Lafayette Shooter Was A White Supremacist Tea Party Type
July 24, 2015

Every time the right wing rhetoric ratchets up to a high point, more rational people are concerned that it will prompt some person with mental health issues to act on the ideas being spewed by right wing haters.

In Charleston, that day came.

In Louisiana, that day came yesterday.

John Russel Houser, the man responsible for the shootings last night in Lafayette, Louisiana, was a racist conspiracy theorist who was turned down for a gun permit due to mental health issues. His comments on white supremacist and right wing sites could just as easily have come out of the mouth of Alex Jones.

Joe Knapp points out that he had a page on Tea Party Nation, created in June, 2013, which was the same month the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. Houser really hated gays, but admired Westboro Baptist Church, who he said was "the last real church in America."

On neoNazi group Golden Dawn's site, Houser wrote, "The situation described,having one political party pretending to be two, is parallel to what exist in the US.The two pretending to be one, are in both instances the very lowest form of life.They work for those who censor, and who love the political power brought by allowing people who will not work for a living, to vote."

Continuing his remarks, Houser said, "The difference between this low-life and Golden Dawn is best seen in the characteristics of both as soldiers. Low life cannot comprehend anything worth dying for. Those with a love for truth are the opposite.In war a lover of truth counts as equal to at least ten low lifes."

Houser went on to list the characteristics of those he considered "low lifes:"

-those who do not place ultimate importance on society honoring the family unit [as defined in it’s most traditional sense]
-those that will sell anything for enough money
-those that will not work to support a just government
-those that believe all types of people should live in every nation, with equal protection
-those that oppose the death penalty in a just society, liberally applied
-those that think a just society cannot define sexual deviancy
-those who do not recognize that the role of women is in no way similar to that of men
-etc,etc…..
-those that do not recognize that there are exceptions to every rule
-those that do not recognize that the exceptions are very few

That's a nice laundry list of those he opposed: Women, gays, equality for just about anyone. There's a racial component too, as he outlined in his remarks on a different post in the same comment thread.

If a man is accused of lying who did not,he does not like it.
If a man is accused of lying who is in the business of lying,he is ENRAGED.
The “establishment” is enraged.
The “establishment” is the ORGANIZED BUSINESS / MEDIA / BLACK BLOCK VOTE alliance.

On an anti-gay thread, Houser wrote this:

The US is history. It is my greatest pleasure every time they throw away billions.They are finally doing what I want done, putting the final touches on this financially failing filth farm. It is a shame Tim McVeigh is not going to be with us to enjoy the hilarity of turning the tables with an IRON HAND.

If gas goes to twenty a gallon, I have no complaint. Raise the minimum wage? Suits me. How high? The higher the better. Above all let’s be “sensitive” and increase welfare benefits. Then those who’s “history” must be stretched to fill a flyer can continue their “movement” in “progressive” fashion. The time for “affirmative action” I say is now more than ever. They are now in control of spending and the printing of money. The faster the better.

Given his hatred of women, it's hard to see how his decision to shoot up a theater where feminist Amy Schumer's movie Trainwreck was on the screen was any kind of accident.

He was definitely a committed Tea Party hater type:

But his extremism appears to have gone deeper. In 2005, he registered to attend David Duke’s EURO Conference in New Orleans, according to a spreadsheet of conference registrations obtained by Hatewatch. He laudedDuke, one of the most recognizable figures of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Ku Klux Klan leader and now an international spokesman for Holocaust denial. On a PoliticalForum.com, Houser wrote in 2013, “David Duke has been unseen or hear of in years, but at one time appeared exactly what US needed.”

There are reports that Houser suffered from bipolar disorder. That is quite possibly true, but his behavior on these message threads doesn't indicate that he was irrational as much as he was hateful. Filled with it, top to bottom.

Update from Dave Weigel:

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon