Loughner's ties to conspiracy theory
By: Carrie Budoff Brown
January 9, 2011 02:24 PM EST
Jared Lee Loughner’s rants about grammar and mind control track closely to the writings of a conspiracy theorist who believes that is how the government controls the populace, one leading group says – and the man tells POLITICO he agrees with some of Loughner’s statements.
The far-right activist, David Wynn Miller, said in a telephone interview that he didn’t know Loughner, but agreed with his statement in a YouTube video that “the government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.”
“Absolutely I would agree with it,” said Miller, 62, a former tool-and-die maker from Milwaukee who claims 1 billion “students” worldwide.
But he said any suggestion that his writings influenced Loughner to go on a shooting rampage is “ridiculous.”
“I have nothing to do with anything like that,” Miller said, suggesting that Loughner might have been under the influence of government mind control.
Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, first mentioned Miller during an appearance Saturday on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”
“The idea weirdly enough of controlling grammar, of somehow the government using grammar to control the people is an idea that exists on the radical right. There’s a particular person, a man named David Wynn Miller who has plugged this idea for years,” Potok said.
Miller “claims to have invented truth language,” Potok said in an interview with POLITICO. “His idea is that if you only use the correct grammar and punctuation, you can throw off the shackles of the tyrannical government.”
Potok said Loughner appeared “practically illiterate and quite mentally ill,” but his statements and the books he has cited suggest a “pretty strong anti-government, conspiracy-oriented threat.”
“It seems he is getting some of his key ideas from David Wynn Miller,” he said.
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