Jared Lee Loughner: Who? What? How?

[The Mikado]

No better way to prove premeditation than a letter saying "I planned ahead."

[Lief 🗽]

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http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eywvw/my_mother_helped_subdue_jared_lee_loughner_ama/

Not sure how authentic this account is (because of the internet), but everything else he's said in the thread seems to match up.

[Lief 🗽]

This is a poem he wrote for one of his community college classes:

[Sewer]

Wow that's awful, I give it an F.

[WillK]

...
Actually, some one  of his friendsformer classmate referred to him as having been "left wing." in 2007.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09shooter.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

Corrected for accuracy. 
Misinformation isnt helpful.

And burning a flag makes him a right winger?

Did I say anything about him being a right winger? 
Granted, I do think many right wingers are nutcases.

[Redalgo]

Without a lot more information it is terribly difficult to reach conclusions, but from so much as I have read my initial impression is that he was mentally ill, became engrossed in philosophy, and pieced together a bizarre amalgam of beliefs based on anti-state sentiments, a distorted sense of reality, and perhaps the contents of his readings. This guy's comments read like he developed attitudes vaguely akin to those of the Patriot Movement, circa 1995. If he truly is a wingnut though, left or right, I do not think he is representative of any mainstream groups.

Actually, listing Plato as one of his favorite authors puzzles me far more than Marx or Hitler.  That's just me, though.  I have met others that list Meno as one of their favorite books and they're all slightly nutty and take Plato's argument that we already know everything and just have to remember it too seriously.  (In that story, Socrates helps an illiterate slave learn geometry not by teaching him, but by jogging his memory a bit.)

In discussions with a self-described Nazi a few months back it was said to me the biggest debates in Western civilization can be traced back to ancient Greece. For some reason he was convinced in our dialogues that I was like Aristotle to his Plato, together continuing a rivalry of thought many hundreds of years old. Many of his positions were based in part on reinterpreted teachings of such philosophers applied to contemporary times. My studies into the matter are not thorough enough to make sense of it all. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if Jared synthesized some ideas from Meno and The Republic with others he may have picked up on from other philosophical readings.

What puzzles me most is why he suddenly decided to plot an assassination. Also, why the long-standing fixation on Giffords? Maybe there will be more to read about tomorrow.

And burning a flag makes him a right winger?

Make of it what you will but he seemed to argue that people should burn flags because the Constitution does not explicitly grant the federal government power to establish a national flag. Also, like Sewer pointed out, flag burning is not necessarily a right or left wing activity.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

Uhmmm....not to ignite another conflict over political literature, but according to that page he likes Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and We the Living (which is an Ayn Rand novel).  Soooooooo, yeah, I don't really think you can classify this guy.

But I do agree that he's probably a nut who should've gotten psychiatric support a long time ago.

[minionofmidas]

Have you read the Manifesto? It's not exactly easy to not like... and doesn't have all that much to do with any of the later incarnations of socialism even though it was always there as an influence.

[minionofmidas]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/us/politics/10giffords.html?WT.mc_id=WO-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-SSB-010911-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

No shite Sherlock.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Uhmmm....not to ignite another conflict over political literature, but according to that page he likes Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and We the Living (which is an Ayn Rand novel).  Soooooooo, yeah, I don't really think you can classify this guy.

Liking Mein Kampf and being obsessed with literacy the way he is makes him a Grammar Nazi though.

[anvi]

Uhmmm....not to ignite another conflict over political literature, but according to that page he likes Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, and We the Living (which is an Ayn Rand novel).  Soooooooo, yeah, I don't really think you can classify this guy.

Definitely. 

But the reading list, varied though it is, the concern about currency, the obsessions with grammar and deduction and how they supposedly confute popular opinion, the conscious dreaming stuff, it all seems to congeal loosely around a more general obsession with various forms of control, control over society, control over thinking, control over others.  That kind of obsession seems to come from a kid who, for whatever reasons, feels terribly out of control, and is trying to find ways to acquire it.  This is just armchair speculation, of course, but I can't make any other sense of any kind out of all these otherwise disconnected fascinations of this kid.  It seems to me very oddly but distinctly to revolve around, at least partly, a battle for control by a guy who feels he has none.  And what's alarming about that is that, well, the basic feeling of insecurity is certainly not so uncommon, not just among young people, but for everybody.   

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

looks like he was one of those left-wing skull-freak friends:



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/10/2011-01-10_chilling_shrine_in_madmans_yard.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

It has now been suggested by some that Jared Loughner is a follower of the political teachings of David Wynn Miller as well as the Redemption movement, of which Miller is apparently a member (news story on the Loughner-Miller connection: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/47329.html).


As Miller puts it at the top of his own website:

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http://www.davidwynnmiller.com/


Also:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wynn_Miller


Regarding the Redemption movemnt:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_movement

The Redemption movement is apparently an offshoot of the Posse Comitatus movement, which in turn was strongly influenced by Christian Identity.


That makes actually sense to me. Well, not the content of those conspiracy theories as such. But those theories are astonishingly similar to what Loughner has put in his bizarre video messages.

[Landslide Lyndon]

His mugshot.

[Insula Dei]

His mugshot.

Very Kurtz.

[You kip if you want to...]

That's everyone's mental image of a generic psycho.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Also:

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Rev. Jesse Jackson has been speaking like this since way before 1988

[Ban my account ffs!]

he's definitely got the crazy eyes.

[cinyc]

According to the Washington Post, Loughner was a registered independent who did not vote in 2010.  He voted in 2006 and 2008.

[Tender Branson]

According to the Washington Post, Loughner was a registered independent who did not vote in 2010.  He voted in 2006 and 2008.

After reading most of the facts that are out now, the guy can be classified as a "moderate loser". He´s probably neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but a political Independent.

I knew it !

BTW: His official police picture is really creepy ...

[angus]

Thread specifically for discussion of the alleged shooter of Gabrielle Giffords.

First, his youtube account: http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10#p/u/3/VhAx8WzNJT0

Secondly: Any idea of his motivations?

I have trouble following the logic.  It seems that he's frustrated that he's not getting the education that he is paying for.  Is that how you read it?  But some of the syllogism is murky.  For example, "Every Pima course is using free sources for education from the internet.  Algebra is a Pima class.  Thus, Algebra is a free source for education from the internet."  It doesn't seem to follow.  What would follow is that "Algebra uses free sources for education" but not "Algebra is a free source." 

I seriously think he's confused.  Or maybe I am.  For example, he refers to "Section 10 of the Constitution."  I looked up both section 10 (of article 1) and Article 10, and it's not entirely clear to me which he is referencing, so I'm not following the argument there either. 

I guess his motivation is severe frustration.  And ennui.  I also think he's a bit demented.

But I do like the concept of the new number symbol.

[anvi]

I have trouble following the logic.  It seems that he's frustrated that he's not getting the education that he is paying for.  Is that how you read it?  But some of the syllogism is murky.  For example, "Every Pima course is using free sources for education from the internet.  Algebra is a Pima class.  Thus, Algebra is a free source for education from the internet."  It doesn't seem to follow.  What would follow is that "Algebra uses free sources for education" but not "Algebra is a free source."  

Yes.  Loughner commits in that syllogism a pretty silly equivocation fallacy, treating the term "algebra" as a Pima Community College class in premise 2 and as the branch of mathematics in the conclusion.  Changing the meaning of a term in mid-argument makes a syllogism fallacious.  

Not that I was expecting Loughner to be a good logician, or anything....

[angus]

Not that I was expecting Loughner to be a good logician, or anything....

I, on the other hand, was sort-of expecting him to be.  Like Kaczynski.  It was disappointing.

[Iosif]

Not that I was expecting Loughner to be a good logician, or anything....

I, on the other hand, was sort-of expecting him to be.  Like Kaczynski.  It was disappointing.

Suppose you asked leftists to make a list of all the things that were wrong with society, and then suppose you instituted every social change that they demanded. It is safe to say that within a couple of years the majority of leftists would find something new to complain about, some new social "evil" to correct because, once again, the leftist is motivated less by distress at society's ills than by the need to satisfy his drive for power by imposing his solutions on society.

[bgwah]