VFR readers comment on the left’s Big Lie and the truth about Jared Lee Loughner
This morning I posted three entries about the hideous campaign by the media to blame the mass killing in Arizona on conservatives and Republicans. The
first dealt with the Big Lie, the
second with the
New York Times article which shows how mentally ill and frightening Jared Lee Loughner was according to many people who knew him, and the
third with the actual hate statements made by Obama and leftists generally about conservatives which are not reported.
In this entry I have posted readers’ comments I’ve received in response to these entries since noon today.
Stephen T. writes:
I was totally disgusted by Tucson Sheriff Clarence Dupnik’s supercilious lecture yesterday in his press conference, where he spent more time vilifying outspoken critics of the administration on the internet and talk radio than he did the deranged murderer.
Anyone who doesn’t know should be informed that Dupnik is an elected public servant sworn to uphold the law who, only days after the Arizona citizenry passed SB 1070, announced that he would NOT enforce this law in Pima County due to his personal opposition to it, and his longstanding embrace of the agenda of Mexican officials, whom he has traveled to Mexico repeatedly to consult with, while imperiously opting not to enforce laws passed by American citizens who pay his salary. This drew an avalanche of public criticism, which no doubt stuck a pin in Dupnik’s arrogant bureaucrat bubble: How dare these peasants speak out against me and oppose my will? THAT’S what’s really bothering Clarency Dupnik, and he simply used these murders as one more opportunity to strike back and (attempt to) muzzle those who raise voices in opposition to an illegal invasion of their country.
John Hagan writes:
Funny how liberals, when facing acts of Islamic violence, will tell you that it’s just one disturbed individual acting alone. They are quick to say Islam, or Islamic immigration is not the cause of any spreading violence. Yet any conservative person or event, or non-event they can tangentially link to any act of violence is fair game in their minds.
The Big Lie indeed. Conservatives need to push back hard and make this a Wellstone funeral moment and not an Oklahoma City moment.
Kathlene M. writes:
You are spot on in this assessment. I read many message boards yesterday, and they were filled with hatred and condemnation of “teabaggers.” “Cool the rhetoric, teabaggers!” threatened many. When I checked the facts myself about Jason Loughner from his YouTube videos and page, it was very clear he is a mentally ill person. A few commenters thought he was schizophrenic.
So what is the purpose of this Big Lie? To get conservatives in Congress to abandon or soften their objectives (the repeal of Obamacare and the entire radical Obama agenda) and to intimidate Americans who identify with the Tea Party or conservatism. Notice that the Obamacare repeal vote has been postponed out of respect for the victims. Liberals are hoping that conservatives will postpone our objectives indefinitely in the spirit of “bipartisanship” which really means deference and total surrender to the liberal agenda.
Kathlene M. writes:
From Politico:
“One veteran Democratic operative, who blames overheated rhetoric for the shooting, said President Barack Obama should carefully but forcefully do what his predecessor did.
“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”
Thomas Bertonneau writes:
The Left’s attempt—that is to say, the establishment’s attempt—to make of Jared Loughner’s violence an opportunity to indict conservatives for inciting crime was foreordained and should surprise no one. But as facts about Laugher come out (supposing that they do come out), they could prove difficult to fit into that particular propaganda template. We already know from an ABC News online story about Laughner that his Facebook page listed The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf as among his favorite books. If it were only Mein Kampf, the usual hate-mongers would be having a free time of it, but the Marx-Engels book must be tripping them up somewhat. I believe that one can guess something else about Laughner’s reading, which, if it proved out, would also be inconvenient for those trying to paint Congresswoman Gifford’s assailant as a right-wing militia type, inspired to commit his enormity by listening to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. The same ABC News online story mentioned above quotes Laughner as saying the following: “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!”
Presumably Laughner meant “applying” rather than “implying.” Never mind. It is the coupling of the phrases “mind control” and “controlling grammar” that caught my attention. In 1989 Noam Chomsky published a book called Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies (1989), which argues that one of the chief preoccupations of modern governments is controlling dissent through controlling language, right down to the level of grammar. Chomsky himself habitually returns to this theme in his political publications, including various pamphlets; and his legion of academic followers also inveterately discusses his propositions in this regard. Necessary Illusions also contains a section in which Chomsky reverses the normative usage of the word “terrorist,” stating that the real terrorists are the evil Western nations, especially the United States. Another statement attributed to Laughner uses this same Chomskian argument. I predict that books and pamphlets by Chomsky will prove to be present among Laughner’s personal effects, when and if the reporting ever divulges a full tally of them.
Even without that, it is still possible to say that insofar as we can detect any discursive influence on Laughner’s homicidal incoherency, it is, in the two cases of Marx-Engels and Hitler, a noticeably socialist influence.
It is also worth remarking that Laughner’s expostulation, “I won’t trust in God,” seems to have an atheistic implication, which would assimilate him to other violent people who have made their atheism a theme in their diaries and public remarks—people like Oklahoma City bomber and the two Columbine shooters.
P.S. Someone might object that Laughner is too mentally restricted to understand Chomsky’s text even should he have owned it and tried to read it. But plenty of confused and fanatical people suffer from the delusion of understanding some tract or pronouncement that publicity has endowed with an aura.
Kathlene M. writes:
A woman who identifies herself as Caitie Parker claims that Loughner was “left-wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy.” Here are her “tweets.”
A commenter named jerseyjoew at DailyKos posted these tweets at the Kos site which corroborate the above:
Jared Loughner was/is a left winger. Via Twitter:
caitieparker This is a circus. Good Morning America just called me. 10 minutes ago
caitieparker @antderosa it’s loughner just checked my year book. 10 minutes ago in reply to antderosa
caitieparker @lakarune I haven’t seen him since ‘07. Then, he was left wing. 35 minutes ago in reply to lakarune
caitieparker @noboa more left. I haven’t seen him since ‘07 though. He became very reclusive. 37 minutes ago in reply to noboa
caitieparker @antderosa he had a lot of friends until he got alcohol poisoning in ‘06, & dropped out of school. Mainly loner very philosophical. 38 minutes ago in reply to antderosa
caitieparker @antderosa As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy. 43 minutes ago in reply to antderosa
caitieparker @antderosa he was a pot head & into rock like Hendrix,The Doors, Anti-Flag. I haven’t seen him in person since ‘07 in a sign language class
Thanks to jerseyjoew.
Some of the earlier Kos commenters concluded that Loughner was paranoid schizophrenic and a stoner. One posted a link to Pima County’s court website showing that “Loughner, born September 10, 1988, had a court case involving possession of drug paraphernalia in 2007. Case number was CR07-718864A. Case was dismissed after completion of a diversion program.”
Then of course a Kos commenter concluded that “a disturbed, psychotic Libertarian Bagger is still a Libertarian Bagger.”
Kathlene M. continues:
I found Caitie Parker’s twitter page. Her comments quoted at Kos are there but you have to scroll down a long way to find them. Here’s one later comment she makes about Anti Flag, the punk group that Loughner listened to:
”@johnedelstein we listened to political punk in high school & agreed with their leftist opinions for the most part Anti-Flag was our band.”
She also states (about Loughner):
”@johnedelstein also probably more libertarian & definitely socially liberal.”
Paul K. writes:
Perhaps I’m over-analyzing this, but it seems to me the New York Times article is imputing a conservative, anti-abortion viewpoint to Loughner when it says, “After another student read a poem about getting an abortion, Mr. Loughner compared the young woman to a “terrorist for killing the baby.”“
In other articles about that incident, Loughner’s remarks do not seem to reflect an anti-abortion view but sound like the random effusions of a disordered mind.
There had been “difficulties” at Pima Community College where Loughner attended, Dupnik said. One student, who had a poetry class with Loughner, said he would often act “wildly inappropriate.”
“One day he 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 told ABC News.”
Karl D. writes:
Remember the Ft. Hood shooting? The left was tripping all over itself to state that Nidal Hassan was merely a disturbed or crazy individual. Nothing to do with Islam or Jihad. Now we have a case of a true lunatic yet he is an alienated right winger who seems to have harbored a bloodlust. I would also ask this? If he was so gung ho to kill a liberal why did he cast his murderous gaze upon a “Blue Dog” Democrat from Arizona?
Ron L. writes:
Jared Lee Laughner had an eclectic collection of favorite books: “Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.” None of these are racialist.
Laughner’s lunatic rants about grammar used to control is bowdlerized deconstructionalism. (Whether he got this from a Marxist professor, of this is proof that Marxist criticism of language is insane is up to you.) Jared Lee Laughner’s YouTube channel is a treasure trove with a vid showing him burning the American flag and calling us terrorists. “America: Your Last Memory In A Terrorist Country!” is not a video any rational conservative would make.
According to a girl who went to school with him, Laughner was a liberal in high school. Whatever else Laughner may be, he is no conservative. After seeing his YouTube page, I assumed that he is an anarcho-syndicalist. Supposedly, he is also on the mailing list of American Renaissance. However, none of the videos are racialist. I don’t think he is a fan of AR. He is more likely to be an anarchist keeping track of them. Of course, facts don’t matter. Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist, but the LBJ administration and leftists have used the Kennedy assassination to attack the right.
Daniel B. writes:
Judging by his writing style and subject matter, I think that Jared Loughner will be pegged as a “Sovereign Citizen” type and a fan of the “Plenipotentiary Judge” David Wynn Miller.
Here is Mr. Miller’s rather odd website, and Mr. Miller’s obtuse ramblings about mathematics. A mathematical theory which dovetails nicely with Loughner’s strange behavior at his community college math class, described here.
It’ll be interesting to see how the press plays this angle.
Philip M. writes from England:
The Mail article has a section dealing with American Renaissance, which it describes as “openly racist.” It goes on to say “Among the contributors have been Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP in the UK and right-wring American commentator Lawrence Auster, who has claimed in his books that immigration has ruined the U.S.”
Cary J. writes:
Speaking of murderous hate directed toward political figures (including elected officials), consider the events in West Hollywood when Alaska governor and Republican nominee for vice president Sarah Palin was hanged in effigy, noose and all, during the final days of the 2008 campaign. Law enforcement officials papered over the event by describing the simulated and highly racially-charged depiction of murder by calling it “a part of a Halloween display.”
Picture of Sarah hung in effigy.
Picture of homeowners with effigy:
Mitchell B. writes:
If anybody is to blame for this shooting it is the left-wing fascist Democrats. For decades the Democrats have been preaching the gospel of the “empowered” victim. This is straight out of Lenin’s book of tactics. Victimhood has been defined as sainthood by the leftists and anyone who feels left out or marginalized now has a reason to feel that they are morally superior. They have learned this in government schools. Many “victims” will also feel entitled to violently lash out. We see it all the time now and it’s always those who feel that the world owes them an apology, a living, recognition, etc. The shooters at Columbine definitely fit the leftists’ profile of self-proclaimed, self-righteous “victims/beautiful losers” and I’ll bet you this latest shooter does too.
Of course it’s usually lively, vibrant diverses who feel justified about acting out violently–especially against whites, but at this point anyone who feels he is a victim has been empowered by left-wing fascists to take revenge any way he sees fit. This is just one more disgusting facet of the evil left-wing narrative espoused by the Democrats.
And of course the leftists can’t blame themselves. They have no morals or ethics and don’t really care who gets killed as long as they can blame somebody besides themselves. Just look at the deadly nature of Obamacare and any other leftist legislation for that matter. This is also consistent with the leftists’ plan to make it illegal to defend ourselves against violent attack. Leftists would much rather we be killed by insane, self-proclaimed “victims” or just common criminals (also the darlings of the left). leftists are all liars, cheats and thieves.
Thomas Bertonneau writes:
I offer some further comments on supposed discursive influence on violent acts –
It occurs to me, concerning the claim that reading this or that book or author (or by implication that listening to this or that orator) inclined someone to commit a criminally violent act, that there is a hierarchy of plausibility. On this assumption, it is possible to conduct a worthwhile thought experiment.
We learn that an individual, “Smith,” has committed a violent act and that, on investigating his apartment, police detectives have recovered a shelf of books. The violent act is a political assassination, let us say of a nationally but relatively unknown Congressman; the perpetrator is an unemployed college dropout in his mid-twenties with a record of arrests for public unruliness and an Internet record of barely literate postings suggestive of the mentality that, (A) “everyone is out to get me” and (B) “everything that everyone knows is wrong.” Who, among the following ten authors, would be the least surprising name that investigation might reveal as dominant in Smith’s reading interest?
T.S. Eliot
Saul Alinsky
S.T. Coleridge
J.D. Salinger
Malcolm X
Noam Chomsky
Adolf Hitler
Ann Coulter
Russell Kirk
Friedrich Nietzsche
I would order it this way: (1) J. D. Salinger; (2) Noam Chomsky; (3) Saul Alinsky; (4) Adolf Hitler; (5) Friedrich Nietzsche; (6) Malcolm X; (7) Ann Coulter; (8) Russell Kirk; (9) T. S. Eliot; (10) S. T. Coleridge.
I put Salinger first because Catcher in the Rye has always struck me as intrinsically unbalancing to a certain type of adolescent maladjustment. I put Coleridge last because, although he as the author of a particular conservative (one could even say, reactionary) political program (“Pantisocracy”), his language is simply too elevated (and too little known) to be a plausible influence on anyone in respect of anything. The concepts of “The Russell Kirk Murderer” and even of “The Ann Coulter Murderer” are unimaginable. I wonder how other VFR readers might order it.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 09, 2011 05:30 PM | Send