Who is Jared Lee Loughner?
Is Jared Lee Loughner, the alleged mass murderer who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, a right-wing extremist?
It鈥檚 hard to say. When you look at the Internet material he purportedly produced, the first impression you get is that the 22-year-old now in custody for the shooting of 20 people in Tucson was completely out of his mind, or at least mildly deranged. His writings will be virtually impossible for most people to understand, what with his runs of unexplained numbers, his fondness for weird syllogisms, his mysterious references and his apparent semi-literacy.
That said, there are some clues.
At one point, Loughner refers disparagingly to 鈥渃urrency that鈥檚 not backed by gold or silver.鈥� The idea that silver and gold are the only 鈥渃onstitutional鈥� money is widespread in the antigovernment 鈥淧atriot鈥� movement that produced so much violence in the 1990s. It鈥檚 linked to the core Patriot theory that the Federal Reserve is actually a private corporation run for the benefit of unnamed international bankers. So-called Patriots say paper money 鈥� what they refer to with a sneer as 鈥淔ederal Reserve notes鈥� 鈥� is not lawful.
At another, Loughner makes extraordinarily obscure comments about language and grammar, suggesting that the government engages in 鈥渕ind control on the people by controlling grammar.鈥� That鈥檚 not the kind of idea that鈥檚 very common out there, even on the Internet. In fact, I think it鈥檚 pretty clear that Loughner is taking ideas from Patriot conspiracy theorist of Milwaukee. Miller claims that the government uses grammar to 鈥渆nslave鈥� Americans and offers up his truly weird 鈥淭ruth-language鈥� as an antidote. For example, he says that if you add colons and hyphens to your name in a certain way, you are no longer taxable. Miller may be mad as a hatter, but he has a real following on the right.
Loughner talks about how you 鈥渃an鈥檛 trust the government鈥� and someone burns a U.S. flag in one of the videos attributed to him. Although certain right-wing websites are already using that (and his listing of The Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books) to claim that Loughner was a 鈥渓eft-winger,鈥� that does not strike me as true. The main enemy of the Patriot movement is certainly the federal government. And so-called Patriots have certainly engaged in acts like burning the flag.
Finally, I think Loughner鈥檚 reading list, although it included children鈥檚 books and a few classics, had an underlying theme 鈥� the individual versus the totalitarian state. Certainly, that鈥檚 the explicit central theme of Ayn Rand鈥檚 We the Living and Orwell鈥檚 1984 and Animal Farm, among others.聽 I would argue that that鈥檚 the way Loughner seems to be reading The Communist Manifesto and Hitler鈥檚 Mein Kampf 鈥� as variants of a kind of generalized 鈥渟mash the state鈥� attitude.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, which does similar work to that of Hatewatch, points out in a that Loughner also makes a reference to a 鈥渟econd American constitution.鈥� As Chip notes, that is commonly understood to refer to the Reconstruction amendments that freed the slaves and gave them citizenship, among other things. Chip says that 鈥渞aises the question of a possible racist and anti-immigrant tie鈥� in the Arizona shooting.
On top of that, Fox News is reporting on an internal Department of Homeland Security message suggesting some tie between Loughner and , a kind of white-collar racist group.
I can鈥檛 speak to those allegations, although a federal official in a position to know gave me some details that made it clear the alleged link to American Renaissance appears very weak. Outside of what Chip pointed out, I didn鈥檛 see anything that suggested racial, anti-Semitic or anti-immigrant animus in Loughner鈥檚 writings. Certainly, there鈥檚 nothing I saw at all reminiscent of American Renaissance, which focuses heavily on the alleged intellectual and psychological inferiority of black people.
At this early stage, I think Loughner is probably best described as a mentally ill or unstable person who was influenced by the rhetoric and demonizing propaganda around him. Ideology may not explain why he allegedly killed, but it could help explain how he selected his target.
One thing that seems clear is that Giffords, who was terribly wounded but survived, was the nearest and most obvious representative of 鈥渢he government鈥� that Loughner could find. Another is that he likely absorbed some of his anger from the vitriolic political atmosphere in the United States in general and Arizona in particular. Perhaps no one made that point better than Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, speaking to a press conference yesterday. 鈥淲hen you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government鈥� The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.鈥�
