Finbarr Curtis

While the details of Loughner’s views on currency and language might not have a following, they differ only in degree and not in kind from the autodidactic, eccentric musings of senatorial candidates who cite the unconstitutionality of unemployment insurance and minimum wage, who see in health care reform a plot to kill senior citizens, who propose the gold standard as a solution to the national debt, or who question the president’s birth certificate. If Loughner’s radical vision of individual autonomy is deranged and psychotic, it is a kind of derangement and psychosis that increasingly characterizes our political climate.