JFK Conspiracy Theories: It Never Ends

[Tomtomkent]

Actually, I reject most of the common conspiracy theories that are out there. I don't buy the conspiracy theories regarding 9/11, Clinton and Mena, the moon landings, the 2000 and 2004 elections, Bin Laden, and several others.

I notice a lot of people here trust John McAdams' research on the JFK assassination. Frankly, McAdams borders on being a joke. His research is downright terrible in most cases. See, for example:

Some Comments on John McAdams' Kennedy Assassination Home Page
http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/vsmcadams.htm

Others cite Ken Rahn. But, see:

Critical Thinking and the Kennedy Assassination: A Reply to Ken Rahn's Article "Twenty Simple Truths About the JFK Assassination"
http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/critical.htm

Why do most your links go to mtgriffith.com?

 

[JayUtah]

I notice a lot of people here trust John McAdams' research on the JFK assassination.

Others cite Ken Rahn.

Really? I've written hundreds of articles in this thread without mentioning or citing either one. I don't even know who Ken Rahn is.

I do note, however, that whatever conspiracy theory you advocate, your advocacy very often takes the form of ridiculing or attacking debunkers or what you believe their sources to be, and very seldom the form of responding to the arguments actually brought to the table. This is dishonest.

To convince us you know how to debate, please discuss the terms poisoning the well and straw man.

 

[A'isha]

Why do most your links go to mtgriffith.com?

It's his own website.

 

[JayUtah]

At the far end, the most credible theory with the totality of evidence supporting it, is the conclusion of the WC.

Conversely the problem I have with most of the conspiracy theories favored online is that they either fail to name an alternative shooter (i.e., "We just need to investigate further"), or each one names a different one. If the evidence is so strongly convincing, why does it seemingly lead in so many random directions depending on who's trying to make the money?

And honestly, so many of the conspiracy theories I hear most sound like, "Blah blah blah Warren Commission ignored blah blah blah Warren Commission blah blah blah Warren Commission overlooked blah blah blah." They're not viable alternatives; they're just diatribes against the Warren Commission. Knee-jerk rejection of the mainstream does not constitute valuable historical research or forensic science, however it almost always characterizes a conspiracy theory.

The arguments have yet to promote any theory up the scale.

But consider that Robert Prey is probably more interested in trolling the forum than in presenting an actual case, so while it's true that this thread has failed to promote a credible alternate theory, it's also probably true that the efforts to do so haven't been well-intentioned. Thus failure has many possible explanations.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Really? I've written hundreds of articles in this thread without mentioning or citing either one. I don't even know who Ken Rahn is.

I do note, however, that whatever conspiracy theory you advocate, your advocacy very often takes the form of ridiculing or attacking debunkers or what you believe their sources to be, and very seldom the form of responding to the arguments actually brought to the table. This is dishonest.

To convince us you know how to debate, please discuss the terms poisoning the well and straw man.

You obviously did not bother to read my articles on McAdams and Rahn before you wrote this (I provided links in my previous reply). Both articles focus on these men's arguments.

Some Comments on John McAdams' Kennedy Assassination Home Page
http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/vsmcadams.htm

Critical Thinking and the Kennedy Assassination: A Reply to Ken Rahn's Article "Twenty Simple Truths About the JFK Assassination"
http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/critical.htm

My experience is that so-called "debunkers" spend huge amounts of time making ad hominem attacks and appealing to authority and not very much time dealing with facts and logic.

 

[mikegriffith1]

It is a shame that none of the credible alternate theories contradict the evidence, that point to Oswald , and are rarely the ones discussed on threads like this. Alternate forensics, for example, are wothless unless they comply with the rest of the evidience. CTs can say this description or that description proves x, but we have film and photos of the impact and the body. The shot came from the TSBD.

Credibility is a sliding scale. At one end you have the unsupported tosh and seemingly wilful misunderstanding of evidence, then the honest mistakes and misinformed speculation, then up through the theories with little evidence to those supported by some evidence, through increasing credibility. At the far end, the most credible theory with the totality of evidence supporting it, is the conclusion of the WC.

This was the status quo at the start of the thread. The arguments have yet to promote any theory up the scale.

I suspect your research has been very one-sided and that you've read few if any serious anti-lone-gunman-theory works. You might start with Dr. G. Paul Chambers' recent book Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination.

It is odd to see such posturing against the conspiracy view of the JFK shooting when the lone-gunman view is accepted only by a rather small minority of Americans and Europeans.

When the "photos of the body" differ significantly from the x-rays, from the autopsy report, from the mortician's diagrams, from the FBI's wound diagrams, and from descriptions and diagrams provided by other trained medical personnel and federal agents in three different locations, there is reasonable reason to question their validity and accuracy.

 

[Robert Prey]

Conversely the problem I have with most of the conspiracy theories favored online is that they either fail to name an alternative shooter (i.e., "We just need to investigate further"), or each one names a different one.

And failure to name the alternate shooter with DNA and fingerpirfnt ID, is positive proof that there was no other shooter. Excellent reasoning.

 

[JayUtah]

And failure to name the alternate shooter with DNA and fingerpirfnt ID, is positive proof that there was no other shooter. Excellent reasoning.

Don't put words in my mouth, Robert. That's not my argument.

My argument is that conspiracy theories that do nothing but pick holes in some prevailing theory and state no putatively more viable alternative have no explanatory power and hence are useless.

 

[Straw Man]

I suspect your research has been very one-sided and that you've read few if any serious anti-lone-gunman-theory works. You might start with Dr. G. Paul Chambers' recent book Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination.

I'll think you'll find that those interested in the JFK assassination have read quite a lot on all of the various theories.

It is odd to see such posturing against the conspiracy view of the JFK shooting when the lone-gunman view is accepted only by a rather small minority of Americans and Europeans.

You're referring to opinion polls, where the respondents are usually people who have actually done little, if any research into the assassination, and have relied on the popular media to shape their views.

When the "photos of the body" differ significantly from the x-rays, from the autopsy report, from the mortician's diagrams, from the FBI's wound diagrams, and from descriptions and diagrams provided by other trained medical personnel and federal agents in three different locations, there is reasonable reason to question their validity and accuracy.

One should question the facts, but you'll find the overwhelming amount of evidence points in one direction only.

 

[JayUtah]

You obviously did not bother to read my articles...

That is correct. I'm not falling for your rather obvious straw man and I'm not responding to your subsequent pleas for attention. There is no need to read your rebuttals of people who have no bearing on my arguments.

My experience is that so-called "debunkers" spend huge amounts of time making ad hominem attacks and appealing to authority and not very much time dealing with facts and logic.

Nonsense. You proposed to dismiss everything written in this thread as merely regurgitations of two authors for which you happen to have pat answers. No, we will not allow you to misrepresent an existing discussion so as to suddenly make your predetermined writings relevant, nor will we allow you to shoehorn it into your well-worn debate strategy as you tried to do with the Obama birth certificate and Pearl Harbor threads.

As I said, I've written several hundred articles in this thread alone. Please do us the courtesy of reading them and posting responses that address the arguments they actually contain, not what you imagine they must be. I'm not going to read anything you've written until you demonstrate that you've read what I've written.

 

[JayUtah]

I suspect your research has been very one-sided...

But you don't know, because you didn't read the thread before you decided to dismiss it all as ignorant regurgitation.

...the lone-gunman view is accepted only by a rather small minority of Americans and Europeans.

How many of them have done any research at all, one-sided or otherwise?

When the "photos of the body" differ significantly from the x-rays, from the autopsy report, from the mortician's diagrams, from the FBI's wound diagrams, and from descriptions and diagrams provided by other trained medical personnel and federal agents in three different locations, there is reasonable reason to question their validity and accuracy.

All covered at length, many times, in this thread. Kindly do not just fringe-reset your way into relevance. Most of us have been in this thread far longer than either you or the other perennial conspiracy theorist who posts in it. Do us the courtesy of at least paying attention to what we say before you decide we're all full of excrement.

 

[Tomtomkent]

I suspect your research has been very one-sided and that you've read few if any serious anti-lone-gunman-theory works.

Then your suspicions are wrong.

Read them. Noted their flaws. Compared to the available evidence. Dismissed them as less convincing than the weight of evidence for the findings of the WC.

Do you oftend discuss ill informed suspicions about people at length, or do you ever stop to ask questions about how conclusions were reached before commenting?

 

[Garrison]

I suspect your research has been very one-sided and that you've read few if any serious anti-lone-gunman-theory works. You might start with Dr. G. Paul Chambers' recent book Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination.

It is odd to see such posturing against the conspiracy view of the JFK shooting when the lone-gunman view is accepted only by a rather small minority of Americans and Europeans.

When the "photos of the body" differ significantly from the x-rays, from the autopsy report, from the mortician's diagrams, from the FBI's wound diagrams, and from descriptions and diagrams provided by other trained medical personnel and federal agents in three different locations, there is reasonable reason to question their validity and accuracy.

All this post demonstrates is that you haven't bothered to read the thread properly as all of these points have been raised and found wanting, frankly it seems to say more about your research skills than the Kennedy assassination.

 

[Robert Prey]

Don't put words in my mouth, Robert. That's not my argument.

My argument is that conspiracy theories that do nothing but pick holes in some prevailing theory and state no putatively more viable alternative have no explanatory power and hence are useless.

NO. You explicitly made the statement that no one has named the shooter. Therefore there is no evidence of another shooter. But you know very well there is a mountain of evidence for more than one shooter, including, but not limited to 40 plus on the scene medical witnesses observing a large blow-out in the back of the head.

 

[TheRedWorm]

Ok, robert. Give me a timeline of the shots from this other shooter.

 

[LSSBB]

NO. You explicitly made the statement that no one has named the shooter. Therefore there is no evidence of another shooter. But you know very well there is a mountain of evidence for more than one shooter, including, but not limited to 40 plus on the scene medical witnesses observing a large blow-out in the back of the head.

Oh, the 40-ish medical-ish witness-ish people you couldn't validate before who had observed a"blow-out{?}" (not their term evidently) that kinda sorta looked like the back of the head and didn't look like the actual forensic photographs, of course having definitely photographic memories when interviewed long after the fact and after / before changing their stories? It's a mountain of something you have there, but it ain't evidence.

 

[BazBear]

NO. You explicitly made the statement that no one has named the shooter. Therefore there is no evidence of another shooter. But you know very well there is a mountain of evidence for more than one shooter, including, but not limited to 40 plus on the scene medical witnesses observing a large blow-out in the back of the head.

Baloney. Robert, you didn't provide evidence of 40+ medical witnesses a hundred-plus pages ago when you first asserted this, and you still haven't. You've yet to point out credible evidence of another shooter or shooters. And you've yet to provide a narrative of what you think happened that day in Dallas. All you've done is attempt to poke holes in the WC's findings.

 

[JayUtah]

NO. You explicitly made the statement that no one has named the shooter.

No, Robert. I am the authority on what my argument is, not you.

I divided the conspiracy theories into two categories: those that name an alternate shooter and those that do not. Those that do, name a different person every time. Clearly not a strong case if the available evidence seems to point in so many different (and incompatible) directions at once. Those that do not, simply fail to have any explanatory power the public is bound to respect. How are we to bring a guilty party to justice when that party is unknown and unnamed?

Therefore there is no evidence of another shooter.

Your inference, not mine. Answer the argument I made, not the one you are trying to paste on me.

But you know very well...

Try to go five minutes without putting words in my mouth. No fringe reset for you.

 

[Robert Prey]

Baloney. Robert, you didn't provide evidence of 40+ medical witnesses a hundred-plus pages ago when you first asserted this, and you still haven't. You've yet to point out credible evidence of another shooter or shooters. And you've yet to provide a narrative of what you think happened that day in Dallas. All you've done is attempt to poke holes in the WC's findings.

Factually incorrect. I provided a mountain of evidence along with citations. At this point, I remind you that it is a sin to tell lie.

 

[BazBear]

Factually incorrect. I provided a mountain of evidence along with citations. At this point, I remind you that it is a sin to tell lie.

Yes, you have provided mountains of *something*. Citations are meaningless when the source has been discredited, when you cherry pick the source out of context, or when you mischaracterize what source actually says. You've done this repeatedly in this thread (and others), as anyone who takes the time to go back and read it can plainly see.

In any case, you still haven't told us what you think happened that day in Dallas. It's all well and good to hunt for flaws in the LHO lone shooter theory, but you still need a narrative that better fits all the evidence (which you've not even really attempted to do).

And please stop it with the "it's a sin to lie" lecture Robert, as it always sends the irony meter off the charts.