Nihilism or Sarah Palin: What motivated Arizona shooting suspect?

Early reports suggest that the philosophies
of shooting suspect Jared Loughner are
tangled and largely incoherent – ranging
from nihilism to 'lucid dreaming.' So far,
there does not appear to be clear link to
talk radio or hyperpartisanship, though that.
Atlanta
Initial reports about Jared Loughner, the 22-year-
old college dropout charged with killing six and
gravely wounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in
Tucson, Ariz., Saturday, so far present a picture
of a person inspired by a tangled and in some
ways nonsensical web of philosophies more than
any one person, political movement, or line of
thought.
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik suggested
Saturday that the shootings might have been
influenced by "vitriolic rhetoric" in the political
discourse. He went on to single out talk radio and
Sarah Palin, who, on her website last fall, targeted
20 House districts for Republican takeovers with
cross hairs – including Congresswoman
Giffords's.
Rep. Robert Brady (D) of Pennsylvania is
reportedly preparing a bill that would outlaw the
use of threatening rhetoric against lawmakers.
Arizona shooting: Seven times politics
turned to threats or violence last year
The investigation of the incident has clearly not
finished, and new revelations are sure to come.
But at this early stage, no clear links have
emerged between Loughner and the current
political climate. Rather, acquaintences and
criminologists point to a convoluted worldview
that appears largely incoherent – ranging from a
fascination with dreams to an apparent penchant
for nihilism.
His writings merge everything from the
Communist Manifesto to discussions of the gold
standard to the government's oppression by use
of grammar.
"That is in a nutshell what schizophrenics tend to
do, they pick up a concept, but it doesn't stay a
coherent concept the way it would with someone
else's mind," says Mark Pitcavage, the director of
investigative research at the Anti-Defamation
League. "They just throw it into the big pile of
things that ends up being their own delusional
structures."
Loughner's childhood friend, Bryce Tierney, told
Mother Jones magazine that Loughner kept a
dream journal and believed in "lucid dreaming" –
existing in a separate plane between dreams and
reality.
Mr. Tierney, who said he was a close friend of
Loughner's in middle and high school added: "By
the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated
with semantics and how the world is really
nothing – illusion."



Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0110/Nihilism-or-Sarah-Palin-What-motivated-Arizona-shooting-suspect