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Moderated JFK conspiracy theories: it never ends III

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My opinion happens to be shared by the rest of the relevant historians.

Too bad facts can't be voted in by a popularity contest, isn't it? ;)

I've lost count of how many times I've corrected you on this straw man. It is useless to eliminate the prime suspect and then stop investigating.

The strawman is that anyone has suggested stopping the investigation.

So what investigating have you and others done in the past several decades that has identified any other suspects? I hear from you and from practically every other conspiracy theorist who has come and gone at JREF that trying to find who actually killed Kennedy is not a focus.

Well, you need to do some reading.

That you don't know that just like the Ripperologists you admire a number of responsible parties have been nominated clearly shows a gaping hole in your familiarity with the literature.

Quit whining. You're not being mistreated and you're not being attacked personally. If you believe otherwise, report the post. If not, the horse is long dead.

I'll stop responding to the inanities when the inanities go away.

Not the point at hand. Defend your ability to tell us that Ball improperly examined Markham.

I have presented the facts and made my argument. So this has been asked and answered.
 
...and I can present mine? That would be a change!

It would. What stops you?

But Posner is a plagiarist, and I don't find him to be a credible source.

Citations and evidence please?

Evidence that what is plagiarised is inaccurate?

Reason this negates the oft asked question if you have read the book or not?

Reason this prevents you reading past Posners own opinions to the primary sources he cites?
 
20 years ago on the Compuserve Conspiracy Forum it became tireseome explaining and explaining and explaining the same stuff to the willfully ignorant.
This new generation isn't any improvement, and have reached the tiresome point very quickly.
20 years, and still no evidence of Mark Lane lying? Maybe it's time to back down?
 
You don't have to prove a negative, but you do have to explain how you came to your conclusion.

As I've been repeatedly assured it is useless to exonerate a suspect, I don't think a reasoned argument will go very far with the gang.

No. Just one. The perpetrator.

Yes, it would be good to identify the perpetrator(s).

You obviously don't know much about the judicial system, then.

Actually, I know enough to understand that some prosecutors are a bit overly-zealous.

That you don't grasp that tells me a lot about your foundation of knowledge.

There is no such thing as unassailable evidence for any crime, as far as I'm aware. That's why we have appellate courts.

Great. Then we'll not have to talk about how Oswald's guilt is a something that we can assume is true.
 
Too bad facts can't be voted in by a popularity contest, isn't it? ;)

So is that why the historians met their common conclusion? Because of a popularity contest? Is that what you think Jay was suggesting?

That you don't know that just like the Ripperologists you admire a number of responsible parties have been nominated clearly shows a gaping hole in your familiarity with the literature.

Please quote the post where Jay names the Ripperologists (if any) that he admires.

Because I am familiar with the literature. And I happen to know that of the Ripperologists who apply academic standards are generally held in high regard, those in short I would expect Jay to turn to for a concise expert opinion the list of viable suspects ranges to less than ten names. I would be surprised if more than five names are on the list and I would expect a much shorter list of those to be considered likely suspects.

That you would consider "the literature" to include every suspect driven book published and every suspect would lead me to suggest that your familiarity with the literature had mistaken volume for quality... Pop reading rather than scholary Ripperology.
 
There is already a foundation for Oswald's guilt, you failed to provide one for his innocence.

True, we haven't delved into things much. But I am laying the foundation for an argument.

If it turns out people are not receptive to the idea that exonerating a suspect is useful, then there's no point in wasting one's time here.

Yes, it would be.

Well, I'm glad to agree on this important point.

So you're using established evidence to try indicating that maybe Oswald was innocent, but refuse to use it to figure out who might be guilty instead? Do you even care who did or did not kill these two men?

I don't understand the reason for this last bit of rhetorical legerdemain.

I haven't 'refused' to do anything.
 
Too bad facts can't be voted in by a popularity contest, isn't it? ;)

I'm not asking for a popularity contest. You assert that you are following mainstream processes, methods, and arriving therefore at conclusions that should garner mainstream approval. I simply require evidence from the mainstream that your claim is true.

The strawman is that anyone has suggested stopping the investigation.

In decades the "investigation" has gone nowhere. And you'll notice that this is part III of a three-part discussion on JFK, which runs to several hundred pages. Many times in that discussion it was stated by your predecessor litigants that they had no responsibility to investigate the crime or identify any further suspects. You yourself just recently told us that to consider other suspects would be irresponsible speculation.

Well, you need to do some reading.

I have. But I want to hear from you who you think these alternative suspects are.

That you don't know that just like the Ripperologists you admire...

Previously addressed.

I'll stop responding to the inanities when the inanities go away.

Dismissing pertinent questions as "inanity" does not make them go away.

I have presented the facts and made my argument. So this has been asked and answered.

No, it hasn't. The foundation of your opinion regarding the propriety of Ball's examination of Markham is still in question. Please answer the question. You know what it is.
 
If it turns out people are not receptive to the idea that exonerating a suspect is useful..

No one has said this.

I don't understand the reason for this last bit of rhetorical legerdemain.

It speaks to your standard of proof and, by extension, to your apparent goal.

I haven't 'refused' to do anything.

You've refused to explain your choice of standard of proof, which standard would serve only to exonerate a given character and not provide a framework for examining the bulk of the evidence more generally.
 
As I've been repeatedly assured it is useless to exonerate a suspect...

Nonsense. How many times are you going to attempt this same ham-fisted rail-split before you grasp that no one is making the argument you're trying to pin on your critics?

The contention is that it is useless to exonerate a suspect and then fail to investigate further. The italicized part is what you keep ignoring, and the part that I assert is useless. There is some disagreement now over whether the JFK conspiracy theorists, in your opinion, have named another suspect, so we'll let that play out. But your continued (and by now, deliberate) misrepresentation of your critics' claims is as straw-man as an argument can get.

Yes, it would be good to identify the perpetrator(s).

Then do so.

You first suggested it would be irresponsible speculation to do so. Now you suggest that it has been done. I want to know which alternate suspects you consider to have the preponderance of evidence against them.

Actually, I know enough to understand that some prosecutors are a bit overly-zealous.

I will stipulate that some prosecutors are overly zealous. However that is not a categorical statement, so if your argument is that a certain prosecutor is overzealous in a certain case, that requires specific proof. I don't know for sure if you're making the categorical argument, but I want to address it anyway.

Great. Then we'll not have to talk about how Oswald's guilt is a something that we can assume is true.

No one has made any such assumption. The general belief I've heard expressed among the regulars in this thread is that the evidence considered in its totality points to Oswald more than any other person. That's a far cry from assuming Oswald is unassailably guilty.
 
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Actually I don't admire any of them, as such. The Ripper case has simply been brought up as a paragon, and I am examining the details of that alleged comparison.

Yes. But he made the accusation that you admire them. He should at the very least support this with the quote he thinks shows admiration so we can understand how he reached this false positive. I think just possibly it may shed some light on other false positives for emotion he seems to read into your posts...

I was hoping a light might dawn that perhaps he has been reading into your scrutiny the motives he expected and not seen the genuine offers to explain and discuss.
 
He should at the very least support this with the quote he thinks shows admiration so we can understand how he reached this false positive. I think just possibly it may shed some light on other false positives for emotion he seems to read into your posts...

I've asked him repeatedly to document where I've made the claims he's attributed to me, so far without any response from him. I don't expect this one to be any different.

I was hoping a light might dawn that perhaps he has been reading into your scrutiny the motives he expected and not seen the genuine offers to explain and discuss.

I could at this point delve into patterns of argumentation among JFK conspiracy theorists, but that would again compel him to demand examples and I would then have to refer him variously to the hundreds of pages of prior argument in this thread and its predecessors, which I assume he wouldn't read anyway. So there we are. I shan't delve.
 
I've asked him repeatedly to document where I've made the claims he's attributed to me, so far without any response from him. I don't expect this one to be any different.



I could at this point delve into patterns of argumentation among JFK conspiracy theorists, but that would again compel him to demand examples and I would then have to refer him variously to the hundreds of pages of prior argument in this thread and its predecessors, which I assume he wouldn't read anyway. So there we are. I shan't delve.

There comes a point when promising to post some theory in good time when the forum is ready, becomes droll. If the theory stands it needs no introduction. If the theory only works if the audience is ready to be convinced then it is not convincing on its own merits, which even to the best of us should be a red flag.

Hypothetical evidence that would discount LHO as a suspect would do so in connection with the current evidence, and not need preamble.
 
Where did I state that I believe such a thing? I believe very much the contrary. I'm saying that's what appears to be common among JFK conspiracists -- that there is no interest among them to actually solve the crime.

If that is your impression, there's nothing I can do to educate you. That is up to you to familiarize yourself with the literature.

No need for hostility. Simply state what the point was and the argument you believe supports it. By the strikethrough you apparently tried to draw some parallel, but since you opted for cleverness rather than clarity, I'm asking you to state the argument clearly.

I stated my argument simply and clearly: your claiming I didn't and trying to force me to repeat the same posts over and over again makes it obvious you aren't interested.

See post # 258

Tu quoque.

Double standards, special pleading. Stop evading. Answer the question.

You're shifting the burden of proof. Commonly held and widely understood does not mean it is mandatory in this instance. There are plenty of other means of discovering facts, similarly widely understood and commonly practiced. Why, among all those, have you selected a legal standard of proof (and I assume you mean the reasonable doubt standard) to use outside a courtroom?

Not at all - the burden to 'prove' Oswald is a murderer or that mark lane is a liar lands squarely on the shoulders of those who assert such propositions, not on people who are unconvinced.

I haven't suggested anything is 'mandatory' - do try to avoid making strawman arguments and attributing them to me.

Because a crime under investigation follows different rules than a crime being tried in a court of law. The former rules are more lenient and directed toward a different end -- i.e., the synthesis of a number of plausible scenarios from the evidence. The purpose of the court trial is not to discover fact in general, but to discover fact relevant only to one particular defendant -- i.e., to test one scenario and that scenario only.

...yes, one might (if we accept your standards) suggest that Oswald could be suspected of murder. The fervent;ly held belief that he is in fact guilty is not supported by such a lesser burden of proof. In my opinion, of course.

The reason I question your choice of standard here is that you claim to want to investigate the murder of JFK, but you apply a standard of proof that is only useful for attempting to exonerate one suspect.

What I suggested was that the standard of proof I would like to use in exonerating Oswald is the standard which you have just now agreed is exactly the sort of standard useful for exonerating a suspect.

So, what's your beef? :confused:

The burden of proof for which standard of evidence is appropriate for discussing the facts of the Kennedy assassination belongs to the person proposing the standard. You're proposing the standard, therefore it's your burden to defend the choice. Turning it back on your critics to say "why not?" doesn't satisfy that burden.

I can see that it will take quite a bit of work to get to the point where actual evidence is presented and argued, since this meta-discussion could be very lengthy, indeed.

And as I said, stop rewriting my arguments to suit what you want them to be. I'm not answering questions that follow only from stuff you just make up.

...and I will do the same. ;)

Weasel words. You've spent page after page telling us how Ball's examination of Markham was irregular, suspicious, or questionable. Pick whatever words or sentiment you want that expresses how you characterized the bottom of page 310. But don't suddenly pretend you never made any such argument unless it is to withdraw it.

I would respond to this, but since it is a weasle-worded strawman, I'm not answering this loaded question.

But you insist that this "effort" is somehow salient (perhaps suspicious) in and of itself. You've suggested that Ball spoonfed her the "right" answer, and that she was poised to commit otherwise to the record but for his persistence. When I ask why the bottom of pg. 310 is salient and how you're able to know that this examination has the properties you attribute to it, you scramble to not have to answer.

I'm just averse to answering loaded questions based on your strawman mischaracterizations.

For the second time, not "strangely ignored" -- just placed in the proper context (i.e., the discussion at the top of pg. 311) that you seem to always leave out.

No, ignoring Markham's repeated denials wasn't really 'strange' - it's rather expected, unfortunately.

Because I made a claim to that effect and you challenged it -- twice. If you want to withdraw your challenge, be my guest. Otherwise cough up the evidence of the broad support JFK conspiracism has among relevant historians.

More strawman on your part - you're really wasting a lot of effort and time re-writing my arguments to suit your tactics.

I didn't ask for a vote. I asked for evidence that your methods and conclusions are widely accepted among the relevant practitioners. It is important only that you bristled when I suggested they weren't. Withdraw your challenge, thereby admitting that JFK conspiracism is a fringe pursuit, and we'll be good to go. Otherwise supply the requested evidence and stop pretending the request is improper.

All this blustering is based purely on your misreading of what I do post.

You're getting worked up over nothing.

Link to the post where I claim to read minds. I noted that I observe a pattern among JFK conspiracists when arguing the point about standard of proof. You asked for evidence of that pattern and I gave you some. You tried to deflect it by saying it had nothing to with Oswald.

I'm willing to drop this discussion of your silly ad hominem attacks on 'conspiracy theorists' any time you choose.

No I haven't moved the goalposts. Rather you've finally abandoned the straw man you've been trying to foist. Now that you're finally playing on the same field as the rest of us, do you understand why I find it salient that in decades of investigation there has arisen no consensus whatsoever on any alternate suspects?

First it was 'no interest among CTs to identify suspects' to 'no consensus about who these alternate suspects are'. Another goalpost successfully moved. Good job!

Congratulations, you've made one small step towards an understanding.

Yet when I ask you to name the other suspects that have been developed, you tell me you can't, you won't, and to do so would be irresponsible speculation.

I prefer to take things one step at a time - since we can't even agree on a 'methodology' it would be pointless to discuss evidence or make arguments you can't or won't even consider.

So make up your mind. Do you have other suspects or not?

I think there is evidence that points at the involvement of certain parties.
 
Not at all - the burden to 'prove' Oswald is a murderer or that mark lane is a liar lands squarely on the shoulders of those who assert such propositions, not on people who are unconvinced.
Done and done. Chapter 1, page 19 of the Warren Commission Report. Did you have any other questions?
 
As I've been repeatedly assured it is useless to exonerate a suspect, I don't think a reasoned argument will go very far with the gang.

You haven't so much as come close to exonerating Oswald yet.

proudfootz said:
Yes, it would be good to identify the perpetrator(s).

There is already a likely perpetrator, but you refuse to accept Oswald as the perpetrator for reasons you have yet to share. You might want to share them, along with the process that you used to arrive at your conclusion.

proudfootz said:
Actually, I know enough to understand that some prosecutors are a bit overly-zealous.

That you don't grasp that tells me a lot about your foundation of knowledge.

And yet you don't seem to realize that it isn't prosecutors that determine what charges are filed. Are you certain it's my foundation of knowledge that is lacking?

True, we haven't delved into things much. But I am laying the foundation for an argument.

How have you done so? As far as I can determine all you have done so far is call into question one eye witness testimony.

proudfootz said:
I don't understand the reason for this last bit of rhetorical legerdemain.

I haven't 'refused' to do anything.

You have consistently avoided answering specific questions, it is a refusal by any reasonable definition of the word. If you want to avoid that accusation, you should probably start addressing the questions put forth to you.
 
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