The preponderance of the evidence

[Charles Collins]

What gave you the idea that I think the evidence is wrong?  The evidence is the evidence.  Which evidence in the official report convinces you of Oswald's guilt and why?

Item b in your first response certainly indicates that you believe the evidence is wrong. Care to expound?

[John Iacoletti]

Item b in your first response certainly indicates that you believe the evidence is wrong. Care to expound?

Do you always answer a question with another question?

What does "evidence is wrong" even mean?  Evidence doesn't have an opinion.

So you're not willing to say what evidence convinces you, just that you're convinced.  Ok.  I don't think that faith is a good way of determining what is true and what is not.

[Charles Collins]

Do you always answer a question with another question?

What does "evidence is wrong" even mean?  Evidence doesn't have an opinion.

So you're not willing to say what evidence convinces you, just that you're convinced.  Ok.  I don't think that faith is a good way of determining what is true and what is not.

Here is what I mean when I say that you think the evidence is wrong (your own words) :

b) what little evidence there is that points to LHO is weak and circumstantial and all of it is questionable, arguable, impeachable, or tainted in some way

So please quit beating around the bush and explain yourself.

[Alan Ford]

Many years ago I began pursuing my interest in the JFK assassination conspiracy theories by reading quite a few books by, you guessed it, conspiracy theorists. For a long time I was convinced that there just HAD to be a conspiracy. But there wasn't any conspiracy theory that had any credible evidence to support it. All there seemed to be was conjecture and innuendo. One book would claim that LBJ was behind the assassination, another book would claim JEH was the mastermind, and so on. I learned way more than I wanted to know about LBJ, JEH, the oil tycoons, etc. But no credible evidence that would support any of the theories. I was left with a big question mark asking which conspiracy theory was the right one. One day I decided to start fresh with an open mind. I decided that learning more about the evidence that the official investigation turned up was a good starting point. Because all I had learned about the evidence from all the conspiracy books was biased against the official investigation's findings and tried to discredit them. A look at the other side of the controversy (with an open mind) seemed to be the next logical step in my pursuit to know more. So I read the official report and a few books from authors who supported it. What I found was that the preponderance of the evidence points directly at LHO. This was more than just the conjecture and innuendo that I was used to seeing. The preponderance of the evidence is actually overwhelming. The arguments that try to discredit the evidence no longer made sense, but I still try to look for any evidence of a conspiracy with an open mind. That is why I continue to show up here from time to time.

You're right, Mr Collins--we CTers don't know what happened that day. But neither do you. Your I-once-was-lost-but-now-I'm-found cognitive serenity (some would say smugness) is utterly misplaced. A bad theory that happens to be official and unchanging is no better than a bad theory that is unofficial and mutable. In key respects, it's actually worse because it puts its apologists into the position of lazy, bad-faith inflexibility and (at times) outright reality-denial.

The assassination of JFK remains a radically mysterious tragedy. Warren Gullibles are of use to the ongoing research effort only in the sense that the better ones are skilled at holding Warren Critics' feet to the fire. Other than that? You've all backed the wrong horse!

 

[John Iacoletti]

Here is what I mean when I say that you think the evidence is wrong (your own words) :

b) what little evidence there is that points to LHO is weak and circumstantial and all of it is questionable, arguable, impeachable, or tainted in some way

So please quit beating around the bush and explain yourself.

As far as I can tell, the only direct evidence that Oswald was in the 6th floor TSBD window at 12:30 with a rifle was testimony from Howard Brennan who initially failed to identify him in a police lineup (even after seeing Oswald's picture on television).  A guy who claimed to see a gunman in position for the head shot (which necessarily would be crouching behind boxes) "from the belt up", and who gave a description that was the wrong weight, wrong age, wrong height, and wrong clothing description for it to be Oswald.

Circumstantial evidence

1. Frazier saw Oswald carrying a bag that was too short to have contained the alleged murder weapon, and a bag that Frazier said was not the same bag was allegedly found near the window the shots were allegedly fired from, but doesn't appear in any crime scene photographs.

2. The bag that was allegedly found (and showed no evidence of ever having contained a rifle) supposedly had two prints on it belonging to Oswald, but the testing process destroyed the prints.

3. Backyard photos exist that were allegedly taken 8 months earlier showing Oswald holding a rifle that may or may not be the rifle found on the sixth floor.

4. Marina peered in the end of a rolled up and tied blanket in the Paine's garage about 6 weeks earlier and saw a portion of what she took to be a rifle.

5. Oswald left work after the assassination, which some would like to think was a "consciousness of guilt", even though other employees were either dismissed or told not to re-enter the building.

6. Unscientific and biased handwriting "analysis" of 2 block letters on a photo of a microfilm copy (from microfilm that is now "missing") of a 2-inch order blank concluded that the handwriting on a Klein's order blank ordering a similar but not identical rifle was that of Oswald's.

7. That order blank showed an address of a PO box that Oswald had access to, but there is no record of such a Klein's package being mailed, delivered, picked up, or signed for by Oswald or anyone else.

8. Fibers that may or may not have come from the shirt Oswald was arrested in were found in the butt of the rifle allegedly found on the 6th floor.

9. After the FBI found no identifiable prints on the rifle allegedly found on the 6th floor, an index card showed up a week later with a partial palmprint identified as Oswald's and claimed to have been lifted from the rifle on the night of the assassination, but not turned over to the FBI with the other evidence or even mentioned to the FBI agent who received the evidence.

10. Oswald's prints were found on book boxes on the sixth floor, which is not that remarkable considering his job was getting books out of boxes.


Your turn.  What evidence convinces you?

[Jack Trojan]

You are correct that the preponderance of the evidence points to LHO being a patsy. Otherwise, all the evidence fits like a glove (not OJ's). The conspiracy being the concocted story that LHO was a lone nut assassin that just happened to get a job along the motorcade route a couple of weeks before Plan A in Chicago got scrubbed (see Thomas Arthur Vallee). All LNers are CTs (Coincidence Theorists) that scoff at all the evidence that suggests LHO was NOT a lone nut assassin.

The problem with you LNers is that the LN conspiracy hypothesis is untenable any way you slice it. It's the narrative of the conspirators that they want you shills to perpetuate. They rely on your gullibility, lack of critical thinking (or ethics) and lack of legal and logic skills, which is why John I destroys your arguments every time and drives the LNers insane. 

[John Iacoletti]

Thanks Jack.  The list of LN excuses for inconsistent or contradictory evidence is both long and legendary.

https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,100.0.html

[Paul May]

The evidence is in the official report. You are the one who apparently believes that it is wrong. What evidence do you have to the contrary?

Charles, I?ve asked this question of the truthers for some 50 years.  They NEVER answer.  They can?t. Not one piece of hard, credible evidence for conspiracy exists.  They don?t care.  They each have their pet theory.  The best arguments are between the kooks themselves. Yet, history should be debated, not argued. They cannot debate it.  They have no evidence.