whil he roundly condemns prostitutes, tax collectors and men in uniform.

He of course has another point that I did not address. This is the point about the BIR and IRS ruining lives. I did not address this point because I thought this was his best point and i didn't want to muddle the discussion of this point with extraneous issues. If there ever was a discussion, this should be the main focus. I personally have not met anybody whose life has been ruined by the BIR, i know that Richard Gomez and Judy Ann Santos and Lucio Tan have been investigated by the BIR for non payment of taxes. But they all came out fine, I would have been willing to pursue this line of thought further. On the other hand, even with all the corruption in government, we do know that government has helped improve a lot of Filipino lives through public education, free government health care, SSS and other government loans, etc. etc. Another discussion on whether the benefits a lot of people derive from government is worth the lives the BIR ruined. Sadly, this was not to be, he answered: "

"“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” had been the justification of tax collectors and yet, where in the Bible does it say that Caesar is justified in claiming everything as his?

Yawn. Your internet-assembled theology is amusing. Do you do children's parties?"

Rather than reiterating his best argument, he decided to deflect the discussion by insulting me. So I fired back:

"lol, can't refute my points so you bail"

This goaded him into answering and trying to defend the bible as a source of morality by trying to prove that Jesus changed the law on eating shellfish:

"Right... I already answered one point which you are silent on.

And for your stupid shelfish example, do I really need to point you to Acts 10, which every child of 7 knows?

But then oh wait... why bother? Your god is government."

He actually thought that I was trying to debate him on the meaning of bible verses. I have heard various ministers and priests debate each other using the bible as the basis of their arguments, it never turns out ok because all of them can find verses in the bible that supports their position. If I wanted to debate him on bible vrses, I could have pointed him out to Acts where the disciples shared everything they own, they had no concept of private ownership. But that was never my point so I pointed him back to my assertion on the bible.

"Since your so deficient in reading comprehension, let me quote my point which you have just reiterated with your last post

"Your appeal to the bible as a measure for morality is meaningless as anybody can find passages from the bible to support any contention."

Thank you for making my points for me."

This comments was followed by him trying to assert that I was wrong while not providing any proof that I was. I eventually got tired and decided to sleep. Bizarrely, when I woke up I found out that he deleted all his previous comments except the first one and at the end inserting this comment.

"why is this crazy guy talking to himself?"

So I countered this with the comment

"I see you are too embarrassed with your arguments that you had to delete them. I'm sorry that you feel that way. Next time, try to muster up better arguments so you don't have to hide the evidence of your utter FAIL"

which led him to answer thus

"Don't know what you're talking about. How much drugs were you doing all last night?"

which segued perfectly to my final comment which is

"Wow, and you were so proud of your morality yesterday. Your just an ordinary liar. If this is the morality of the god fearing, I'm glad I don't share it."

This is a guy citing the bible as hi source of morality. He was also quite proud that he was a moral person barefacedly lying. This is the case of somebody who believes that the bible tells us how to conduct our lives except when it is not convenient for him, then all bets are off.