His friends describe him as a "left wing pot head" and "very liberal".
He's also been described as mentally troubled and verbally confused. Assuming that this guy's mentally ill, which seems like a safe bet, why would his political views--such as they are, assuming he even understood them--matter at all? The difference between this guy and, say, McVeigh is that McVeigh was coherent and sane (depraved as he may have been). Loughner looks and sounds like a flat out
lunatic.
One of his favorite bands was Anti-Flag (commie lefty band to the EXTREME!!)
Never heard of them, can't say. (Sure
sounds like it from the name, though.) Divining someone's political views based on their music? Ummm...well, I guess that people who like psychedelic rock or music from the Sixties and Seventies would all be leftists, drug users, or potential members of the Weather Underground. Or that everyone who appreciates jazz is a pothead, or that all grunge fans don't vote and shoot heroin.
Loughner himself said his favorite books were Karl Marx's "The Communist Manifesto" and Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf".
Wrong: he mentioned them
among his favorite books, along with
1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, and
Peter Pan. None of this "proves" a thing, other than he had (somewhat) eclectic taste.
Trying to shoehorn Loughner into a "liberal" or "conservative" category doesn't help a thing or prove a thing. Based on the hodgepodge of his opinions on the gold standard, mind control, and the like, it appears as though his insanity makes any attempt to categorize his political beliefs moot.
