JFK's assassination: your thoughts

[Jetblast]

First of all, LHO's role and guilt in the JFK assassination are at this stage more than "theory."

If you want to beat dead horses, the continuing JFK discussion is still open, you can find plenty of fail on the part of our late, not-so-great now-banned member striving to clear the good name of LHO.

I don't know how you arrived at your conclusion in the second bolded, but a Marine that defected, came back to the US and made the big time in murdering the POTUS might have engendered a little bit of investigation involving sources and methods that the Gov.org wouldn't disclose no matter who the subject was.

And as far as being part of a conspiracy, I don't believe LHO had enough going on intellectually to be anything other than what he was - a inadequate personality with a firearm.

BTW, if you want a more detailed answer on my part, just go up thread and read my post that goes back to 2012.

Deniers can never explain how Oswald knew about an obscure CIA-connected college in Switzerland, the Albert Schwietzer College, while in Japan. It's obvious Oswald was coached as part of his CIA false defection to apply for this school hoping to get academic credentials that would aid his entry into Russia as having an interest in communist studies. Deniers can never explain how this "inadequate personality," isolated in the Marine barracks and planning to defect to the Soviet Union, knew about this. They have a problem because Oswald is either a deranged loser or highly intelligent plotter, but can't be both.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Deniers can never explain how Oswald knew about an obscure CIA-connected college in Switzerland, the Albert Schwietzer College, while in Japan. It's obvious Oswald was coached as part of his CIA false defection to apply for this school hoping to get academic credentials that would aid his entry into Russia as having an interest in communist studies. Deniers can never explain how this "inadequate personality," isolated in the Marine barracks and planning to defect to the Soviet Union, knew about this. They have a problem because Oswald is either a deranged loser or highly intelligent plotter, but can't be both.

Why couldn't he be exactly what he was? An inept, fringe loser who managed to get one of three shots right.

If you like, you may use the existing JFK thread to post your timeline of what happened and the names and evidence against the perpetrators. Then we can discuss the relative merit of your claims.

Here's a link for your convenience: http://www.forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=254176

 

[JayUtah]

Deniers can never explain how Oswald knew about an obscure CIA-connected college in Switzerland, the Albert Schwietzer College, while in Japan.

Argument from incredulity.

It's obvious Oswald was coached...

Begging the question.

They have a problem because Oswald is either a deranged loser or highly intelligent plotter, but can't be both.

Straw man.

 

[NightStar76]

Posters who say there is no new evidence completely fail in explaining why the current theory of Lee Harvey Oswald is valid. The Warren Commission was not a court of law, the members were politically appointed, critical forensic evidence is not available to the public therefore a thorough and complete investigation will never be conducted (at least not until all is declassified).

Because court of law or not the Warren Commission happened to stumble upon an apparently factually correct explanation that can, if you actually looked, demonstrate all the evidence. Also, they weren't crazy people. That's where a lot of the alternative theorists fall down. Being crazy people.

What's that, invisible voice only I can hear? I'm saying that believing that JFK was the target of a vast conspiracy is in and of itself a sign of serious mental illness only held in check by absorption with a now irrelevant incident? I'm ashamed of you, invisible voice only I can hear.

What the Lone Gunman Theorists fail to explain is: "if Oswald was the single individual responsible for killing the President, then why is any of the evidence that is held in protective custody of the Government considered unavailable because of risk to our National Security?"

Because the government does this. Pretty much constantly. For no good reason. Some documents from the Civil War were just released. Also, the National Archives responsible tend not to release items for the perusal of crazy people.

Lone Gunman Theorists totally ignore the HSCA findings of "probable conspiracy" in the JFK case. They completely rely on a committee that has, time and again, been shown to have been selective on what evidence they used and disclosed. There have been subsequent congressional committees that had previously classified information... declassified.

You want to talk about committees that are selective? The HSCA comes to mind. I'll stick with the Warren Commission, thanks.

Bottom line: there was more than just a crazy lone gunman. Who was behind the assassination is not perfectly clear but it is crystal clear that one deranged, non-aligned individual could not have over 5 million pages still classified for reasons of National Security.

It's touching how much faith you have in the competence of our government to manage these things. It really is. It's adorable. I wish I could take a picture.

Again. Kennedy is dead. He was assassinated, according to all the available evidence, by Oswald. Oswald was in turn murdered, according to all available evidence, by Jack Ruby. Unless and until you can personally travel back in time and bring me Johnson saying that he personally murdered Kennedy for the benefit of the Cubans and the Mob, there is nothing more to discuss. Why am I discussing it?

See above, where I say 'it's adorable'.

 

[NightStar76]

Deniers can never explain how Oswald knew about an obscure CIA-connected college in Switzerland, the Albert Schwietzer College, while in Japan. It's obvious Oswald was coached as part of his CIA false defection to apply for this school hoping to get academic credentials that would aid his entry into Russia as having an interest in communist studies. Deniers can never explain how this "inadequate personality," isolated in the Marine barracks and planning to defect to the Soviet Union, knew about this. They have a problem because Oswald is either a deranged loser or highly intelligent plotter, but can't be both.

Of course he can be. Are we living on the same planet?

Also, the three shots he fired weren't particularly challenging. I could probably manage them with Marine corps training on my first go, and he received medals for marksmanship. Hell, Penn Jillette managed them.

 

[JayUtah]

Because the government does this. Pretty much constantly. For no good reason.

No good reason. It's quite easy to classify something, but rather difficult and expensive to declassify it. In fact, in my business when working on engineering designs that should have been declassified a long time ago, it's usually faster and cheaper to find an engineer with the appropriate security clearance than to try to submit the material for declassification.

The result is that a lot is classified that perhaps never should be, and almost certainly shouldn't still be. But that's the way it goes. It's how the system really works, as opposed to how various self-proclaimed pseudo-experts intuitively believe it ought to work.

And that's the larger question. Arguments from incredulity based on intuitive-yet-wrong expectations are not the stuff from which useful investigation is made.

Also, the National Archives responsible tend not to release items for the perusal of crazy people.

They don't release some information for the perusal of people, crazy or otherwise, because it hasn't yet been cataloged and indexed. The National Archives is decades behind in this endeavor. And until the library scientists get to it, only archives personnel are allowed access to it. This is to protect the integrity of the information as it stands.

Again, the real world often works very differently than people intuitively believe it should. And when reality violates one's naive expectations, it's not reality's fault.

 

[ladmo]

Because court of law or not the Warren Commission happened to stumble upon an apparently factually correct explanation that can, if you actually looked, demonstrate all the evidence. Also, they weren't crazy people. That's where a lot of the alternative theorists fall down. Being crazy people.

What's that, invisible voice only I can hear? I'm saying that believing that JFK was the target of a vast conspiracy is in and of itself a sign of serious mental illness only held in check by absorption with a now irrelevant incident? I'm ashamed of you, invisible voice only I can hear.



Because the government does this. Pretty much constantly. For no good reason. Some documents from the Civil War were just released. Also, the National Archives responsible tend not to release items for the perusal of crazy people.



You want to talk about committees that are selective? The HSCA comes to mind. I'll stick with the Warren Commission, thanks.



It's touching how much faith you have in the competence of our government to manage these things. It really is. It's adorable. I wish I could take a picture.

Again. Kennedy is dead. He was assassinated, according to all the available evidence, by Oswald. Oswald was in turn murdered, according to all available evidence, by Jack Ruby. Unless and until you can personally travel back in time and bring me Johnson saying that he personally murdered Kennedy for the benefit of the Cubans and the Mob, there is nothing more to discuss. Why am I discussing it?

See above, where I say 'it's adorable'.

"The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that president John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy." ... this was a summary statement made by the HSCA committee.

The HSCA is a supplement not a supplant to the Warren Commission. To only stick with the Warren Commission is to deny greater knowledge and your decision to execute that option may be the most adorable act, yet.

 

[JayUtah]

...this was a summary statement made by the HSCA committee.

And what was it based on? The committee's inability to account for additional "gunshots" which were inferred solely from audio tape data. Nothing else.

Subsequently this evidence was re-examined and determined not to have correlated in time with the shots in Dealey Plaza, thus rendering it irrelevant to the investigation.

To only stick with the Warren Commission is to deny greater knowledge and your decision to execute that option may be the most adorable act, yet.

To stick solely with conspiracy sources and argue only according to the long-established tap-dance of conspiracy rhetoric is basically to embrace a decades-old exercise in futility and irrelevancy. None of those conspiracy authors has the faintest idea how investigations are carried out in the real world. Continually doing nothing more than undermining this-or-that government commission while freely admitting you have no better idea is just basically the investigative equivalent of self-stimulation. It has no probative value and no historical or scientific merit.

 

[ladmo]

First of all, LHO's role and guilt in the JFK assassination are at this stage more than "theory."

If you want to beat dead horses, the continuing JFK discussion is still open, you can find plenty of fail on the part of our late, not-so-great now-banned member striving to clear the good name of LHO.

I don't know how you arrived at your conclusion in the second bolded, but a Marine that defected, came back to the US and made the big time in murdering the POTUS might have engendered a little bit of investigation involving sources and methods that the Gov.org wouldn't disclose no matter who the subject was.

And as far as being part of a conspiracy, I don't believe LHO had enough going on intellectually to be anything other than what he was - a inadequate personality with a firearm.

BTW, if you want a more detailed answer on my part, just go up thread and read my post that goes back to 2012.

To say it was only LHO is to reject subsequent findings that drew from a greater pool of information. The House Select Committee on Assassinations came to the conclusion that LHO fired 3 shots and that the 3rd shot killed him. The HSCA did eliminate many suspected groups like: the Soviets, the Cubans, the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, et al. most Lone Gunman theorists believe all of the above but depart when the committee said that a fourth (4th) shot was fired. Read the report and then come back and explain why they did not get that element correct.

 

[ladmo]

-- So, no evidence but because there are documents still awaiting their declassification date, conspiracy?

Never said there was no evidence. Read the HSCA report, it is fully explained and within context. There are many other documents that are classified; I have no idea what they contain and neither do you. It is just strange and counter productive that a non-aligned, lone gunman would be the focus of all these classified documents.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Never said there was no evidence. Read the HSCA report, it is fully explained and within context. There are many other documents that are classified; I have no idea what they contain and neither do you. It is just strange and counter productive that a non-aligned, lone gunman would be the focus of all these classified documents.

You should read JayUtah's posts. Do you have him on ignore and can't see them? Here's one: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9486124#post9486124

 

[ladmo]

And what was it based on? The committee's inability to account for additional "gunshots" which were inferred solely from audio tape data. Nothing else.

Subsequently this evidence was re-examined and determined not to have correlated in time with the shots in Dealey Plaza, thus rendering it irrelevant to the investigation.

If you are referring to the motorcycle cops "belt" that the NAS said was flawed; then you fail to say that the NAS study that said the timing was off, was proven to be incorrect in 2001 by another researcher. Then an animator came back in 2003 for ABC and said there was no motorcycle in the area as he took some films that were archived at Dealey Plaza and came up with a determination. I guess this circular argument can go on forever.

to stick solely with conspiracy sources and argue only according to the long-established tap-dance of conspiracy rhetoric is basically to embrace a decades-old exercise in futility and irrelevancy. None of those conspiracy authors has the faintest idea how investigations are carried out in the real world. Continually doing nothing more than undermining this-or-that government commission while freely admitting you have no better idea is just basically the investigative equivalent of self-stimulation. It has no probative value and no historical or scientific merit.

argument from authority while deploying a confirmation bias.

I too thought that LHO was the lone gunman but then I read additional works and came up with a refined opinion.

 

[ladmo]

You should read JayUtah's posts. Do you have him on ignore and can't see them? Here's one: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9486124#post9486124

I have responded.

 

[NightStar76]

Someone raised a far more interesting question than the constant ridiculousness about JFK. Was Prince Rudolf assassinated in the hopes of moving the line of succession to a less popular and less prepared branch of the family, in order to accompany ends still unknown, or was the official story correct?

After all, the death of Prince Rudolf led to World War 1 and the collapse of the Austrian monarchy, one of the foundations upon which European stability had been built for well over 400 years. The assassination of John F Kennedy led to nothing of any more importance than him continuing to live would have done.

 

[JayUtah]

To say it was only LHO is to reject subsequent findings that drew from a greater pool of information.

No, that's exactly what inexperienced investigators do. They cast a wide net and try to explain everything under the presumption that everything they see in that net has to fit somehow into the assassination. As such they must construct convoluted scenarios for which they have no proof. And in the final analysis they know no more who killed Kennedy than those who did the investigation properly.

JFK conspiracism is a very adept object lesson in how not to investigate properly.

...when the committee said that a fourth (4th) shot was fired. Read the report and then come back and explain why they did not get that element correct.

Asked and answered. Subsequent development of the data revealed that the fourth "shot" was nothing of the kind. And you're telling us to expand our horizons!

 

[JayUtah]

I guess this circular argument can go on forever.

That's not what a "circular argument" is.

The HSCA conclusion was based on a flawed interpretation. There are other explanations for the "shot" on the audio, and that inference is the only part of HSCA's line of reasoning.

Parsimony.

argument from authority...

No, the proper application of authority. Part of my income is made from forensic engineering investigations, for which I am legally and morally responsible to make correct, and for which I have been trained. I am qualified to note when people approach my field amateurishly.

...while deploying a confirmation bias.

No, this is just your presumption that I must support the official story for ideological reasons. As I said, this is part of the age-old JFK conspiracy rhetoric, and it doesn't impress me. Instead you haven't considered that I am not persuaded by your claims because they are ill-founded for the reasons given, and you admit they shed no more light on the subject.

Kindly do not write off my criticism as mere ideology when it is patently something else.

...but then I read additional works and came up with a refined opinion.

No, you steeped yourself in conspiracy lore and -- like all the other JFK conspiracy theorists -- argue in an easily-recognized rhetorical idiom.

 

[JayUtah]

Read the HSCA report...

Why do you tell us to expand our horizons, yet thump only this source?

There are many other documents that are classified...

You were asked to provide evidence for this claim. Why have you not?

I have no idea what they contain and neither do you.

That hasn't stopped you from assuming they describe some sort of deep connection between Oswald and the CIA, or some such theory. It is even more egregious for you then to admit you have no idea what these documents contain and therefore no reason to judge that they are relevant to your claim or anyone else's.

It is just strange and counter productive that a non-aligned, lone gunman would be the focus of all these classified documents.

Begging the question. "Strange and counterproductive" are your interpretations based on your unsupported expectation.

Subversion of support. You have provided no evidence or discussion for the existence, number, and character of "all these" documents.

 

[EventHorizon]

That's not what a "circular argument" is.

The HSCA conclusion was based on a flawed interpretation. There are other explanations for the "shot" on the audio, and that inference is the only part of HSCA's line of reasoning.

Parsimony.



No, the proper application of authority. Part of my income is made from forensic engineering investigations, for which I am legally and morally responsible to make correct, and for which I have been trained. I am qualified to note when people approach my field amateurishly.



No, this is just your presumption that I must support the official story for ideological reasons. As I said, this is part of the age-old JFK conspiracy rhetoric, and it doesn't impress me. Instead you haven't considered that I am not persuaded by your claims because they are ill-founded for the reasons given, and you admit they shed no more light on the subject.

Kindly do not write off my criticism as mere ideology when it is patently something else.



No, you steeped yourself in conspiracy lore and -- like all the other JFK conspiracy theorists -- argue in an easily-recognized rhetorical idiom.

Adding to NightStar76's adorable theme, I think the most adorable thing that conspiracy theorists do is desperately throw out the names of logical fallacies that they know exist but don't understand the meaning of in the desperate hope they get one right. But they rarely ever do and these that JayUtah picked apart weren't even close. This was one of the many things our old pal RP did and ladmo seems to be picking up right where he left off.

 

[sackett]

RP came and went, now here comes ladmo. So I get to ask this again:

Suppose some long-ago cabal of criminals, politicians, and businessmen turned on one of their own and had him killed. Would that be so surprising? And who's left to give a good goddamn?

 

[BStrong]

To say it was only LHO is to reject subsequent findings that drew from a greater pool of information. The House Select Committee on Assassinations came to the conclusion that LHO fired 3 shots and that the 3rd shot killed him. The HSCA did eliminate many suspected groups like: the Soviets, the Cubans, the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, et al. most Lone Gunman theorists believe all of the above but depart when the committee said that a fourth (4th) shot was fired. Read the report and then come back and explain why they did not get that element correct.

Ladmo, meet me at the other open JFK thread and I'll address this post - no further derail in this thread is required.