Right wing weighs in on 'suicide' pilot

NEW YORK, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Alleged suicide pilot Joe Stack's attack on a Texas Internal Revenue Service office is bringing out right-wing extremist support, experts say.

"Extremist groups are already aligning behind [Joe Stack], beginning to talk about him as a hero," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which studies American militia and hate groups. "The growth of those groups has been astounding."

Stack allegedly had posted a suicide note online the morning of his death, and the angry diatribe against the IRS and government received around 20 million hits before it was taken down at the request of the FBI, ABC News reported Friday.

The founder of the anti-government We the People Foundation, Bob Schulz, claims an anti-violence stance although he says he understands Stack's motives.

"There's a huge patriot movement," Schulz said. "I've been doing this kind of work for 30 years. Never have I seen the likes of what's going on now. It's delightful."

Potok sees the anti-immigration, anti-government hysteria rising from its dormancy in the mid-2000s fired by the election of President Barack Obama, ABC said.

"Obama's election, which is in a way related to the non-white immigration issue, was representative proof that this country is irreversibly changing demographically. Then the economy has played a role and things have gotten worse and worse."

The effect is what Potok called a "broad-based, right-wing populist rebellion."