It’s not necessary to kill their parent(s) to prevent someone from being born. Just interfere with one or both parents’ lives so that the timing of their baby’s conception is altered. It won’t be the same person who is born, but instead a genetic sibling.
Anonymous phone calls to various authorities from a concerned citizen about those foreign men taking lessons to fly commercial jets. And just learning to fly them, not concerned with learning how to land them.
How about if I just go back a half-million years or so and stomp on that damn butterfly in Africa just before it flutters? That seems to be the action that sets EVERYTHING in motion.
This, but I don’t think it’s wise to screw with history. I might try to prevent Trump from becoming president, but it does not seem like any deed he does will dissuade his followers. So that’s a no go. And I’m not willing to murder.
I would go back to 2013 and show Ruth Bader Ginsburg that see needs to retire to allow President Obama to replace her successor. I don’t think it would be hard to convince her once I showed her who would take her place if she didn’t retire during Obama’s presidency.
All you’d probably need to do is startle him briefly.
But I think that already happened. It just got buried in all the other data being analyzed.
Everyone always talks in threads like this about preventing the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations.
So to be different I would prevent the assassination of President James Garfield.
How would you do that? I mean could you even get a meeting with a Supreme Court Justice?
Well we have almost perfect hindsight now on how that data got buried, so more phone calls and emails to people higher up the chain can get it unburied.
See Rule Two in the OP. With sufficient money, I think it would be easy enough to get in touch with people she would be willing listen to. Seemed like a better idea then trying to kill Scalia.
He doesn’t have to kill Oswald. He just has to delay him until the motorcade passes. Shouting out “Hey, Lee” might be enough to break his concentration.
To go along with all the other Florida 2000 stuff, I would try to get a hold of Janet Reno and try to convince her to not deport Elian Gonzalez. That would likely be enough to swing Florida to Gore in 2000.
Now that I think about it, that isn’t creative enough. I’d just rent a boat and set sail just off Fort Lauderdale on 11/21/1999 and rescue Gonzalez and his family when I spot them offshore. I’d rescue them and take them to the family in Florida they were going to reunite with.
ETA. And of course I’d be wearing my Gore / Lieberman pin while doing so.
??? I was talking about LSLGuy wanting to kill parents of people he doesn’t like.
Mea culpa. I chose the wrong post to reply to.
ninja’d n.m.
[stopping 9/11]
I don’t think it would be too difficult since you know all the names, their history, how they got into the country, what they have been doing - all of which are known now. An anonymous tip to the FBI with all this info and what flights are being targeted, the FBI might be skeptical but they’d have to act. It’s not so implausible from the FBI’s perspective - you wouldn’t have to be a time traveler to have this info, just an insider who got a conscience and wanted to stop it.
@Saint_Cad You asked me / us about undertaking a mission of great risk to everything we know to deliberately alter history.
That seems a truly gigantic moral dilemma. As pointed out, if we alter the timing of anything, every single human that every lived in our timeline might be a different human. Just like delaying Mr. & Mrs. Gingrich Sr. briefly at the cocktail party so she gets pregnant 30 seconds later means Newt isn’t born as the same person. Different personality, perhaps even different gender.
We can’t know how far that effect spreads. Going back to change the past 10 minutes ago has less leverage than going back 10 years, or 1000 years or 5000 years.
ISTM that killing e.g. Newt’s Dad is a fart in a hurricane compared to the wreckage of changing something 1000 years ago in a completely non-violent manner at the moment of change.
You don’t need to prevent his assassination, just his death. Medical incompetence killed Garfield more than Guiteau did. Make sure the doctors all wash their damn hands, and point out the seemingly-obvious-but-apparently-not point that a metal bedframe will confound a metal detector.
Lee Oswald is a homicidal man with a loaded rifle. I’d feel better if he gets shot in the head.
(And I don’t think it’d be hard to get into position. I’d dress in a suit and show a fake badge to anybody in the building who questioned me. “Secret Service,” I’d explain, “we need to access the 6th floor for observation of the motorcade.” I doubt I’d be given much of a problem.
I was thinking that you could go and tell bodyguard John Parker not to leave his post outside the balcony seats (which he did after Lincoln arrived), but I’m not entirely sure that would work, since Booth was a famous enough actor that he might still be able to talk his way past the guard.
So, I’d wait for Parker to leave and then take up his position. When Booth finally makes his way to the entrance to the balcony, I’d start blasting.
He was shot while boarding a train. I presume you would just tackle his shooter, Charles Guiteau? Would you wait for him to pull his gun? Would you let him get close to the President? I mean, how much do you want the people there to think this man was trying to conduct an assassination? Or would you take Guiteau out even before the plan was set in motion?