Is It Time To Admit Failure? At Least To a Debatable Degree?

[Paul Brancato]

56 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

I disagree with much of this assessment. I'm not at all unsure about who killed JFK. I think it is clear that highly placed government figures were behind his death. I think it is beyond dispute that senior elements in the military, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA engineered the cover-up, especially of the medical and photographic evidence. I think we have reached the point where we have enough evidence to convince any rational, objective person that the above statements are true.

And I'm not at all sure that the plotters wielded the power and influence they thought they would wield after JFK was gone. Consider:

If the plotters were motivated by extreme right-wing views, and surely most of them were, they should have prevented LBJ from choosing Humphrey as his VP.  If Cuba and Vietnam were two major motives of the plotters, they surely should have knocked off LBJ after he refused to allow JFK's scheduled December coup against Castro to proceed (even though Bobby asked him to do so), after LBJ made it clear he had no interest in overthrowing Castro, and after LBJ imposed unprecedented, ridiculous, and disastrous restrictions on our war effort in Vietnam, thereby dragging out the war when it could have been won in a matter of months. If racism was a major motive for at least some of the plotters, they surely should have taken out LBJ when it became clear he was serious about pushing through massive civil rights legislation. Etc., etc., etc.

Oh gosh - help me out Michael. LBJ halted a planned JFK Cuba Coup against RFK’s advice? 
I’m presuming your far right extremist plotters weren’t the racist types? 
Not to mention Vietnam… but just flesh out my opening question. 

[Eddy Bainbridge]

I think there are several reasons why we have not reached a definitive answer (not in any order of merit):

1. It has never been politically expedient to find out.

2. Disinformation has been expertly and continuously disseminated.

3. The research community is fragmented and often damaged by self interest (fame and book sales)

4. Rotten theories hang about like bad smells ( e.g the Hickey theory), seemingly forever.

4. Incompetence and malign intent seem to intertwined in the evidence. ( E.g were the autopsists malign or incompetent?)

[Simon Andrew]

The main reason why you can’t reach a decision on the assassination, beyond a reasonable doubt, is by design. 
Bearing in mind that the most probable culprits are intelligence based, we need to expect plausible deniability, obfuscation and compartmentalisation.

I would suggest looking at the assassination using a similar framework to an intelligence analyst…assess the reliability of the evidence and assign it a probability of occurring and a confidence level.

Forget about beyond a reasonable doubt- it’s a wild goose chase. 

 

 

[Guest]

On 3/16/2023 at 10:19 AM, Joe Bauer said:

Are most of us still unsure about who killed JFK after 60 years?

If so, isn't that a very sad and disheartening reality?

That after 6 decades, hundreds if not thousands of lifetime long deep research efforts, books and millions of documents and two more seriously funded federal government investigations most of us are as unsure about who did JFK as we were the day after it's occurrence?

With that widely felt unsureness reality in mind one might rationally ponder the proposition, or at least the question, as to whether all this six decades long time and effort in the JFKA truth and justice seeking mission could in some debatable aspects and degrees be considered a failure.

And to add more weight to that postulation possibility is the reality that whoever did JFK ... got away with it!

That they were left to remain in their highest positions of power and influence all this time. Through three generations.

Up to now, JFK's killers have won. The American people lost.

After 60 years ... is it time to at least consider this reality?

This reminds me of the many debates in which I've participated concerning religious epistemology. Barring an unequivocal divine revelation that all rational persons would recognize and accept, a Christian theist can't be sure that any god actually exists or that Christianity is actually true while other religions and atheism are false. An atheist likewise can never be sure that no god exists. We all engage in abductive reasoning - i.e., we reason to what seems to be the best explanation on the basis of what seems to be the best evidence and inferences. Depending on how diligent and thorough our quest has been, we reach some level of conviction. In almost every religious discussion that spirals out of control, the problems arise because people claim knowledge or certainty when what they are really talking about is deep conviction (or they claim deep conviction when the underlying quest has been far from diligent and thorough).

I can never be sure there was no conspiracy associated with the JFKA, even if it was one that only met the barest technical definition of a conspiracy. I can never conclusively disprove that possibility. Likewise, it would require unequivocal evidence, convincing to all rational persons, that a particular conspiracy did occur and that the Lone Nut explanation and all other conspiracy theories must be discarded. Such evidence is the Holy Grail for conspiracy theorists, of course, but after 60 years it's unlikely to surface.

So we all engage in abductive reasoning and reach our respective levels of conviction based on whatever level of diligence and thoroughness we've devoted to the quest. Anyone who has participated on religious forums would recognize how similar the discussions here are to religious ones, as I've pointed out many times. The parallels between the various conspiracy communities here and religious ones are striking. Also as within religious communities, we see positions asserted here that seem pretty clearly to be based largely on factors other than diligence, thoroughness, solid evidence and reasonable inferences.

So the only "failure" I see is a failure to recognize that deep conviction is the best that is likely to be achieved by anyone in regard to the JFKA and that intelligent, rational people may strongly disagree as to what constitutes the best evidence, the most reasonable inferences and the most plausible explanations. Just as within religious circles, people may hold very different, very deep convictions.

If one reads through the comments here, what I'm talking about stands out pretty starkly. People claiming certainty they don't and can't have, people attempting to explain away the fact that other intelligent and rational people have reached very different convictions, and all the rest.

(If you're interested, this was my attempt to deal with the issue on a Christian forum: https://christianforums.net/threads/do-we-know-christianity-is-true.91503/. Don't look for a lot of other threads by dear old Runner, because I was summarily banned. On that forum, they KNOW Christianity is true, dammit, and that's all there is to it.)

[Mark Knight]

1 hour ago, Guest said:

This reminds me of the many debates in which I've participated concerning religious epistemology. Barring an unequivocal divine revelation that all rational persons would recognize and accept, a Christian theist can't be sure that any god actually exists or that Christianity is actually true while other religions and atheism are false. An atheist likewise can never be sure that no god exists. We all engage in abductive reasoning - i.e., we reason to what seems to be the best explanation on the basis of what seems to be the best evidence and inferences. Depending on how diligent and thorough our quest has been, we reach some level of conviction. In almost every religious discussion that spirals out of control, the problems arise because people claim knowledge or certainty when what they are really talking about is deep conviction (or they claim deep conviction when the underlying quest has been far from diligent and thorough).

I can never be sure there was no conspiracy associated with the JFKA, even if it was one that only met the barest technical definition of a conspiracy. I can never conclusively disprove that possibility. Likewise, it would require unequivocal evidence, convincing to all rational persons, that a particular conspiracy did occur and that the Lone Nut explanation and all other conspiracy theories must be discarded. Such evidence is the Holy Grail for conspiracy theorists, of course, but after 60 years it's unlikely to surface.

So we all engage in abductive reasoning and reach our respective levels of conviction based on whatever level of diligence and thoroughness we've devoted to the quest. Anyone who has participated on religious forums would recognize how similar the discussions here are to religious ones, as I've pointed out many times. The parallels between the various conspiracy communities here and religious ones are striking. Also as within religious communities, we see positions asserted here that seem pretty clearly to be based largely on factors other than diligence, thoroughness, solid evidence and reasonable inferences.

So the only "failure" I see is a failure to recognize that deep conviction is the best that is likely to be achieved by anyone in regard to the JFKA and that intelligent, rational people may strongly disagree as to what constitutes the best evidence, the most reasonable inferences and the most plausible explanations. Just as within religious circles, people may hold very different, very deep convictions.

If one reads through the comments here, what I'm talking about stands out pretty starkly. People claiming certainty they don't and can't have, people attempting to explain away the fact that other intelligent and rational people have reached very different convictions, and all the rest.

(If you're interested, this was my attempt to deal with the issue on a Christian forum: https://christianforums.net/threads/do-we-know-christianity-is-true.91503/. Don't look for a lot of other threads by dear old Runner, because I was summarily banned. On that forum, they KNOW Christianity is true, dammit, and that's all there is to it.)

That's a great summation. Well-said!

[Charles Blackmon]

12 hours ago, Guest said:

intelligent, rational people may strongly disagree as to what constitutes the best evidence, the most reasonable inferences and the most plausible explanations.

Yet in earlier posts you have called a large constituency of these intelligent, rational people flat-earthers, tin-foil hat wearers, and every other invective you could think of. Fascinating!

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

23 hours ago, Simon Andrew said:

The main reason why you can’t reach a decision on the assassination, beyond a reasonable doubt, is by design. 
Bearing in mind that the most probable culprits are intelligence based, we need to expect plausible deniability, obfuscation and compartmentalisation.

I would suggest looking at the assassination using a similar framework to an intelligence analyst…assess the reliability of the evidence and assign it a probability of occurring and a confidence level.

Forget about beyond a reasonable doubt- it’s a wild goose chase. 

 

 

I have no doubts that Hickey killed JFK. Nor any doubts about the essentials of what i have written about the jfk saga . U should read my stuff. All of the essentials are true. Then armed with that info u can re-read the krapp floating around.

I made mistakes in my say first year. For example, i reckoned that Z313 was the first shot of his accidental autoburst -- but later i realized that it was the last shot.

[Marjan Rynkiewicz]

20 hours ago, Guest said:

This reminds me of the many debates in which I've participated concerning religious epistemology. Barring an unequivocal divine revelation that all rational persons would recognize and accept, a Christian theist can't be sure that any god actually exists or that Christianity is actually true while other religions and atheism are false. An atheist likewise can never be sure that no god exists. We all engage in abductive reasoning - i.e., we reason to what seems to be the best explanation on the basis of what seems to be the best evidence and inferences. Depending on how diligent and thorough our quest has been, we reach some level of conviction. In almost every religious discussion that spirals out of control, the problems arise because people claim knowledge or certainty when what they are really talking about is deep conviction (or they claim deep conviction when the underlying quest has been far from diligent and thorough).

I can never be sure there was no conspiracy associated with the JFKA, even if it was one that only met the barest technical definition of a conspiracy. I can never conclusively disprove that possibility. Likewise, it would require unequivocal evidence, convincing to all rational persons, that a particular conspiracy did occur and that the Lone Nut explanation and all other conspiracy theories must be discarded. Such evidence is the Holy Grail for conspiracy theorists, of course, but after 60 years it's unlikely to surface.

So we all engage in abductive reasoning and reach our respective levels of conviction based on whatever level of diligence and thoroughness we've devoted to the quest. Anyone who has participated on religious forums would recognize how similar the discussions here are to religious ones, as I've pointed out many times. The parallels between the various conspiracy communities here and religious ones are striking. Also as within religious communities, we see positions asserted here that seem pretty clearly to be based largely on factors other than diligence, thoroughness, solid evidence and reasonable inferences.

So the only "failure" I see is a failure to recognize that deep conviction is the best that is likely to be achieved by anyone in regard to the JFKA and that intelligent, rational people may strongly disagree as to what constitutes the best evidence, the most reasonable inferences and the most plausible explanations. Just as within religious circles, people may hold very different, very deep convictions.

If one reads through the comments here, what I'm talking about stands out pretty starkly. People claiming certainty they don't and can't have, people attempting to explain away the fact that other intelligent and rational people have reached very different convictions, and all the rest.

(If you're interested, this was my attempt to deal with the issue on a Christian forum: https://christianforums.net/threads/do-we-know-christianity-is-true.91503/. Don't look for a lot of other threads by dear old Runner, because I was summarily banned. On that forum, they KNOW Christianity is true, dammit, and that's all there is to it.)

I have seen it said that Hickeyists like myself number about 27% of the jfkcrowd. However as we can see Hickeyists left the JFK forums a long time ago – i am a on my own on the Ed-forum. Hickeyists don’t waste their time re conspiracies etc, even if the conspiracies are true – they might be true, but they don’t affect the shots fired in Dealey Plaza.

 

Comparing the jfksaga to the jesus-saga etc is interesting. I wonder whether thinking-atheists like myself have an advantage (re getting to the truth of the jfksaga) over non-thinking-atheists & thinking-christianists.

I think that we thinking-atheists do have an advantage. I found the truth in about 1 year.

The corollary is that all of the dullards blundering around & bumping into each other for years here on this & other forums are christianists. Mightbeso.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Marjan Rynkiewicz

[John Cotter]

21 hours ago, Guest said:

This reminds me of the many debates in which I've participated concerning religious epistemology. Barring an unequivocal divine revelation that all rational persons would recognize and accept, a Christian theist can't be sure that any god actually exists or that Christianity is actually true while other religions and atheism are false. An atheist likewise can never be sure that no god exists. We all engage in abductive reasoning - i.e., we reason to what seems to be the best explanation on the basis of what seems to be the best evidence and inferences. Depending on how diligent and thorough our quest has been, we reach some level of conviction. In almost every religious discussion that spirals out of control, the problems arise because people claim knowledge or certainty when what they are really talking about is deep conviction (or they claim deep conviction when the underlying quest has been far from diligent and thorough).

I can never be sure there was no conspiracy associated with the JFKA, even if it was one that only met the barest technical definition of a conspiracy. I can never conclusively disprove that possibility. Likewise, it would require unequivocal evidence, convincing to all rational persons, that a particular conspiracy did occur and that the Lone Nut explanation and all other conspiracy theories must be discarded. Such evidence is the Holy Grail for conspiracy theorists, of course, but after 60 years it's unlikely to surface.

So we all engage in abductive reasoning and reach our respective levels of conviction based on whatever level of diligence and thoroughness we've devoted to the quest. Anyone who has participated on religious forums would recognize how similar the discussions here are to religious ones, as I've pointed out many times. The parallels between the various conspiracy communities here and religious ones are striking. Also as within religious communities, we see positions asserted here that seem pretty clearly to be based largely on factors other than diligence, thoroughness, solid evidence and reasonable inferences.

So the only "failure" I see is a failure to recognize that deep conviction is the best that is likely to be achieved by anyone in regard to the JFKA and that intelligent, rational people may strongly disagree as to what constitutes the best evidence, the most reasonable inferences and the most plausible explanations. Just as within religious circles, people may hold very different, very deep convictions.

If one reads through the comments here, what I'm talking about stands out pretty starkly. People claiming certainty they don't and can't have, people attempting to explain away the fact that other intelligent and rational people have reached very different convictions, and all the rest.

(If you're interested, this was my attempt to deal with the issue on a Christian forum: https://christianforums.net/threads/do-we-know-christianity-is-true.91503/. Don't look for a lot of other threads by dear old Runner, because I was summarily banned. On that forum, they KNOW Christianity is true, dammit, and that's all there is to it.)

This is not correct.

The grassy knoll activity witnessed by the railroad workers and others proves that there was a conspiracy.

Another proof is the sheep-dipping of Oswald as a gunman beginning with the rifle order in March and continuing through the Mexico City charade and other capers. The Hidell “alias” is the icing on the cake in this regard.

Your comparison between JFKA debates and religious “debates” is ill-conceived: the former are – or at least should be – empirically based; the latter have no empirical basis whatsoever.

 

[Charles Blackmon]

3 hours ago, John Cotter said:

 

The grassy knoll activity witnessed by the railroad workers and others proves that there was a conspiracy.

Another proof is the sheep-dipping of Oswald as a gunman beginning with the rifle order in March and continuing through the Mexico City charade and other capers. The Hidell “alias” is the icing on the cake in this regard.

 

 

Don't forget the limo stop that many witnesses observed, but was mysteriously removed from the Z-film.

Speaking of the Z-film, what about that funny black patch?

 

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Charles Blackmon said:

Speaking of the Z-film, what about that funny black patch?

You mean the exact same kind of "black patch" that appears on Clint Hill's head in the same Z-Film?....

 

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/02/ Was JFK's Head "Blacked Out"?

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by David Von Pein

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Charles Blackmon said:

Don't forget the limo stop that many witnesses observed, but was mysteriously removed from the Z-film.

Speaking of the Z-film, what about that funny black patch?

 

Sometimes even the CIA needs a few patches.

 

 

[Michael Crane]

1 hour ago, Charles Blackmon said:

Don't forget the limo stop that many witnesses observed, but was mysteriously removed from the Z-film.

Speaking of the Z-film, what about that funny black patch?

 

[John Cotter]

Many murder convictions are based on the accumulation of circumstantial evidence. In the JFKA case the accumulation of circumstantial evidence points to a conspiracy.

That became clear soon after the assassination, as attested by the early Warren Report critics. It became clear to me about 40 years ago when I read the first edition of Anthony Summers’s book Conspiracy: Who killed President Kennedy?

I haven’t come across anything since that would persuade me to change my mind. If any such thing existed, the lone nut advocates would have brought it up by now.

Since they haven’t, the debate is over as far as I’m concerned. In fact, there never was a real debate.

On the pro-conspiracy side there is a huge amount of evidence – in other words, science. On the anti-conspiracy side there is merely the repetition of dogmatic assertions – in other words, religion.

No contest.

[Paul Brancato]

17 hours ago, John Cotter said:

This is not correct.

The grassy knoll activity witnessed by the railroad workers and others proves that there was a conspiracy.

Another proof is the sheep-dipping of Oswald as a gunman beginning with the rifle order in March and continuing through the Mexico City charade and other capers. The Hidell “alias” is the icing on the cake in this regard.

Your comparison between JFKA debates and religious “debates” is ill-conceived: the former are – or at least should be – empirically based; the latter have no empirical basis whatsoever.

 

I’m kind of in agreement with you here. One can never know if Pauline Christianity is based on an actual resurrection, and it needs to be actual or else the whole thing collapses. Science is definitely not on the side of believers, for whom faith is the rock they stand on. In the JFK case there is much science favoring conspiracy, and faith is really the only thing supporting the lone nut theory - faith in the integrity of the Warren Commission and the Dallas Police.