It would be nice if everyone could just agree that James Jay Lee, the hostage taker killed today in a standoff at the offices of the Discovery Channel, was deranged. And leave it at that. But of course, we’re already seeing some extremely partisan bloggers trying to put him in the “left wing” category, simply because his weird views sprang out of a kind of extreme environmentalism. (I’m not sure how caring for the environment makes one a “left winger,” but that’s another topic.)

Lee’s “manifesto” has been taken offline, but Google’s cache still has it for a little while.

If Lee was anything, he was a radical Squirrelist.

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

Of course.

Lee also harbored a special animosity for immigrants:

5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)

Do I need to point out that “anchor baby filth” is not exactly standard left wing terminology?

James Jay Lee was a very disturbed individual who fixated on the Discovery Channel for some reason. He was not left wing, he was not right wing, and he was not sane. We should be glad that no one else was harmed when he snapped.