(Newser)
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Analysts looking through Jared Lee Loughner's deranged online ramblings say that while some influence from the extreme left and extreme right is apparent, the only pigeonhole that fits is the one marked "insane." Some elements of the fringe right share Loughner's fixation on grammar conspiracies, currency manipulation, and the "second United States Constitution," experts tell the Los Angeles Times, although no coherent philosophy emerges from his online postings. On the leftist side, he counted the Communist Manifesto as among his favorite books.
Loughner "did not watch TV. He disliked the news. He didn’t listen to political radio. He didn’t take sides. He wasn’t on the left. He wasn’t on the right," a high school friend of his tells ABC. The accused mass murderer's biggest influence, the friend says, was the online conspiracy theory documentary series Zeitgeist. The series had a profound influence on how Loughner viewed the world, the friend says. "He wasn’t shooting at people. He was shooting at the world.”
