The atmosphere surrounding the Tea Party has been ruthlessly blamed. But assassination attempts and lone gunmen are not 21st century phenomena. What age-old train of thought did Jared Loughner actually express?
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was greeting constituents during a “Congress on Your Corner” meeting at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday morning when bloodshed interrupted. Lone gunman Jared Lee Loughner (age 22) shot Giffords in the head and continued the rampage by shooting a total of 19 people, murdering at least 6.The dead include conservative U.S. District Judge John Roll and nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green.
Attempts to politicize the horror came absurdly fast. On the internet, opponents of the Tea Party movement could be found lambasting Sarah Palin and other conservative communicators for inciting the attack.
They spoke too soon, of course. Loughner turns out to be a textbook case of the social misfit suspect – who otherwise appears to be identified as a left-wing atheist obsessed with conspiracy theories. His odd mix of favorite literature includes “The Communist Manifesto” and “Mein Kampf”; he also posted a video on YouTube that scrolls the following words (amidst other incoherent ramblings):
“If I define terrorist then a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon.
I define terrorist.
Thus, a terrorist is a person who employs terror or terrorism, especially as a political weapon.
If you call me a terrorist then the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem. You call me a terrorist.
Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.
Thus, the argument to call me a terrorist is Ad hominem.
Every United States military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix is receiving one mini bible before the tests.
Jared Loughner is a United States military recruit at MEPS in Phoenix. Therefore, Jared Loughner is receiving one mini bible before the tests.
I didn’t write a belief on my Army application, and the recruiter wrote on the application: None.
…In conclusion, reading the second United States Constitution, I can’t trust the government because of the ratifications: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.
No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver!
No! I won’t trust in God!”
We’ve heard this Luciferian logic before. Just last year James J. Lee (the Discovery hostage taker) expressed the same no God, no government, no master but my oh-so-enlightened-self mindset before bringing an end to his own life. Such was the mindset that plagued the disturbed minds of Timothy McVeigh, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold and the leaders of totalitarian regimes. It is the very insane villainy that King David lamented in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53:
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God”. They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; there is no one who does good. The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:1-3)
That passage of Scripture isn’t talking about any civil, genuine skeptics out there. Rather, these fools are the megalomaniacs who despise authority in all shape and form, beginning with hatred against God, the ultimate higher power…
Click here to continue reading at The Washington Times Communities.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Primary sources matter. Loughner disliked Giffords in 2007, BEFORE Sarah Palin appeared on the national scene and the Tea Party erupted.
UPDATE – 10:42 P.M. – More information on Loughner from the Associated Press:
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — At an event roughly three years ago, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords took a question from Jared Loughner, the man accused of trying to assassinate her and killing six other people. According to two of his high school friends the question was essentially this: “What is government if words have no meaning?”
Loughner was angry about her response — she read the question and had nothing to say.
“He was like … ‘What do you think of these people who are working for the government and they can’t describe what they do?'” one friend told The Associated Press on Sunday. “He did not like government officials, how they spoke. Like they were just trying to cover up some conspiracy.”
Both friends spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they wanted to avoid the publicity surrounding the case. To them, the question was classic Jared: confrontational, nonlinear and obsessed with how words create reality.
The friends’ comments paint a picture bolstered by other former classmates and Loughner’s own Internet postings: that of a social outcast with nihilistic, almost indecipherable beliefs steeped in mistrust and paranoia…
…Loughner had at least one other contact with Giffords. Investigators said they carried out a search warrant at Loughner’s home and seized a letter addressed to him from Giffords’ congressional stationery in which she thanked him for attending a “Congress on your Corner” event at a mall in Tucson in 2007. Saturday’s shooting occurred at a similar event.
Other evidence seized from his home included an envelope from a safe with messages such as “I planned ahead,” ”My assassination” and the name “Giffords” next to what appears to be Loughner’s signature. Police say he purchased the Glock pistol used in the attack in November…
…Mistrust of government was Loughner’s defining conviction, the friends said. He believed the U.S. government was behind 9/11, and worried that governments were maneuvering to create a unified monetary system (“a New World Order currency” one friend said) so that social elites and bureaucrats could control the rest of the world…
…An ardent atheist, he began to characterize people as sheep whose free will was being sapped by the government and the monotony of modern life.
“He didn’t want people to wake up and do the same thing every day. He wanted more chaos, he wanted less regularity,” one friend said.
The friends said Loughner told anyone who would listen that the world we see does not exist, that words have no meaning — and that the only way to derive meaning was during sleep. Loughner began obsessing about a practice called lucid dreaming, in which people try to actively control their sleeping world…
…When other students, always seated, read their poems, Coorough said Loughner “would laugh at things that you wouldn’t laugh at.” After one woman read a poem about abortion, “he was turning all shades of red and laughing,” and said, “Wow, she’s just like a terrorist, she killed a baby,” Coorough said.
“He appeared to be to me an emotional cripple or an emotional child,” Coorough said. “He lacked compassion, he lacked understanding and he lacked an ability to connect.”
Cates said Loughner “didn’t have the social intelligence, but he definitely had the academic intelligence.”
Read more here.
UPDATE – January 16, 2011 – Ann Coulter pointed out that some inaccuracies may be in that report:
“In the most bald-faced lie I have ever read in The New York Times — which is saying something — that paper implied Loughner is a pro-life zealot. This is the precise opposite of the truth.
Only because numerous other news outlets, including ABC News and The Associated Press, reported the exact same shocking incident in much greater detail — and with direct quotes — do we know that the Times’ rendition was complete bunk.
ABC News reported: “One Pima Community College student, who had a poetry class with Loughner later in his college career, said he would often act ‘wildly inappropriate.’
“‘One day (Loughner) started making comments about terrorism and laughing about killing the baby,’ classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a discussion about abortions. ‘The rest of us were looking at him in shock … I thought this young man was troubled.’
“Another classmate, Lydian Ali, recalled the incident as well.
“‘A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber,’ Ali said.””
Read more here.
While I do not like the grandiose language and fear-mongering of the right wing these days, I’m also not one to make political hay out of corpses.
Of course, you then went and played the hypocrite: politicizing the tragedy in regards to religion. I’m sure you’ll come up with excuses, but in the end you did exactly what the very people you speak out against are doing: using the tragedy to push your own agenda and worldview.
Very tasteful.