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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   4903 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 10, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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One of the reasons why I don't find most Kennedy conspiracy theories plausible is that the patsy was the least difficult element of the conspiracy to get right, and Oswald was an almost uniquely poor choice of patsy for any of the plausible conspiracies. Re. your case, if the people doing the cover-up were worried about the potential for nuclear war with the Soviet Union, why pin the blame on someone who had defected there and back again rather than a domestic criminal?

Depending on who actually did it, a patsy who fits the stereotype of "angry black man", "Southern conservative", or "mafia" would have worked a lot better for achieving the aims of the conspiracy.

The main reason I don't find most Kennedy conspiracy theories plausible is that the vast majority of historical Presidential assassination attempts look like the Warren Commission version of the Kennedy assasination - a lone assassin who is either outright crazy (e.g. John Hinkley shooting Reagan) or who is not quite normal and has weird fringe political views. So I have a high prior on "lone nut" and the problems with the Warren Commission's ballistics are not sufficient to override it without evidence of a specific conspiracy.

Re. your case, if the people doing the cover-up were worried about the potential for nuclear war with the Soviet Union, why pin the blame on someone who had defected there and back again rather than a domestic criminal?

I brought this up with my father, who can be something of an arrogant midwit outside of his narrow areas of expertise. When I pointed out that Oswald was a diehard socialist who had previously defected to the Soviet Union, he scoffed and said "if he was such a diehard socialist, why didn't he try to defect to Cuba?"

My response was simple: "He did."

In September 1963, he travelled to the Cuban embassy in Mexico City to apply for a visa... Oswald told the embassy officials that he wanted to visit Cuba on his way to Russia, so the Cubans sent him to the Russian embassy to collect a permit to enter the Soviet Union. When it was denied, Oswald burst into tears and started to wave his revolver in the air.

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