The Mindset of Jared Lee Loughner
Loughner and the Government
Posted: January 10, 2011
A second, more disjointed, theme that runs through Loughner's writings is distrust for and dislike of the government.
This theme manifested itself in various ways, but usually in ways that seemed to touch on Loughner's personal concerns or personal experiences, rather than ways that seemed explicitly ideological in nature. Loughner stated that he couldn't trust "the current government" because of "fabrications." However, this seemed to relate to his belief that somehow the government was brainwashing people by "controlling grammar."
Loughner expressed sentiments that could be interpreted as anti-police as well as against the community college he had earlier attended in Tucson (claiming that "the United States Constitution, which is the law, can be broken at this school"). These seem to relate to real life incidents involving Loughner and campus security at the community college.
In the Erad3 postings, one consistent anti-government topic broached is the notion of NASA faking spaceflights, including the Mars Rover landings. Erad3 seems to have thought that communication over distances as great as those between Earth and Mars was not possible; therefore, the landings were faked.
As expressed in his typical three-sentence structure:
"NASA sends the Mars Rover to mars with communication or NASA fakes the situation. NASA didn't send the Mars Rover to mars with communication. Therefore, NASA fakes the situation."
In one of his few fairly lucid statements, Erad3 elaborated that most people "just trust that people in authority are offering valid statements and conclusions and trust that they wouldn't lie. But in reality all of us base our mental constructs upon the ideas of others, not our own observations."
The third theme that Loughner returned to involving the government deals—vaguely—with the concept of "currency." Typically, Loughner wrapped this concept together with his other beliefs about brainwashing and grammar. However, this area also included one of Loughner's only explicitly ideological statements, albeit a passing one.
Near the end of one of his videos, entitled "My Final Thoughts," Loughner briefly proclaimed "No! I won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver!" This is clearly a reference to a concept prevalent in the anti-government and right-wing "Patriot" movement that only gold and silver, not paper money, is valid currency. However, neither in this video nor elsewhere does Loughner elaborate on this statement, or even where he might have learned of the concept.
However, the "Above Top Secret" forum may offer some illumination. During the summer of 2010, user Erad3 started a discussion thread titled "Infinite Source of Currency!?!?" In this thread, he asked if it were possible for there to be an "infinite source of currency." The rest of his posting was not particularly coherent, but dealt with the notion of the Treasury creating an infinite amount of new currencies (he seemed to relate "infinite currency" to a similar-sounding concept he had of "infinite language").
The "Above Top Secret" forum deals with all sorts of conspiracy theories, but does include anti-government extremists in its membership, who tend to concentrate on "Patriot" style anti-government conspiracy theories. Some of the responses to Erad3's query were from people who clearly believed that paper money was worthless or even invalid. Though Erad3's responses to such postings did not indicate that he agreed with such messages, this may be where he originally picked up the notion.
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