One of the odder pronouncements made by Loughner on his YouTube videos had to do with grammar, such as: “The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.” Setting aside the irony of the ungrammatical nature of the sentence (or am I just applying the rules of grammar I have been brainwashed to believe?), the statement is nonsensical.
Newsweek, however, suggests the origins of this mode of thinking (such as it is): Jared Lee Loughner’s Mental State
Loughner’s rambling Internet missives, says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, likely come from well known online sources of the radical right. Potok, who studies hate groups and hate speech, has combed Loughner’s sites and says his material on grammar, in particular, likely comes from the writings of the Milwaukee-based, far right activist David Wynn Miller. As Potok explains it, Miller “believes in a ‘truth language’ that can throw off the government. If you use the right combination of colons and hyphens you don’t have to pay taxes. Miller is virtually the only person who pushes these ideas on grammar, it’s a very unusual idea, even on the radical right.”
For his part, Miller tells The Daily Beast/Newsweek that Loughner has never reached out to him, but that “I expect he’s been on my website… He’s just repeating things I’ve had up on my site the past 11 years.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has an article on Miller here: ‘Full Colon Miller’
Miller’s own website is here.
