Moderated JFK conspiracy theories: it never ends III

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Watch the presentation again. He had already, fully turned to the front before he began to hunch his shoulders upward and forward, briefly hiding the collar of his shirt. He then lowered his shoulders into their natural position.

I did. It doesn't help you. You still appear to be seeing things that just aren't there. Where do we see his shirt collar before you claim he began to hunch up? We don't.

He didn't hunch up. Your post ends with a neat illustration of what did happen but somehow you missed the implication of what it shows.

[qimg]http://www.jfkhistory.com/royducks.gif[/qimg]

He and the driver both go from leaning forward to leaning back at the same instant. Both simultaneously "un-hunching" even though one is turned half around. Astounding. Is that another of your incredible coincidences? No, it's what happens whenever a driver lifts off the brake or presses the gas pedal.

Your "objective, empirical facts" are just wishful thinking opinions.
 
This thread has suddenly gotten very lively. There's too much to dissect with the spare time I have available, but there's one or two points I'll offer, at least for now.
Forget that most people, most researchers, and the head of the HSCA believe this was a conspiracy. Forget that you represent a very small minority.
You claim to be an atheist. You're no doubt aware "most people" believe in a supreme being, their numbers including even theological scholars. Such widespread "beliefs," insofar as they go, are...what's the word?
What others believe is irrelevant.
That's it. Irrelevant. So why raise the worthless point?

Likely most people at one time believed the earth was flat. Their uninformed opinion, same as any jamoke whose research into the Kennedy assassination has gone no further than a viewing of Oliver Stone's tall tale, means just about zero.

And as far as "most researchers," I'll wager you've pulled that out of the wishful thinking ether. I'd challenge you to provide numbers, names, and credentials of all these so-called researchers, but we both know you were just serving up a frosty mug of hyperbole.
What matters are the verifiable facts and evidence - nothing more and nothing less. My burden of proof is no greater than yours.
This is a thread in a subforum dedicated to conspiracy theories. The narrative of Oswald being the assassin and acting alone is long established and widely accepted. If you'd like to supplant it, the burden is on you to articulate and support an alternative.
 
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Good question. I would bet that the early shots came from the Daltex and bet a lesser amount that the other loud shot came from another shooter in the TSBD.

There are other possibilities for either of course.

I know it's blasphemous to say such a thing, but I just don't know.

Just wanted to be sure you were willing to say that you had no alternate explanation to offer in your question begging quest to unseat the "conventional narrative."
 
Just wanted to be sure you were willing to say that you had no alternate explanation to offer in your question begging quest to unseat the "conventional narrative."

Wow!! Citing me totally out of context is a bit sleezy, don't you think?

I said "I don't know" in response to the question, "Can you speculate on what they were shot with?".

Not knowing exactly the make and model of a firearm has nothing to do with "an alternative explanation" of what happened in Dallas that day.
 
As near as I can tell, his hypothesis is:

An unknown other shooter (or possibly shooters) firing unknown weapons but possibly suppressed or not, depending on whether they were heard or not, maybe firing possibly sub-sonic rounds of unknown caliber, leaving no evidence and failing to hit anything in Dallas entirely, from behind but from an unknown location but possibly somewhere in the Daltex or from one of six floors in the TSBD itself or from the roof or possibly some other unknown building, unnoticed by anyone known, escaping to somewhere unknown with help from party (or possibly parties) unknown.

I think he should be proud of how well fleshed out his hypothesis is.

Robert, feel free to make corrections wherever I've gone astray.
 
This thread has suddenly gotten very lively. There's too much to dissect with the spare time I have available, but there's one or two points I'll offer, at least for now.You claim to be an atheist. You're no doubt aware "most people" believe in a supreme being, their numbers including even theological scholars. Such widespread "beliefs," insofar as they go, are...what's the word?That's it. Irrelevant. So why raise the worthless point?

It is relevant to the question of burden of proof. Read the entire context of what I said then; I did not say there was a conspiracy because most people think there was a conspiracy. I didn't even say that the burden of proof was only yours.

I said we share the burden of proof in spite of the fact that the LN theory is a minority opinion, in contradiction to the govt's last investigation.

Likely most people at one time believed the earth was flat. Their uninformed opinion, same as any jamoke whose research into the Kennedy assassination has gone no further than a viewing of Oliver Stone's tall tale, means just about zero.

Of course. That's why I never said or implied that popularity is a measure of truth.

And as far as "most researchers," I'll wager you've pulled that out of the wishful thinking ether. I'd challenge you to provide numbers, names, and credentials of all these so-called researchers, but we both know you were just serving up a frosty mug of hyperbole.

Ahh... we both know I am a liar, eh?

No sir, I stand by that statement. But if you actually read the full context of what I said, you will realize that I said none of that matters. What matters are the facts and evidence - nothing more and nothing less..

I said that over and over again. Why are you citing me out of context?

This is a thread in a subforum dedicated to conspiracy theories. The narrative of Oswald being the assassin and acting alone is long established and widely accepted. If you'd like to supplant it, the burden is on you to articulate and support an alternative.

Are you actually saying that it doesn't matter if I disprove the "lone nut" theory??
 
As near as I can tell, his hypothesis is:

An unknown other shooter (or possibly shooters) firing unknown weapons but possibly suppressed or not, depending on whether they were heard or not, maybe firing possibly sub-sonic rounds of unknown caliber, leaving no evidence and failing to hit anything in Dallas entirely, from behind but from an unknown location but possibly somewhere in the Daltex or from one of six floors in the TSBD itself or from the roof or possibly some other unknown building, unnoticed by anyone known, escaping to somewhere unknown with help from party (or possibly parties) unknown.

I think he should be proud of how well fleshed out his hypothesis is.

Robert, feel free to make corrections wherever I've gone astray.

Your statement is rife with distortions of what I said.

I said:

1. Oswald could not have fired both of the final shots, which tests by the FBI and HSCA proved, could not have both come from his rifle.

2. Oswald could not have fired any of the early shots, since only one of them was audible to most witnesses and none of them were loud enough to provoke visible startle reactions like we see following the final shots.

3. I said the early shots came from a subsonic, suppressed rifle, but of course, I do not know the make and model. That issue is not particularly important though. What is important is that it couldn't have come from a high powered, unsuppressed rifle.

The most probable locations for two of the other snipers are the 6th floor of the TSBD, where there is witness support for a second sniper, and the third floor of the Daltex, where a major suspect was located, who had a long rap sheet and connections to the man why admitted that he ordered the assassination and was with Jack Ruby the night before.

Why do you consider it relevant that I do not pretend to know things that I could not possibly know?
 
Your statement is rife with distortions of what I said.
That's why you've been asked to state it plainly yourself. I can't fathom why you want to be so coy about it.

I said:

1. Oswald could not have fired both of the final shots, which tests by the FBI and HSCA proved, could not have both come from his rifle.

2. Oswald could not have fired any of the early shots, since only one of them was audible to most witnesses and none of them were loud enough to provoke visible startle reactions like we see following the final shots.

3. I said the early shots came from a subsonic, suppressed rifle, but of course, I do not know the make and model. That issue is not particularly important though. What is important is that it couldn't have come from a high powered, unsuppressed rifle.

The most probable locations for two of the other snipers are the 6th floor of the TSBD, where there is witness support for a second sniper, and the third floor of the Daltex, where a major suspect was located, who had a long rap sheet and connections to the man why admitted that he ordered the assassination and was with Jack Ruby the night before.

Why do you consider it relevant that I do not pretend to know things that I could not possibly know?

So I was fairly accurate in my characterization of your unstated hypothesis?
 
Your entire claim seems to stand or fall on your assertion that there was a shot fired at around frame 285 of the Zapruder film. Despite the boundless confidence with which you assert seeing the occupants of the car flinch at this phantom shot, I don't see that at all.

Sorry, but I am unpersuaded.
 
Really? you mean the folks that don't recognize the sound of a passing round as a threat always grab their ears?

Startle responses can take many forms. Ducking and hunching of the shoulders are most common, but so are rapid evasive movements, like spinning around at enormous speed.

The lady in black is proof positive, that one form of startle reaction is to raise a hand to shield an ear. Are you actually going to argue that she raised her hand to her ear for some other reason?

And although it seems you want to stick a subsonic projo into the the non-evidence evidence, just about anytime you're shot at from a distance the round hits or misses before the sound of the shot reaches the target area.

Well, that's obviously not true, but what is your argument?

Why did no one hear one of those early shots and why did neither of them provoke startle reactions even remotely similar to the ones following 285 and 313?

None of the early shots could have come from an unsuppressed, high powered rifle - not Oswald's or anyone else's.
 
Your entire claim seems to stand or fall on your assertion that there was a shot fired at around frame 285 of the Zapruder film. Despite the boundless confidence with which you assert seeing the occupants of the car flinch at this phantom shot, I don't see that at all.

Sorry, but I am unpersuaded.

Why are you evading the fact that I showed you another person who exhibited the same classic, startle reactions that Kellerman exhibited, in a situation in which we KNOW she was exposed to a loud and startling noise?

It is simply insane to deny that he was startled then, by the very gunshots that he testified to hearing at that time.

When you become so biased that you are impervious to verifiable, empirical evidence, maybe it's time to sit down and do some very serious thinking.

We aren't talking about little green men, for god's sake, or invisible fairies on the front lawn. We're talking about one thug in cahoots with a couple other thugs.

Why is that so difficult for you to fathom?
 
That's why you've been asked to state it plainly yourself. I can't fathom why you want to be so coy about it.
So I was fairly accurate in my characterization of your unstated hypothesis?

You also misrepresented me when you said I claimed the 223 shot was, "leaving no evidence and failing to hit anything in Dallas entirely".

That shot hit both JFK and Connally and it left fragments in Connally's wrist and a bullet in his leg.

That bullet obviously was not a match with Oswald's rifle or the FBI would have been flaunting it, rather than switching it out for another bullet that they provided.

It's interesting that no one around here wants to talk about that.
 
Then we need to fix the "way it works".

No. We will not lower the standards to suit your evidence. It is a demand commonly made by proponents of conspiracy theories, but it falls on unsympathetic ears here. You are making an extraordinary claim, and therefore you will agree to rise to an extraordinary standard of proof.

I will present my case and you may present yours, if you wish.

There is no "our" case. There is the conventional narrative and the evidence supporting it. You are well aware of that narrative and presumably aware of the body of evidence from which the conventional conclusions are drawn. These are the conclusions you are trying to unseat with what we hope will be a more explanatory theory.

As I said, baiting critics into accepting an affirmative burden of proof for the conventional narrative is one of the oldest and lamest tactics JFK conspiracists use. You are the one with the affirmative claim. Trying to force your critics to affirm a counterclaim by way of preface or rebuttal is a rather easily seen-through shell game.

If you refuse to do that, then you are only confirming that you have no evidence to prove that Oswald acted alone.

Nonsense. If we refuse to accept a burden to refute your speculation, we are doing the proper thing. The very first thing you did when you showed up was ask what everyone else believed. Then after announcing that you had an alternate theory, you demanded that everyone else first prove their beliefs to the exclusion of your then-unstated claims. How can that possibly be anything other than shifting the burden of proof?

What baffles me though, is why you guys are so much more concerned about your artificial rules than you are about getting to the truth of this thing.

The artificiality of the rules has been addressed. Since you ignored that, I assume you have no answer. In something like 20 years of listening to JFK conspiracy theories, I have yet to see a single conspiracy theorist who has the slightest interest in solving the crime. Instead they're obsessed with recruiting some palookah to accept the burden to affirm the conventional narrative, so that all their irrelevant, speculative nit-pickings have something to bounce off of.

You said you had a strong alternative theory, but so far you've presented only vague maybe-thises and maybe-thats. In fact you have no testable alternative, and I daresay you have no interest in producing one.

As I said, we're only applying to your claims the same standard of evidence you apply to the conventional narrative. The rules are "artificial" only insofar as you invent them in order to discredit the conventional conclusion. If you can't stand the heat, leave the kitchen. As to arbitrary rules, you're the one demanding an affirmative case for the conventional narrative. You're the one demanding that we prove affirmatively not only that your nebulous theory didn't happen, but effectively that any such thing couldn't happen. When you insist that only affirmative rebuttals will be listened to, you're the one making arbitrary rules.

Let's talk about when the shots were fired and whether it was possible for Oswald to have fired all of them.

Asked and answered. Your conclusion along those lines is an inference drawn upon a number of begged questions and improper generalizations. When you put an argument behind the begged questions and a rationale behind the generalizations, then you can start to argue the inference. Until then, the identification of the insubstantial premises under your argument is a sufficient rebuttal.

Sorry but you don't get to demand only a certain kind of rebuttal. Deal with the rebuttal that was presented, not the one your wish had been made.

If it was not, then the conspiracy debate is over.

Again no. That's the Bellwether Fallacy, wherein one data point is presumed or argued to overrule the consilience of all other data. It's the cornerstone of all conspiracy theories and the principal reason no conspiracy author is taken seriously by historians. You ignored my previous explanation of your dilemma there, so I presume that's another point you can't answer.

You are so far just the latest in a long series of conspiracy theorists who argue the same tired points according to the same tired shell-game rhetoric. You're trying to set the bar so very low for yourself and foist off all intellectual responsibility on others to rebut your insubstantial claims.
 
Why are you evading the fact that I showed you another person who exhibited the same classic, startle reactions that Kellerman exhibited...

Pointing out that your claim rests upon subjective interpretation and a truckload of begged questions is not an evasion. You don't get to demand that your critics take your interpretation at face value without argument. You have the burden to show your interpretation is best. Simply stating and restating it does not carry that burden.
 
1. Oswald could not have fired both of the final shots, which tests by the FBI and HSCA proved, could not have both come from his rifle.

Then why did they conclude that those shots indeed did come from Oswald's rifle?

2. Oswald could not have fired any of the early shots, since only one of them was audible to most witnesses and none of them were loud enough to provoke visible startle reactions like we see following the final shots.

Your "startle" evidence, as I said, is based on subjective interpretation and begged questions. Those are the premises to your conclusion, and they are at best unsubstantiated and at worst entirely broken. To fix the subjectivity you need to invoke something that elevates the premise to an objective truth. To fix the begged questions you need to supply arguments to establish them.

3. I said the early shots came from a subsonic, suppressed rifle, but of course, I do not know the make and model.

This is speculation. You simply invent the presence of a weapon that needs to be there in order for your beliefs to seem rational.

Why do you consider it relevant that I do not pretend to know things that I could not possibly know?

Because those things that you "could not possibly know" affects the parsimony (i.e., testability) of your hypothesis. Testability is not irrelevant. It is not a "made-up rule." It is the cornerstone of all rational skepticism. If you cannot provide a testable theory then all you will ever have is speculation. And untestable speculation simply does not displace the prevailing narrative, no matter how clever you wish to seem.

Further, you're the one claiming a theory can be displaced absolutely simply on one bit of evidence. You use this proposition to dismiss the entire case against Oswald. But by that same standard, you can't have any similarly singular holes in your case either, otherwise you'd have to reject it absolutely by your own standard. It's relevant because it points out your double standard. Your theory can have as many holes in it as you please, but the Oswald theory -- according to you -- has to be airtight. In contrast, we feel your case should rise to your own standard of evidence.
 
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What baffles me though, is why you guys are so much more concerned about your artificial rules than you are about getting to the truth of this thing.

It doesn't baffle you in the slightest. You know full well that if you were to present your own "theory", it would fail spectacularily under any stingent standard of evidence, and you're more than happy to ask us to prove an already-proven case. Even if you disagree with the official narrative, as many call it, you still must agree that it is the most commonly-accepted one, and thus the burden falls onto you to provide a better alternative.
 
You also misrepresented me when you said I claimed the 223 shot was, "leaving no evidence and failing to hit anything in Dallas entirely".

That shot hit both JFK and Connally and it left fragments in Connally's wrist and a bullet in his leg.

That bullet obviously was not a match with Oswald's rifle or the FBI would have been flaunting it, rather than switching it out for another bullet that they provided.

It's interesting that no one around here wants to talk about that.

Then now is your opportunity to spell out, in detail, your very own Conspiracy Theory. Remember that your alternative competing hypothesis must account for the preponderance (or consilience, I love that word) of the evidence wiith no anomolies, according to your own guidelines.
 
It doesn't baffle you in the slightest. You know full well that if you were to present your own "theory", it would fail spectacularily under any stingent standard of evidence, and you're more than happy to ask us to prove an already-proven case.

It's the same shell game we just endured from manifesto. And the same one that all the conspiracy theorists in recent memory play.

Specifically, it's the same conflict between an absolutist approach and a relativist approach. According to the latter, skeptics simply want to answer the question, "Which hypothesis -- Hypothesis A or Hypothesis B -- explains the most observations while simultaneously requiring the fewest assumptions?" Both hypotheses start out on the same footing and both are tested side-by-side according to the same standard of proof.

Conspiracists invariably opt for the absolutist approach. They tacitly argue that the conventional hypothesis has to be credible to some arbitrary standard of proof. Then they overtly claim that if it fails to meet that standard it must be set aside no matter whether any other hypothesis exists. It is absolutely untenable, according to them.

Then having dispatched the conventional hypothesis, they consider some other hypothesis either as the default that holds upon failure of the conventional one, or else as one that meets only prima facie plausibility and can rise no further. In the former case we often get only a poorly-defined, abstract class of hypothesis -- e.g., "There must have been some other gunman, somewhere." Most conspiracy theorists are smart enough not to refine that general abstraction down to anything testable, for exactly the reason you named -- it would fail even the slightest scrutiny.
 
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