# JFK conspiracy... yes or no? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 23, 2009, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978 "2009-07-23T08:09:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/401 "2009-08-14T21:18:33Z")
> [@jakesteele](#): > > What exactly do you think my stance is? You appear to have two: 1. that since the government has done _turrrrible_ things on different occasions, it is always a good idea to consider that any terrible thing one encounters was actually undertaken by the government–even when there is no serious evidence to support such a belief. 2. that you are a bold fighter against “pseudoskeptics” and are here making a valiant effort to shame all such persons into becoming “true” skeptics such as you perceive yourself to be. The first position becomes laughable when you insist that we need to consider all possible conspiracies regardless of evidence. The second position is simply an ego thing where you get to perceive yourelf to be smarter or nobler than other people for your own satisfaction. Hey. If that is what makes you happy. . . . = = = Do, however, look up Tuskegee Airmen and stop making silly references to conspirtacies when you invoke their name. ---
**Author:** ![jakesteele](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed8c4c/32.png) [@jakesteele](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jakesteele)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/402 "2009-08-14T23:14:52Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You appear to have two: > > > [@](#): > > > > 1. that since the government has done _turrrrible_ things on different occasions, it is always a good idea to consider that any terrible thing one encounters was actually undertaken by the government–even when there is no serious evidence to support such a belief. > > Nope, straw manned again. Rats! > > > [@](#): > > > > 1. that you are a bold fighter against “pseudoskeptics” and are here making a valiant effort to shame all such persons into becoming “true” skeptics such as you perceive yourself to be. > > Nope, wrong again. You flatter yourself. > > > [@](#): > > > > The first position becomes laughable when you insist that we need to consider all possible conspiracies regardless of evidence. > > The second position is simply an ego thing where you get to perceive yourelf to be smarter or nobler than other people for your own satisfaction. > > > > Hey. If that is what makes you happy. . . . > > Rendered a moot point. See above responses. > > = = = > > > [@](#): > > > > Do, however, look up Tuskegee Airmen and stop making silly references to conspirtacies when you invoke their name. > **[Tuskegee Syphilis Study](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_study)** > > The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male (informally referred to as the Tuskegee Experiment or Tuskegee Syphilis Study) was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis as well as a control group without. The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, to the point of death and The P... Yeah? In my haste I put down Airmen. So what? Your first clue was the word syphilis. You are blithley dismissing the list to not address the point head on. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/403 "2009-08-14T23:35:14Z")
If I may, you’ve got new comments within quote tags. Well, not _new_ per se, since they just demonstrate yet again your seemingly reflexive and still incorrect “straw man!” response. If past governmental misconduct isn’t relevant in the way tom describes (i.e. they did bad stuff before, so we can’t rule out them doing bad stuff yet again despite a lack of evidence in the specific case under discussion), then what’s your point in bringing it up? In any case, I suggest you practice more with the quote tags. Make sure _new_ commentary is not inside a {quote}{/quote} pair. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/404 "2009-08-15T00:22:51Z")
> [@jakesteele](#): > > Skeptic: one who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons. The method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics…A pseudo-skeptic is a person with an priori belief that a certain idea is wrong and it’s just a matter of figuring out a way to debunk it. These definitions have been twisted to fit a particular point of view. You apparently think that a “true” skeptic is one who challenges the accepted “dogma” regarding the Kennedy assassination. However the term skeptic more accurately applies to those who have looked into the conspiracy dogma that has piled up in the last 46 years and rejected it as non-evidence based. And “pseudo-skeptic” is not a bad term for someone who styles him/herself as a fearless debunker of official orthodoxy, but who credulously accepts flimsy, irrelevant and disproven theories while refusing to process evidence that refutes his/her point of view. I don’t view you as “agnostic”, rather as a disciple of the conspiratorial mindset in regards to the Kennedy assassination. Your use of religious terminology is consistent with the habits of others I’ve known who have religious underpinnings for their beliefs in various forms of woo, but who think it’s a devastating rejoinder to their critics to accuse _them_ of having a religious faith in their beliefs. Insisting on rigorous evidence is not a religion, no matter that you’d wish it so. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/405 "2009-08-15T00:50:30Z")
> [@jakesteele](#): > > Didn’t say anything about proving levitation was real, that’s a straw man. No, it’s not (to get this out of the way, [read this please](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man)). So tell me what _was_ the point of the link to the video? Please be specific. > [@](#): > > Never said there was a conspiracy. I’ve been straw manned to death. I said it “stuck in my craw” and that my uncle that is was highly irregular and suspicious. > > To not consider a conspiracy is foolish. The HSCA concluded that Oswald was the lone shooter. But they also consider the conspiracy a possibility that should have been investigated much more fully than it was. And also because of Kennedy’s conflicts with the CIA and his controversial stance on the Viet Nam war. And also based on the govts. sordid history of showing no moral compunction and a depraved indifference to human rights, crimes against humanity and crimes against the constitution: > > • MKULTRA > \ > • And on and on and on… > > These are more than ample reasons to consider the possibility of a conspiracy. But even without those, when you have an assassination of a president you must consider the possibility of a conspiracy. [bolding mine] Yes, and in the case of the JFK assassination the possibility was considered and rejected on lack of evidence. Again, showing the government has behaved badly in the past is not proof of conspiracy in this case. So by your own words above you consider conspiracy a possibility. Can you provide us with the positive proofs that cause you to continue to consider a conspiracy? Pretty please. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/406 "2009-08-15T02:22:44Z")
Did JFK have a controversial stance on Vietnam? His brother Robert did five years later when he was campaigning, but as far as I know, JFK slowly escalated American involvement at a time when the war was still relatively popular. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/407 "2009-08-15T02:53:34Z")
> [@jakesteele](#): > > Yeah? In my haste I put down Airmen. So what? What haste? How desperate are you to make your point that you don’t even pay attention to what you type? You made the error, were corrected on the error, several of us made jokes at your expense about your error, and you went and repeated the error. > [@jakesteele](#): > > Your first clue was the word syphilis. If you mean my first clue to you was my use of the word syphilis in response to your erroneous use of the word airmen, I guess we could call that “my” first clue. > [@jakesteele](#): > > You are blithley dismissing the list to not address the point head on. I have addressed the point. You want to believe that just beacuse the government has done bad things, we need to consider the government as a bad actor in all events. My first response is to note that when there is no particularly compelling evidence that the government has been involved, there is no serious reason to run around looking for government involvement and when there is much better evidence that the government is not involved, it is both foolish and counterproductive to go looking for silly reasons to try to implicate the government just because it gives one a warm feeling to believe that one is more “aware” than other people. My second response is to note that when you throw lots of mud at a wall in the hope that some of it sticks, a quick glance in a mirror will display far more mud splattered on the thrower. The Tuskegee syphilis study was not a government conspiracy, even though it was horribly wrong. The release of bacteria upwind of San Francisco was not a conspiracy, merely a defensive test, using a benign bug, to determine the hazards probable from a biological attack on the U.S. using harmful agents. The injection of radioactive materials into persons without their informed consent was a conspiracy by (agents of) the federal government. Conflating all those separate events as an excuse to support paranoid fantasies that every harmful act must be considered first as a possible hostile act by the government simply weakens your case. My third response is that if you are willing to repeat errors after we have pointed you to them indicates a level of hubris in which you are so convinced of your own superior position that you are not actually reading what others post; you are simply using this forum for your soapbox to spread the gospel of the anti-skeptic. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/408 "2009-08-15T03:08:14Z")
> [@jakesteele](#): > > To not consider a conspiracy is foolish. The HSCA concluded that Oswald was the lone shooter. But they also consider the conspiracy a possibility that should have been investigated much more fully than it was. That HSCA report was merely public grandstanding at a time when the JFK assasination was back in the news. It’s conclusions were based on what they figured the public wanted to hear without actually providing any evidence for their “conclusions.” (Note that they never bothered to actually fund a better investigation; they simply said, “Hey, people, we’re down with your paranoia, can we go back to work, now?” > [@jakesteele](#): > > And also because of Kennedy’s conflicts with the CIA and his controversial stance on the Viet Nam war. Piffle. Lots of presidents have had conflicts of one sort or another with the CIA and Kennedy never did anything to threaten that organization. Kennedy had no controversial" stance on Vietnam. The whole idea that he was thinking of pulling out, (when we had no significant presence there, anyway), was only put forth years later by Schesinger as a way to bolster Kennedy’s image during the anti-war protests (the reverberations of which were still echoing and influencing the HSCA’s little foray into publicity seeking, years later). ---
**Author:** ![David\_Myers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@David\_Myers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Myers)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/409 "2010-09-04T01:41:52Z")
In spite of getting the Civil Rights and Great Society legislation through congress and signing it, LBJ should be considered the worst, and most evil president ever! There is a host of evidence of his graft and corruption, for anyone who wants to dig a little, which includes his keeping on his payroll, a professional hit man, Mac Wallace, who is implicated in over a dozen murders on Johnson’s orders, including a number of persons threatening to implicate Johnson in both the Billy Sol Estes scandle and the Bobby Baker Scandal (a partial palm print found in the Texas school book depository, on the sixth floor) was finally identified as Wallace’s. There is clear evidence that JFK was going to drop Johnson from the ticket in 1964 and that indictments were coming down on Johnson as soon as early December, 1963. JFK’s assassination, perserved Johnson’s reputation and made him president. He was present at the Clint Murchison meeting the night before the assassination which included, J. Edgar Hoover, a top CIA officer, Carlos Marchello (New Oreleans mafia don), Texas oil billionaire, H. L. Hunt, the Dallas police chief, the Dallas mayor, who changed the motorcade route to go right by the Texal book depository building, as well as the grassy knoll, and a number of other Texas oil “high rollers”. After this meeting LBJ came out and whispered in the ear of his mistress, Madeleine Duncan Brown, that “those son of a bitch Kennedys will never embarass me again after tomorrow.” For the full interview with Madeleine Brown, conducted by Robert Gaylon Ross on June 22, 2002, go to: > **[LBJ Night Before JFK Assassination: "Those SOB's Will Never Embarrass Me Again"](https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=15167)** > > The night before the Kennedy assassination, Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Dallas tycoons, FBI moguls and organized crime kingpins - emerging from the conference to tell hi Johnson was a prolific murderer and that makes him “worst president ever!” ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/410 "2010-09-04T01:55:29Z")
Indictments for what, and why would JFK’s death make these issues disappear? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Myers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@David\_Myers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Myers)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/411 "2010-09-04T02:21:14Z")
If you think Ruby didn’t have any mob ties, you haven’t been doing your homework. Ruby was tied to the mob from boyhood. Do some reading, please. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978/412 "2010-09-04T02:27:38Z")
This thread is a pretty old zombie. While we do consider tolerating zombie threads, this one displays a lot of the reasons why we tend to close them: a lot of hostility, some of it personal; posters who are no longer here to defend their positions or ther persons. I am closing this thread. David meyer, if you wish to discuss the topic, open a new thread with a link to this one. (And a word of advice: don’t accuse other posters of things they have not said. You have gotten only a single response that asked what indictments would be stopped by Kennedy’s death. Making that an accusation that anyone has denied that Jack Ruby had some sort of contact with the mob is called a straw man and has no business in a serious discussion.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jfk-conspiracy-yes-or-no/503978.md?page=20)