The Official JREF Lone Nut Challenge

[Wildy]

For Barrière, not enough info is given at your link to make any intelligible decision.

Not my problem.

The authorities didn't think Ravaillac acted alone, so this is a big fail. It also says that other carts coordinated the attack by blocking the King's carriage.

I suggest you give evidence stating that the other carts coordinated the attack.

This sounds more like a fairy tale. You really are that desperate to bring up children's stories here? In any case, there is no indication that this dude is a nut.

What evidence do you have beyond "it sounds like a fairy tale" that it didn't happen. I think it's quite safe to say that "revenge" counts as an irrational reason.

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

Gao Jianli who tried to assassinate Qin Shi Huang during the Warring States Period, but after 227 BC because he was trying to get revenge for the death of his friend Jing Ke who tried to assassinate Qin Shi Huang.

This Gao Jianli hillbilly nearly succeeded, but at the critical moment Qinfolk said "lead! move away from there!".

 

[Wildy]

By the way, let's look at your list of people.

Examples of people who were assassination targets by "lone nuts":

Spencer Perceval (1812)

At first it was feared that the shot might signal the start of an uprising, but it soon became apparent that the assassin – who had made no attempt to escape – was a man with an obsessive grievance against the Government and had acted alone.

That looks like a conspiracy to me.

Andrew Jackson (1835)

While nobody denied Lawrence's involvement, many people, including Jackson, believed that he may have been supported or put up to carrying out the assassination attempt by the President's political enemies.

So this is out.

James Garfield (1881)

Actually his assassin wanted a political post, and had stated that his reasons was:

Guiteau continued to prepare carefully, writing a letter in advance to Commanding General of the United States Army William Sherman asking for protection from the mob, and writing other letters justifying his action as necessary to heal dissension between factions of the Republican Party.

That sounds like a political goal to me.

William McKinley (1901)

Czolgosz traveled to Goldman's home in Chicago on July 12 and spoke briefly to Goldman before she left to catch a train. Goldman was later arrested and briefly detained on suspicion of involvement in McKinley's murder.

This is out. They thought there was a conspiracy.

Ted Roosevelt (1912)

It is unclear when his interest in domestic politics so flared that he would attempt to kill Roosevelt. It is known that he was an opponent of a sitting President's ability to seek a third term in office.

That sounds like a political goal to me. So it looks like he's out.

Huey Long (1935)

In July 1935, two months prior to his death, Long claimed that he had uncovered a plot to assassinate him, which had been discussed in a meeting at New Orleans's DeSoto Hotel. According to Long, four U.S. representatives, Mayor Walmsley, and former governors Parker and Sanders had been present. Long read what he claimed was a transcript of a recording of this meeting on the floor of the Senate.

That sounds like a conspiracy to me.

JFK (1963)

The Warren Commission took 10 months to find that there was no conspiracy. That means that at the time they thought there was one. So he's out.

MLK (1968)

How was James Earl Ray considered a nut?

RFK (1968)

When Sirhan was booked by police, they found in his pocket a newspaper article that discussed Kennedy's support for Israel, and at his trial, Sirhan testified that he began to hate Kennedy after learning of this support.

Sounds like a political reason to me.

George Wallace (1972)

Apparently his attempted assassin wanted to be famous. If "revenge" doesn't count as an irrational reason then I would say that neither does this.

Ronald Reagan (1981)

Congratulations, you now have one person who actually fits your definition. The whole point of John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt was to impress Jodie Foster, the underlying cause being erotomania.

Although, the Wikipedia article does point out that Hinckley had ties to the Bush family and the company his father was in charge of donated money to Reagan. So although he was crazy it might mean that Hinckley was an insider.

Anthrax Attacks (2001)

Apparently the US Government believed it was Al Qaeda. So that doesn't count either.


By the looks of it you have possibly one person. Can you provide proof that there have been any "lone nut" assassinations before 1981?

 

[Hawk one]

You are a conspiracy theorist. I am a skeptic.

You are aware that entire position - that "lone nut" assassinations are a product of secret organisations - is per definition a conspiracy theory, right?

Now, basically, we're left with the following reasons for lone nut assassinations being hard to find before 1750:

* Public leaders not really being public, instead opting to hide behind armies and big walls.
* Without television or publically spread photographs, most of the population of any given country would hardly even know what their ruler looked like.
* Record-keeping being rarer and less reliable.
* Small guns not starting to be reliable before the 20th century (revolvers were rarely used in the wild west, as they were as dangerous to the wielder - or even more - than to the target).
* Hunter/sniper rifles becoming far, far more accurate over long distances for a decent marksman, making it possible to kill over longer distances
* People being far more geographically limited than they are today.
* And also, a far lower population, what with it staying fairly stable for a few millennia, and then exploding with the coming of modern medicine. In itself not that significant, but combined with geographic freedom, access to good assassination weapons, and access to the public leaders, the amount of persons who by themselves and for no particularly good reason are willing to and capable of shooting an important public figure can and will increase a lot.

Not a single one of these arguments contains any conspiracy theory whatsoever. They are in fact arguments used by people who are skeptical about conspiracy theories. Arguments based on verifiable facts about the world. The same way that no airplanes were made before the 20th century because the technology simply didn't exist before then.

In contrast, here is Galileo's socalled reason why "lone nut" assassinations were rare before 1750 (not nonexistant, though, as has been shown several times in this thread):

* All of the well-known "lone nut" cases were in fact born out of a conspiracy (possibly by some secret shadow organisation), so that political (or other) goals were achieved without it appearing so.

Now, this is of course the very -definition- of a CT argument. It simply -cannot be- anything else than a conspiracy theory.

And what's even funnier is that, in essence, this argument tries to prove conspiracy theories not by proving an actual conspiracy theory, but just claiming that conspiracy theories exist because [Phenomena X] is part of a conspiracy theory. Which of course, when looked upon with a skeptical eye, turns out to be a circular arguments, because the claim doesn't actually show any direct evidence that [phenomena X] is part of a conspiracy theory.

 

[rustypouch]

Pirouz Nihavandi

Can't argue the "loner". He was made a slave of the Arabs.
Can't argue the loon. He spent years convincing his Muslim captors that he'd converted, then joined their army and served for almost ten years, supposedly just to get close to the caliph and kill him (which he did).

He was Persian and considered it his religious obligation, as the Caliph was good buddies with a certain, um, Muhammad. I'd say the Caliph qualifies as a top political figure, and anyone who kills out of religious fervor is a whackjob, and the facts of his capture and enslavement make it highly unlikely that his eight year plan was the work of anyone else.

664 C.E. definitely qualifies on the time issue.



What do I win?

You win nothing.

The goalposts will be moved again to disqualify this example, because if he was religiously motivated, he was influenced by other people, and therefore did not act alone.

 

[TraneWreck]

I understand the OP is focused on history, thinking it makes his case, but I am curious how he proposes to deal with the serial killer example I brought up earlier.

Clearly David Berkowitz was a lone nut. He drove around in a car and shot people. What is the difference between that and what Oswald did?

There are undisputed lone nuts in recent memory and likely patrolling around right now. Some kill for sexual impulse, some kill for power, but the fundamental point is that they're alone, they're crazy, and they want to kill people. It's only when the target is someone important that we doubt the lonely-nuttiness.

 

[Galileo]

Not my problem.

It is your problem. You have the burden of proof.

 

[Galileo]

By the way, let's look at your list of people.





That looks like a conspiracy to me.





So this is out.



Actually his assassin wanted a political post, and had stated that his reasons was:



That sounds like a political goal to me.





This is out. They thought there was a conspiracy.





That sounds like a political goal to me. So it looks like he's out.





That sounds like a conspiracy to me.



The Warren Commission took 10 months to find that there was no conspiracy. That means that at the time they thought there was one. So he's out.



How was James Earl Ray considered a nut?





Sounds like a political reason to me.



Apparently his attempted assassin wanted to be famous. If "revenge" doesn't count as an irrational reason then I would say that neither does this.



Congratulations, you now have one person who actually fits your definition. The whole point of John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt was to impress Jodie Foster, the underlying cause being erotomania.

Although, the Wikipedia article does point out that Hinckley had ties to the Bush family and the company his father was in charge of donated money to Reagan. So although he was crazy it might mean that Hinckley was an insider.



Apparently the US Government believed it was Al Qaeda. So that doesn't count either.


By the looks of it you have possibly one person. Can you provide proof that there have been any "lone nut" assassinations before 1981?

You are just a conspiracy theorist. You have emotional difficulty accepting the fact that a lone man can take down the president.

 

[Galileo]

You are aware that entire position - that "lone nut" assassinations are a product of secret organisations - is per definition a conspiracy theory, right?

Now, basically, we're left with the following reasons for lone nut assassinations being hard to find before 1750:

* Public leaders not really being public, instead opting to hide behind armies and big walls.
* Without television or publically spread photographs, most of the population of any given country would hardly even know what their ruler looked like.
* Record-keeping being rarer and less reliable.
* Small guns not starting to be reliable before the 20th century (revolvers were rarely used in the wild west, as they were as dangerous to the wielder - or even more - than to the target).
* Hunter/sniper rifles becoming far, far more accurate over long distances for a decent marksman, making it possible to kill over longer distances
* People being far more geographically limited than they are today.
* And also, a far lower population, what with it staying fairly stable for a few millennia, and then exploding with the coming of modern medicine. In itself not that significant, but combined with geographic freedom, access to good assassination weapons, and access to the public leaders, the amount of persons who by themselves and for no particularly good reason are willing to and capable of shooting an important public figure can and will increase a lot.

Not a single one of these arguments contains any conspiracy theory whatsoever. They are in fact arguments used by people who are skeptical about conspiracy theories. Arguments based on verifiable facts about the world. The same way that no airplanes were made before the 20th century because the technology simply didn't exist before then.

In contrast, here is Galileo's socalled reason why "lone nut" assassinations were rare before 1750 (not nonexistant, though, as has been shown several times in this thread):

* All of the well-known "lone nut" cases were in fact born out of a conspiracy (possibly by some secret shadow organisation), so that political (or other) goals were achieved without it appearing so.

Now, this is of course the very -definition- of a CT argument. It simply -cannot be- anything else than a conspiracy theory.

And what's even funnier is that, in essence, this argument tries to prove conspiracy theories not by proving an actual conspiracy theory, but just claiming that conspiracy theories exist because [Phenomena X] is part of a conspiracy theory. Which of course, when looked upon with a skeptical eye, turns out to be a circular arguments, because the claim doesn't actually show any direct evidence that [phenomena X] is part of a conspiracy theory.

You do a lot of talking. A simpler explanation is that there were no lone nuts prior to 1812, and that modern "lone nuts" are purely the inventions of sophisticated public relations gurus.

You should learn about William of Occam.

 

[Galileo]

I understand the OP is focused on history, thinking it makes his case, but I am curious how he proposes to deal with the serial killer example I brought up earlier.

Clearly David Berkowitz was a lone nut. He drove around in a car and shot people. What is the difference between that and what Oswald did?

There are undisputed lone nuts in recent memory and likely patrolling around right now. Some kill for sexual impulse, some kill for power, but the fundamental point is that they're alone, they're crazy, and they want to kill people. It's only when the target is someone important that we doubt the lonely-nuttiness.

Did Berky do major political targets?

 

[TraneWreck]

Did Berky do major political targets?

Odd that I discuss that in both of my posts.

Ted Bundy liked white girls, Gacy sought little boys, the fact that their targets differ from Berkowitz's targets means almost nothing. It's the drive to kill that's relevant.

Some killers are driven by sexual impulse, some not. Oswald's insane political ideas drove him to attempt one assassinations and complete another. If he had escaped after Kennedy, maybe he tries another.

The point is that the "lone nut" theory is well established in literally thousands of cases, probably hundreds of thousands. It's only when the target is high profile that "lone nut" becomes somehow improbable. But what, really, is the difference between Oswald and Berkowitz? THey both had the impulse to kill, for whatever reason, concealed themselves, and used guns to shoot people. If Berkowitz as lone killer is plausible, so is Oswald as lone killer. There's nothing that different about the murders, save the targets. If Oswald picked lower profile victims, he may even have racked up a similar body count.

There are tons of lone nuts, only a few of them try to assassinate important people.

 

[SOdhner]

You are just a conspiracy theorist. You have emotional difficulty accepting the fact that a lone man can take down the president.

A simpler explanation is that there were no lone nuts prior to 1812, and that modern "lone nuts" are purely the inventions of sophisticated public relations gurus.

So, I'm relatively new around here and am slow to remember trends when they're linked with usernames rather than faces. That means I am not good at deciding is someone is joking or trolling based on their post history as a whole and instead have to base it off of individual recent posts.

So, please be patient with me if you are making a joke or are insane...

Based on those two posts I can only conclude that you are a troll, and not trying to be particularly subtle. That being said, I really do like the feel of the conspiracy that is implied by this: some shadowy organization is out there preventing lone nuts from killing anyone they deem important! That must be the case, because otherwise a certain number of lone nuts would be inevitable. The only explanation for them all being part of TEH CONSPIRACY is if the actual nuts are being either killed or redirected. This organization must have nearly unlimited power to accomplish such a feat!

 

[Wildy]

It is your problem. You have the burden of proof.

No. I only had to give the name it seems. I mean you had no problem looking up when InMySpareTime just gave a name with no link at all.

If you want more information you can look here.

As you were the one who gave the challenge it's up to you to determine whether the names given meet your challenge.

You are just a conspiracy theorist. You have emotional difficulty accepting the fact that a lone man can take down the president.

I take it you don't like it when people apply the challenge criteria to your examples. If you're going to just brush off what I wrote there by saying that I'm a conspiracy theorist then that makes you nothing more then a troll.

 

[Chopin]

I think I found one which fits your description perfectly.

His name is Galileo and he killed the last bit of intelligence on the JREF forum.

* the assassin must be acting alone

Clearly evident as there is no one who supports his theory (which of I'm not even sure what it is; one argument more for proving lunacy).

* the assassin must be a crazy person whose attack is irrational and doesn't advance his or her supposed big picture political goals

It's quite obvious that Galileo (contrary to the historical belief; proven by this thread) has difficulties replying in a constructive, logical way. Also, there are reasons to assume that Galileo is, in fact, a troll and therefore his rationale is questionable.
There are no obvious political goals and the assassination won't be of any benefit to the assassin.

* the assassin must not be an insider

Even though Galileo had an account on the JREF forum, he cannot be accounted as an insider. He is neither a member of the official JREF nor a member of the JREF forum staff. Therefore, as seen in the setting of the Renaissance, he is a random bazaar visitor located in front of his assassination target's court, not an actual member of it. This vicinity has allowed him to infiltrate and devoid everything of it's meaning.

* the target of the assassin must be a significant political leader

By killing JREF intelligence, Galileo has rid the JREF of it's Raison d'etre, therefore rendering it useless. Here we can make a parallel between a king on his throne and the "fuel" of JREF, making JREF intelligence appear as an important political factor in this case.

* the version of the assassin's story must be the standard or official history of the event. In other words, if the authority figures of the time believe the assassin was part of a conspiracy, then the assassin is not a "lone nut".

Everything is documented right here on this topic.

As for the time criteria, it is widely know Galileo has lived in the 16-17th century.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Pah! Disqualified. You're a nineteenth century composer/pianist. How could you know anything about Lone Nut Non-Conspiracies.

 

[Wildy]

Well, in the interests of everybody I think it's fair to say that I win.

 

[PhantomWolf]

* Public leaders not really being public, instead opting to hide behind armies and big walls.

You forgot "armed, armoured and surrounded by big armed and armoured goons."

Honestly, charging a medieval king with a nothing but a knife wasn't an assassination attempt, it would have been suicide. Assassins such as LHO and even Hinkely weren't suicidal and so didn't plan to die during their attacks. Neither would have acted against their targets had they been armed, armoured, and surrounded by likewise dressed boduguards, and truely doubt that any on G's list would have done so.

 

[PhantomWolf]

some more before 1882...

Dmitry Karakozov. 1866, unsuccessful attempt on Tsar Alexander I. (political motives)

Alexander Soloviev. 1879, unsuccessful attempt on Tsar Alexander II. (political motives)

Edward Oxford. 1840, unsuccessful attempt on Queen Victoria. (found to be insane.)

Henry James O'Farrell. 1868, unsuccessful attempt on Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. (he was crazy, though since he initially claimed to be under orders, he'll be discounted even though it was shown later he wasn't.)

Karl Eduard Nobeling, 1878, unsuccessful attempt on Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Emil Max Hödel, 1878, unsuccessful attempt on Kaiser Wilhelm I. (Different attempt from Nobeling)

Margaret Nicholson, 1786, unsuccessful attempt on King George III. (he stated afterwards, "The poor creature is mad; do not hurt her, she has not hurt me.")

John Bellingham, 1812, successful attempt on British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval. (It was over failed compensation claims. Said that he really wanted the British Ambasador to Russia, but any of his "oppressors would do.")

Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont, 1793, successful attempt on Jean-Paul Marat.

John Felton, 1628, successful attempt on George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. (Personal grudge due to war injury and believed failure to pay compensation.)

Richard Lawrence, 1835, unsuccessful attempt on President Andrew Jackson (Mentally ill, believed that Jackson was preventing him being paid a large sum of money)

Daniel M'Naghten, 1843, unsuccessful attempt on British Prime Minister, Robert Peel. (Instead killed the Prime Minister's private secretary, Edward Drummond. Was a test case for a finding of not guilty on the ground of insanity in Britain.)

Måns Bengtsson, 1436, successful attempt on Engelbrecht Engelbrektsson (Believed to be a personal grudge for something supposedly done to his father.)

 

[dudalb]

John Felton, 1628, successful attempt on George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. (Personal grudge due to war injury and believed failure to pay compensation.)

That is what THEY want you to beleive. Villiers was acting under the orders of Cardinal Richlieu and Lady De Winter. Wake up, Sheeple!