Talk:Jared Lee Loughner#Even more pov pushing

The following paragraph is false.

"Loughner's high-school friend Zach Osler said, "He 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."[18] The tone of Loughner's online writings and videos from immediately before the attack was described by The Guardian as "almost exclusively conservative and anti-government, with echoes of the populist campaigning of the Tea Party movement".[39]"

A slanderous lie by The Guardian.

Before the shooting, I knew Jared online only. We were both members of the same political message board on Yahoo (when they had message boards on all sorts of subjects, not just political. These message boards are now defunct as Yahoo decided to shut down all their message boards) . Jared was a very prolific poster. Posting 15, 20, or more times a day, 7 days a week for years. More than I ever did. His avatar was a picture of himself (sporting a full head of hair though) and his user name was his first name: Jared. Perhaps he never watched TV or listened to political radio or took political sides out in the open like his former high school friend claimed. But online, it was a different story (its possible Jared's friend never knew about Jared's online presence).

Jared was STRICTLY left wing. I, among many other, spent every day of the week for years discussing, debating, and arguing politics with Jared online. There was NOTHING conservative , much less "exclusively conservative", nothing right wing, in his online writings. True, he was anti-government. But that was when Bush was in office. When Obama took over, he wasnt anti-government all of the sudden. He dropped his anti-government rantings for the most part except to criticize and denounce various republican politicians individually. He wasn't anti-government as much as he was just anti-republican government. He never exactly said that with his words. But his actions, his postings said so. He also hated everything about the then emerging Tea Party movement because he saw it for what it was: a right wing populist movement. The claim by the Guardian that Jared's postings echoed the populist rhetoric of the Tea Party movement is false, laughable, and slanderous.

Around couple days or so before the shooting, all of the sudden Jared stopped posting. He was such a prolific, well known poster, that out of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of political board members, his absence was noticeable. Almost everyone on both sides of the political aisle were going "Where's Jared? Where's Jared?" After a couple days of his absence, the news broke of the shooting in Arizona. Shortly afterwards came the name of the shooter: Jared Loughner. As far as I know, none of us knew his real last name up until that time. But still, some were saying something along the lines of, "could this be our Jared?" As it turned out, it was. Very soon the behind the scenes powers that be of the Yahoo message boards deleted Jared's account as well as deleted as many of his postings they could find (evidently deleting his account didn't remove his message board posts and they had to do that separately). They didn't delete all his message board posts as there were a few they missed. 69.124.185.183 (talk) 18:11, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

:Wikipedia bases article content on published reliable sources. Not unverifiable claims by anonymous contributors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:13, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Understood. Wikipedia also has a NPOV policy. Couldn't they use a different published reliable source that didn't include such a opinionated sentence, a "POV", or at at the very least edit out the opinion (POV) part before including excerpts of said articles on wikipedia.

"The tone of Loughner's online writings and videos from immediately before the attack was described by The Guardian as "almost exclusively conservative and anti-government, with echoes of the populist campaigning of the Tea Party movement"

That's a POV. Doesn't matter if the Guardian is a reliable published source. Even reliable published sources have their opinionated moments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.185.183 (talk) 19:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

:: By describing a POV held by the writers at The Guardian, the article is taking an NPOV stance. See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing_and_specifying_biased_statements

:: Wikipedia articles on current events are by design based on what top newspapers (The Guardian, New York Times, etc), scholarly books and articles, etc. say about a case. The information published in those sources makes the cut, and stuff not published does not.

:: Wikipedia:Verifiability: "Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, or experiences."

:: Trying to add unpublished information to an article would be Wikipedia:No original research

:: Any insight into the subject which comes from unpublished sources just can't make the cut.

:: WhisperToMe (talk) 01:39, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

Does anyone know why this article exists in the first place? I think there should be some sort of Wikipedia policy to define which shooters get their own articles? Why do Loughner and Dylann Roof both have their own pages SEPARATE from their shootings while shooters like Robert Card, Salvador Ramos, Devin Patrick Kelley and Adam Lanza doubled Roof and tripled Loughner in kill count but do not have their own pages. I understand if more info about Loughner should be put here that would make the 2011 Tucson shooting article too long, but why isn't this case for the other shooters I mentioned as well? - Genberg47 (talk) 04:38, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

:Feel free to suggest a merge. GenQuest ^"scribble" 17:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

:{{tq|Loughner opened fire on Giffords from close range, hitting her as well as numerous bystanders, and killing six people. Thirteen other people were injured by gunfire, and one person was injured while fleeing the scene of the shooting. Giffords, the target of the attack, was shot in the head and critically injured.}}

This material differs from most of the sources I've read on this subject, and plays down the impact and effects of gun violence by reducing the killing to two words, doesn't describe the nature of their deaths or the injuries, and has an altogether clinical, yet cursory description of an incredibly violent and destructive event that is minimized and trivialized, giving the false impression that gun violence is a normal, everyday event. Viriditas (talk) 00:54, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::Unfortunately in the United States, gun violence is in fact an everyday event, although I hesitate to call it "normal." Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit are all averaging one murder per day or more, and the vast majority of those murders are committed with handguns. But if you have an alternate wording for that passage, go ahead and propose it. Flavor of the Month (talk) 08:38, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

What's wrong with this content? [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jared_Lee_Loughner&diff=1295922986&oldid=1295919522] It was reverted with the criticism that the source is from 2011. Just about all the sources in this article are from 2011, since the shooting happened in 2011. The reversion summary also complains that the source is an opinion column, but that opinion column is reliably sourced. The source, American Spectator, cites two mainstream media news sources: ABC News and The Arizona Republic, which is the daily newspaper of record for the state. Furthermore, the ABC News video clip is here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqS-AK9YoQ] and it speaks for itself. Zach Osler, Loughner's best friend in high school (they parted ways two years before the shooting), stated that Loughner was obsessed with the film Zeitgeist.

Finally, the creator of Zeitgeist. Peter Jacob, attempted to debunk ABC News without actually debunking it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obbbnhf03FY] Jacob didn't even challenge the central point -- that Loughner was obsessed with the film. Jacob apparently only claimed that ABC News gave the impression that Loughner watched the film, then immediately grabbed his gun, dashed out and started shooting people. Flavor of the Month (talk) 15:24, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:My edit summary, in full: {{tq|The source is from 2011, and accordingly can't be cited for what Loughner 'is' obsessed with. And anyway, this seems undue, coming from a single opinion piece. Discuss on the talk page before restoring please.}} It is self evident that we can't say that Loughner 'is' obsessed with anything, citing that source, which is what you wrote. It's 2025, not 2011. Beyond that, as I have already pointed out elsewhere, per MOS:LEDE the lede is supposed to summarise the article body, and not include material not discussed elsewhere. And obviously, I was basing my revert (a normal part of the WP:BRD process used to arrive at consensus) solely on the source you actually cited, rather than on anything I hadn't seen. As for whether a brief mention of the Zeitgeist movie merits inclusion in the article body, I'd be more convinced if I saw more considered/academic secondary sources discussing Loughner's motivations in general that considered it significant. In the immediate aftermath of the killings, the media went into something of a frenzy looking for explanations, accompanied by the inevitable partisan efforts to place him on the political spectrum in a manner that reflected badly on opponents. I think that it isn't unreasonable to suggest with hindsight that as Loughner's severe mental health issues emerged, analysis in reliable sources shifted away from such considerations - and that the consensus, such as it is, is probably that in as much as Loughner's political leanings were evident at all, they were inconsistent, and that his actions were those of a deeply disturbed person. So if we are going to include mention of the Zeitgeist film, we shouldn't do so in a manner that suggests it was causal: it clearly wasn't, his mental state was. So, are there secondary sources, post-trial and thus better placed to look at 'motivations' in the context of what emerged concerning Loughner's mental state, that discuss Zeitgeist at all? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:34, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::"So, are there secondary sources, post-trial[?]" There was no trial. Loughner pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. But there are plenty of blogs that posted in the weeks following the shooting. There's also this from Daily Beast: [https://www.thedailybeast.com/zeitgeist-the-documentary-that-may-have-shaped-jared-loughners-worldview/] Notice that Daily Beast puts Loughner's Zeitgeist in the lede paragraph. Wikipedia should follow that example: if not in our lede paragraph, then shortly thereafter. Reporting on Loughner's left-of-center belief system is scarce, even though his ex-girlfriend described him as "liberal, even radical" in another videotaped ABC interview. Flavor of the Month (talk) 17:24, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::Trial, hearing, whatever. You clearly understood what I was referring to. As for 'blogs', per WP:RS, few are eligible to be cited at all. And yes, "Reporting on Loughner's left-of-center belief system is scarce", and largely based on former acquaintances who had lost contact with him - the former friend who made the initial comments about Zeitgeist hadn't seen Loughner for two years or so. And it should probably be noted that placing the Zeitgeist movie itself on the political spectrum is problematic, to say the least, given e.g. Alec Jones' endorsement of it as is noted in the Beast article you link above. And no, we are under no obligation whatsoever to follow the Beast, or any other source from the multitude that commented in the immediate aftermath to the killings in regard to the placement of content. And nor are we obliged to include any of the multitude of 'explanations' at all, unless it can be shown that they were seen as of long-term significance. Hence my suggestion that later sources, free from the apparent desire to speculate on limited evidence, and better able to look at the matter in the light of Loughner's mental state, would help establish whether Loughner's apparent 'obsession' with a movie a couple of years prior to the incident was of any significance. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:47, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Pretty much what Andy said. There is a history of trying to establish the motive for mass shootings based on the opinions of "experts" who had nothing to do with the investigation. There is a need to comply with WP:DUE, which seems to be a problem here.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:11, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::Do you have any sources indicating that he wasn't (or isn't) "liberal, even radical" any more, or that he has abandoned his Zeitgeist obsession? Because I'm not finding any. And there's a vast difference between a trial, which can last for weeks and thoroughly explores the motives of the accused, and a hearing where a plea agreement is entered, which is measured in minutes. A trial would have brought all of this out, and the media would have covered it extensively. So we're left with this limited window into his belief system and mindset. Flavor of the Month (talk) 18:11, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::Also, compare the biography of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. His beliefs and motivations were covered extensively, in the second paragraph (part of the lede section): "McVeigh became radicalized by anti-government beliefs. He sought revenge against the United States federal government for the 1993 Waco siege, as well as the 1992 Ruby Ridge incident. McVeigh expressed particular disapproval of federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for their handling of issues regarding private citizens. He hoped to inspire a revolution against the federal government, and he defended the bombing as a legitimate tactic against what he saw as a tyrannical government.[12]" Notice that all this material was derived from a single source. McVeigh's mindset and motives are covered even more extensively, farther down in his biography. Then there's the biography of Dylann Roof, whose neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs were called out in the very first sentence, then explored in greater detail in the second paragraph, and again covered extensively farther down in the article. What we know about Loughner's beliefs and motivations should receive similar treatment. Flavor of the Month (talk) 18:17, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::Lack of sourcing for something is generally considered grounds to exclude content, not include it. So no, I don't have sources on loughner's political orientation, or his 'obsessions' at any point other than that of a couple of ex-friends commenting long after they knew him. Neither, apparently, do you. Possibly because later sources consider trying to figure out the inner workings of a deeply troubled mind is a pointless exercise. As for what a trial would have 'brought out', that is pure speculation on your behalf, and thus irrelevant. And your commentary regarding McVeigh and Roof is entirely off-topic: article content is determined on its own merits and not on the basis that another article, discussing something else, does something-or-other we like. We don't construct articles according to some rote plan, but instead summarise appropriately, with due weight, what the balance of appropriate sources say. Summarise, not include absolutely everything every source might have written at any point: hence WP:DUE. Which still seems relevant to me - perhaps more so, since you now seem to be conceding that the sources provide nothing beyond a 'limited window into his belief system'. A window from a couple of years before the event. Again, lack of sourcing is grounds for exclusion, not inclusion. We simply don't know what was going through his troubled mind at the time of the shooting, and shouldn't mislead readers into thinking we do. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Agree, 'We don't really have any good sources, so we should make assumptions based on a movie that Alex Jones endorsed and some people who hadn't talked to the subject for a few years' is not really how Wikipedia does things.

:::::::As to the other two killers you mentioned, those articles actually do have clear sources, so they are different.

:::::::(EDIT) - And the 'Zeitgiest' linked above is to the term, not the movie in question.MilesVorkosigan (talk) 19:21, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

A single source was good enough for the McVeigh article to include multiple sentences about his beliefs in the lede section. I've got four "clear sources": Daily Beast, American Spectator, the video from ABC News and the video by Peter Jacob. Substituting the word "was" for "is" seems to be your main sticking point. Fine, change it to "was." You're also stressing that the cutoff for the ex-best friend, that friend's father and the ex-girlfriend was two years before the shooting. Fine, add a sentence covering that. But the answer to WP:DUE is not to exclude the material completely. Flavor of the Month (talk) 19:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:This does not address anything about the other sources from the same period of time that contradict what you want to add, nor does it address anything about the fact that even if he loved that movie, apparently so did Alex Jones, so it cannot be used to prove that someone is or was a liberal.

:And there is not a 'single source' for McVeigh. You might be thinking that there is a single source cited for a particular line in his article, but that is a very, very different claim. Please review ButWhatAbout! MilesVorkosigan (talk) 20:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:I'd recommend people reading the Daily Beast article for themselves (archive link [https://web.archive.org/web/20170607055640/https://www.thedailybeast.com/web/20170607055640/http://www.thedailybeast.com/zeitgeist-the-documentary-that-may-have-shaped-jared-loughners-worldview]), rather than taking Flavor of the Month's partisan interpretation of it as necessarily valid. Sure, it suggests the Loughner was influenced by the Zeitgeist movie, but it notes other broader influences too - notably those of the conspiratorial right wing. In any case, it is basing its entire premise on the same single statement from Loughner's ex-friend. Nobody seems to have considered this significant, once the dust had settled down. Just one of several 'explanations' that arose at the time, only to sink without trace. WP:UNDUE AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:44, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::The Daily Beast link is broken, but I did read the article in the Spectator (after looking up the outlet, I thought I remembered that name). They say it was *four* years, not *two* since the last time the young lady who said he was a liberal spoke to him, and in that time he developed paranoid schizophrenia. That is not a solid source for his later views.

::Wait, and the movie he loved included a speech from JFK jr. talking about infiltration by communists, but 'It's Actually Leftist!'?

::This article is not at all a reliable source for BLP. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::Apologies for the broken link, I can't seem to get it to work at all. The Beast article is archived on the Wayback Machine website, and can be found by searching for 'http://www.thedailybeast.com/zeitgeist-the-documentary-that-may-have-shaped-jared-loughners-worldview'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:35, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Let's see if this works: [Https://web.archive.org/web/20250508212150/https://www.thedailybeast.com/zeitgeist-the-documentary-that-may-have-shaped-jared-loughners-worldview/ Zeitgeist: The Documentary That May Have Shaped Jared Loughner's Worldview]

::::And the Daily Beast article makes it even more clear how involved Jones was in both this movie and the 9/11 Truther one that McCain handwaves away. Jones is even quoted in it saying that he agrees with 90% of the Zeitgeist movie and mostly doesn't like the anti-Christian parts. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 21:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yup. Not that it matters, unless we see evidence that this bit of extrapolation-from-a-single-outdated-source has been discussed later in the light of further knowledge. There must have been hundreds of articles trying to pin down Loughner's motive published in the first few days. Nothing particularly unusual about that (the media have to do media stuff to survive), but nothing to build an article around. And we certainly don't cherry-pick such sources to promote claims they don't even support. Being sourced is necessary for content, but having a source for something isn't always sufficient. Not when it amounts to 'Loughner watched a controversial movie repeatedly. Two years later, he murdered people'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:09, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::Journalist Tom Zoellner covered all of this in 2011. The relevant text is visible at IA.[https://archive.org/details/safewayinarizona0000zoel/page/134/mode/2up] You can read the wider argument on pages 134-135, 152-153, and 261, although Zoellner's larger argument takes place across much of the entirety of the book. "There was an enormous conjecture in the days after the Safeway shooting as to whether or not Jared Loughner was acting out a political agenda," writes Zoellner. He goes on to describe the arguments. Zoellner speculates that Loughner "was neither right nor left in any classic sense...The closest analog in the political world...can be found within the ideology of the 'sovereign citizen movement'."

::::::Zoellner and other experts believe Loughner was influenced by the animosity of the 2010 United States House of Representatives elections in Arizona, which was a very close election that Giffords won against her GOP opponent by more than 4000 votes. Giffords had been targeted for defeat by Sarah Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC. According to the NYT, "Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs. But in that case no connection to the shooting was ever established." Zoellner writes: "Palin's map was posted on Facebook showing a rifle sighting symbols on the districts of 'targeted' Democrats. Gabrielle's district was one of them, and the presence of the crosshairs now looked ominous, as though the map was suggesting that the incumbent not just be removed from office but metaphorically gunned down." In spite of her opposition, Giffords was re-elected on November 2, 2010, and was shot by Loughner just two months and one week later.

::::::

::::::Political scientist James W. Clarke, professor emeritus of the University of Arizona, who studied killers like Gary Tison ([https://search.worldcat.org/title/22195003 1988]), American assassins in general ([https://search.worldcat.org/title/21571943 1990]), and case studies like John Hinckley Jr. ([https://search.worldcat.org/title/20318550 1990]), also believes the 2010 election was partly to blame. Clarke told Zoellner: "The toxicity of this campaign [GOP opposition to Giffords] was beyond anything I've experienced and I've lived here thirty years. I don't think the kid [Loughner] had a clear political rationale. It may not have been defined in liberal-conservative terms, but he was clearly antigovernment, and the antigovernment rhetoric was a major part of the campaign against Gabrielle Giffords in this last year. You could not drive across town without seeing these 'Burma-Shave' signs on the side of the road that told you how she was going to cut your Medicare. The political white noise provides a facilitating context, especially for someone outside the conventional social structures. Such things can be thinkable...[For Laughner] Giffords was the government doing all these bad things." Viriditas (talk) 22:18, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::That looks distinctly like a cut & paste out of an e-book. Or an online publication. If so, please identify it.

:::::::So what do you want to do about this? Flavor of the Month (talk) 18:40, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::It isn’t clear what you are trying to say. Was there something that I wrote above that didn’t make sense to you? Viriditas (talk) 18:54, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::It looks like you copied and pasted it from some website. Or an e-book. What content do you want to include, regarding Loughner's well-documented anti-government fanaticism and well-documented Zeitgeist obsession? And I DO NOT CARE -- and neither does Wikipedia -- that the THREE people close to him, who identified his Zeitgeist obsession, cut off all contact with him two years before the shooting. All he wanted to do was watch Zeitgeist on a continuous loop. That was his Bible. Or if you're a Marxist, that was his Communist Manifesto, or Little Red Book. That kind of fanaticism rarely gets abandoned in a two-year span. And there is absolutely zero evidence that he ever abandoned it. If the federal prison guards let him, he's probably watching it right now. Flavor of the Month (talk) 19:27, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::I would suggest you stop posting comments and go back and read what I wrote, as you seem to have not understood it. Viriditas (talk) 19:33, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::I fully understand it. What content do you want to include in the mainspace, regarding Loughner and his Zeitgeist obsession and anti-government fanaticism? Flavor of the Month (talk) 19:58, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::Thanks. My own understanding of this discussion, based on the input of others, is that we should not add anything about Zeitgeist. I would encourage you to look at the book I cited on IA or to get get a copy of it elsewhere (I think I remember seeing some free copies online for university courses). I own the book. Look, you've got a lot of enthusiasm for this subject. Why don't you put it to good use and start writing an article about the psychology of assassination or some other similar or related topic. That would allow you to pursue your special interest within the framework of acceptable sources. Please think about it. Viriditas (talk) 20:06, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::Your claims about Loughner continuing to watch the movie are WP:OR.

::::::::::::You also don't seem to have actually addressed anything anyone has said about your source or the problems with the claim you want to add. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 20:10, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

My "claims" regarding Loughner's Zeitgeist obsession are abundantly documented. Three people who had been very close to Loughner -- Zach Osler (his best friend in high school), Zach Osler's father, and Loughner's ex-girlfriend -- said that watching Zeitgeist was the only thing Loughner wanted to do, all day every day. These interviews with these three people were broadcast on "Good Morning America," an ABC News program. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqS-AK9YoQ] Therefore the sourcing is bulletproof. Therefore I have addressed any sourcing problems. Nobody, and I do mean nobody, at Wikipedia is going to ever get ABC News to be declared an unreliable source. Other less reliable sources by the dozen confirm this obsession.

And I repeat, there is absolutely zero evidence he ever abandoned his Zeitgeist obsession. That was his "external manifesto." It is extremely unlikely that he has ever, or will ever, abandon that obsession. Let alone abandoning it in the slender two-year interval between Zach and his father parting ways with Loughner, and the Tucson shooting.

Regarding his politics, he's very difficult to pigeonhole, except to say that he was anti-government. Very similar to the current No Kings movement on the left, or the "sovereign citizen" movement on the right.

But (a) his hatred for capitalism, (b) his interest in an "alternate currency," and (c) his hatred for organized religion -- all three of which are consistent with left-wing beliefs, and are espoused in the Zeitgeist film series -- suggest that he leaned more to the left than the right.

Yes, I'm interested in the psychology of assassination. My earliest memory was the JFK assassination. And it just kept happening throughout my childhood -- Malcolm X, RFK, Martin Luther King. But creating such an article at Wikipedia would just be a series of anecdotal case studies, because they're all over the map in terms of psychology, politics and motives. My guess is that about 60% are left-wing, 20% are conservative, and 20% are in the "difficult to pigeonhole" category. Flavor of the Month (talk) 20:48, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:You have an axe to grind. Because you are blinded by your grievance against the so-called "left", most of your comments can be dismissed as nonsense and disinformation, and that's why I recommend removing them on sight. We shouldn't be hosting this kind of thing. The "No Kings" movement isn't "on the left" nor can it be described by any expert as "anti-government". These kinds of category errors and misinformation aren't conducive to Wikipedia. Viriditas (talk) 20:58, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::Not hardly. Look at just the past 12 months. Two assassins attempted to kill Trump; both were left-wing. The assassin in the Twin Cities just a few days ago was appointed to two different state jobs by two different Democratic governors, and his targets included two Democratic state legislators who had broken ranks and sided with the Republicans to end Medicaid for illegal immigrants, thus enabling the bill to be passed.

::Then of course, there were the politically motivated riots in the past five years. Left-wing 700+ riots, conservatives? One. Count it. One. January 6, 2021. And there's evidence they were incited to riot by 29 different FBI informants. Like a baseball umpire, I call 'em as I see 'em. I have no axe to grind. Those are the facts on the table. The extreme left is far more prone to politically motivated violence than the extreme right. Flavor of the Month (talk) 21:29, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::None of that is true. Please do not continue with this. I think this discussion should be closed. Viriditas (talk) 21:37, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::Those are some very carefully cherry-picked 'facts', some of which are just wrong, all of which are irrelevant to your claims about Loughner. Please try to focus on the article. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 21:58, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:If you think the 'No Kings' protests are 'anti-government', I don't believe that you are familiar enough with US politics to edit articles about it. Maybe try to edit articles about your own country?

:And the claim that Musk and Trump and their love for meme-coins and other alternate currency makes them left-wing... That's not really how it works over here. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::I desperately want to assume good faith, but the firehose of falsehoods presented by FotM shows no sign of abating. I think we need to close this discussion. Viriditas (talk) 21:51, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::I'm not aware of any mechanism to close it? But yeah, absent some explanation about how this movie that Alex Jones loves so much is somehow left-wing and relevant to this article, I don't see that it is going to go anywhere.

:::My guess is that a bunch of people got marching orders to go out online and say 'But actually it's the Left that's dangerous!' after one of Trump's followers assassinated the legislators in MN. WP:NOTHERE MilesVorkosigan (talk) 22:01, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::@MIlesVorsokigan: I'm a natural born US citizen. I've lived in the US almost my entire life. And one of my two undergraduate degrees is in political science. I've taken a leave of absence every two years to work for political campaigns, in the fall of even-numbered years. About half were Democrats and half were Republicans.

::Musk is left-wing. Trump was a Democrat until he came down that escalator in 2015. His switch to the GOP was pure Trump style opportunism. I'm convinced it's a facade, and that deep in his shriveled little black heart, he harbors left-wing beliefs. He got an award from the NAACP. He donated the maximum to Hillary's Senate campaign, and he attended all the fancy Manhattan parties thrown by the Democrat glitterati.

::And you are the one, sir, who brought up Musk and Trump, and claimed that I'm not from the United States. So don't accuse me of going off-topic. Flavor of the Month (talk) 22:09, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::While I enjoy talking about political kayfabe as much as any other wrestling fan, this isn't the place for it. Here's a suggestion: find a niche area that you enjoy and create a new article from scratch. Invite me or others over to have a look when you're done and maybe we can collaborate together. Viriditas (talk) 22:14, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::::I have a better idea. Let's work on this one. Google the words Loughner Zeitgeist. Tell me how many hits you get. Loughner's obsession with that film series is undeniable. It belongs in the article. Every other Wikipedia article about a mass shooter or an assassin -- each and every one that I've read -- has invested hundreds of words in exploring the shooter's motivations and political beliefs. This is the only one that doesn't -- perhaps because members of the Zeitgeist cult have subscribed to it and are hovering over its Talk page, to prevent Loughner's well documented obsession from ever seeing the light of day in the mainspace. Flavor of the Month (talk) 22:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::The reason that this one doesn't has already been explained to you several times. Your decision to refuse to engage with the explanations and repeat conspiratorial nonsense is not doing you any credit. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 22:24, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::No, we already explained to you the outcome of that discussion. The problem is that you are operating from a different set of assumptions about reality than the rest of us. This doesn't mean you are "wrong" or "misinformed", but it does mean that under Wikipedia rules and best practices, we can't implement your ideas. I think you should take my advice and focus on creating a new article about a niche topic, as that will give you experience about how this place works. Otherwise, I think you are going to end up blocked. 22:25, 18 June 2025 (UTC) Viriditas (talk) 22:25, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:::You did go off-topic, so when you continue to do so, I will continue to point it out. And bringing them up was obviously relevant, as you can tell from my statement at the time.

:::Your second paragraph is a mix of lies and very carefully-picked misleading facts. The reason that nobody is bothering to refute them again, here, is that we've all seen them before over the years, nearly verbatim.

:::You won't be able to develop consensus for editing changes you by repeating such obvious misinformation, especially stuff that is this old and has been debunked so many times. Maybe try editing something not related to American politics? There's a lot of articles on Wikipedia, and making positive changes can be enjoyable. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

{{od}} Please be aware that Flavor of the Month is now under an AP topic ban. Do not bait him to violate it, please. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:26, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:I... what?

:I'm not sure who is misunderstanding who, (It might be me!) but I don't see that advising someone to edit things other than American politics is 'baiting' them into editing on American politics?

:Or do you mean that as he's now t-banned, we should just stop responding here so he doesn't keep getting notifications? MilesVorkosigan (talk) 22:32, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

::If he posts here again, report the t-ban violation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:41, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

:: Mostly the latter. This was also a notification for him since he seemed to have missed the one I left on his talk page. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:15, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Would anyone here disagree with my suggestion that we currently have consensus to exclude the 'Zeitgeist' material, and need not discuss this further? I've not seen anyone other than Flavor of the Month argue for inclusion, and given the soapboxing and speculative irrelevances etc involved in those arguments, we need not (per policy, must not) take them into consideration when arriving at a decision. Not that unanimity is required for consensus anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:09, 18 June 2025 (UTC)