A couple of weeks ago, a whiner-cry baby by the name of Joe Stack was apparently so distraught that the Federal Government wasn’t going to allow him to cheat on his taxes anymore, that he jumped into a plane and flew it straight into an IRS office, killing a government worker named Vernon Hunter. Before doing this, he apparently scared the crap out of his wife (she was living in a hotel), and then torched his house.

A lot of people applauded his actions as “heroic”: while I agree that he might not be a terrorist* (added emphasis on the “might”), there is nothing “heroic” about his actions or conduct. Essentially, the “hero” line of argument goes as this: “Government is big and bad and people who resist the government’s might and/or kill the agents of the government are heroic.”**

Apparently, especially so when they’re homicidal terroristic arsonists.

So, flash-forward to Pittsburgh, last week.

Those of us who live in the Mid-Atlantic area have been buried under snow since roughly the beginning of the month. Anyone who has survived a snow storm in Baltimore or DC (or apparently Pittsburgh) can comment on the notion of “reserving one’s space.” Basically, what happens is this: it snows. Your car is buried. You dig it out. But fearful of being unable to find a place to park said car when you return (because most street parking is lost to mounds of snow), you place a piece of furniture in the spot to indicate that it is “yours.”

Technically, this is illegally. Practically, however, it is not enforced. (Not that I’ve ever seen).

So there’s this guy, TRUE STORY!, who goes outside to clear his lady’s car of snow, and apparently moved it at some point. A gentleman by the name of Errol Parker then parked in the space (how could he do this if the dude’s lady’s car hadn’t been moved?), and when the snow-clearing guy asked him, “Hey, buddy, can you move your car?”, Parker punched him in the face, and then pulled a gun. So obviously, having been assaulted and threatened with a deadly weapon (look, I’m as pro-gun as you can expect a liberal to be: but when you punch someone and pull a gun, you’re clearly indicating, “Hey, for my next trick, I’m going to shoot you.”), the victim called 911.

Parker’s back in his home by this point, and when the police entered, Parker came at them with the gun. They exchanged gunfire, Parker got tasered, no one was seriously hurt, and all of this …

… over a parking space.

Er, I mean, “Over a person’s right to keep the government from telling him where he might or might not park his car.”

But I guess he’s not a hero because Rep. Steve King’s never had a ticket maid’s “thumb in the middle of [his] back.”

Funny story: Interestingly, a few days after the snow storm, Neighbors A. and B. dug out their cars. Both drove elsewhere. Another car appeared, and took neighbor A’s spot. Neighbor A returned, and parked in B’s spot. The third car left, and Neighbor B. returned and parked in A’s spot, because B.’s spot was taken by neighbor’s A. car. Apparently, both were upset that someone else had claimed their space, and over the course of the evening, I watched as both car owners came out of the building with pitchers of water and poured it on the other’s car. I would’ve yelled at them, but a.) I’m six stories up, and opening my windows during the winter I don’t do and b.) I didn’t know what apartments they live in, so I coudn’t go and explain the situation.

*Although I have to honest, I’m considerable more in the “Terrorist” then “Not Terrorist” camp. Anyway, Newsweek had a very interesting inter-office e-mail debate on who qualified as being defined as a “terrorist”, they eventually posted it to their website, and it’s a truly fascinating read, but I would suggest this as an epilogue.

**Let me tell you: as a retail employee who has to enforce the local DC’s government bag tax, this kind of scares me, especially when some right-wing TV pundit scowls when I ask, “Would you like a bag? It’ll be five cents.” I mean, technically speaking, the conduct of charging for bags makes me an agent of the government’s will, yes? (Then again, so does adding the 6% tax charge to the purchase).