Why So Many Conservatives Accept the WC or Just Don't Care

[Joe Elliott]

To Michael Griffith

You keep referring to George Floyd trying to pass counterfeit money. Where is a link to an article where an expert examines the bill in question and found that it was indeed a counterfeit bill?

If you can't provide us with such a link than stop making this claim.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Here’s a good and very recent example of the problem with lacing your political views into JFK assassination research. The recent book Coup in Dallas, written by Hank Albarelli with coauthors Leslie Sharp and Alan Kent, is a truly historic book. The research in the book is truly ground breaking and brings to light many important facts about the JFK assassination conspiracy.

But, many conservative readers will find it hard to get through the book because the authors have laced the book with their ultra-liberal political views. The authors actually argue that Trump’s election represented the emergence of a type of Fourth Reich in America, that some of Trump’s key backers were pro-Nazi, and that many—if not the majority of—Trump voters are fascists, racists, homophobes, xenophobes, or all of the above. The authors ignore the fact that Trump is ardently pro-Israeli, that one of his daughters is an Orthodox Jew, that Trump has invested in Israel, and that he has Jewish relatives. The authors repeatedly accuse Trump of being “anti-immigration,” when in fact Trump only opposed illegal immigration, not all immigration. The authors label Trump’s effort to secure our southern border with a barrier/wall as “virulent” xenophobia.

Really? I’m a moderate on immigration. I believe that illegal immigrants who’ve been here for several years, who've been employed most of the time, and who’ve committed no serious crimes should be given permanent residency and have an eventual path to citizenship. I believe that “dreamers,” i.e., the children of illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors and who’ve grown up here, should be given citizenship. But I see nothing “virulent” or “xenophobic” or “racist” about the effort to secure our southern border to the point where illegal immigration is drastically reduced and where it is extremely difficult to enter the U.S. illegally.

People have front doors so they can control who enters and stays in their house, not because they hate everyone outside their house. Presumably, all the liberals who live in gated communities with gates manned by armed security guards don’t hate everyone outside their gates but simply want to be safe and to control their environment.

[Tim Nickerson]

In my experience, in general, conservative folks tend to accept the word of authority more readily than liberal folks do.

Not any more. With the JFK case, it's not a matter of accepting the word of authority. It's a matter of knowing and accepting the evidence.

[Tim Nickerson]

Are conservatives more logical than liberals?

Just ask this question - Can a man get pregnant?

What are conservatives saying on this issue and what are liberals saying?

Boom!!

[Martin Weidmann]

Not any more. With the JFK case, it's not a matter of accepting the word of authority. It's a matter of knowing and accepting the evidence.

It's a matter of knowing assuming and blindly and without any question accepting the evidence.

There, I fixed it for you, Tim

[Michael T. Griffith]

The George Floyd case is another example of a subject that has no business being discussed in a book about the JFK assassination. Yet, a very good book on JFK's murder that was published just last year includes a recitation of the erroneous liberal version of Floyd's death.

Why risk annoying or alienating a sizable segment of your potential audience by including opinions on a controversial issue that has nothing to do with JFK's death? Why?

Another example: I'm very comfortable with my moderate position on illegal immigration and Dreamers. That's one reason that Trump was not even among my top three picks for the GOP nomination in 2016. I wanted Kasich, Rubio, or Carson to get the nomination. Now, I know that most conservatives ardently, passionately reject any pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
That's one reason that I do not discuss my views on the subject in my JFK writings, not to mention the fact that the subject has nothing to do with the JFK case.

As I've mentioned, I know lots of conservative Republicans who don't buy the lone-gunman theory, but most of them don't care about the case because they have the perception that most pro-conspiracy books are written by immoral, anti-American, anti-military ultra-liberals.

I've had a number of conservatives send me angry e-mails after they came across my websites on the OJ Simpson case, the Pacific War and the A-bomb, and Pearl Harbor. I've never mentioned these issues in my JFK writings, but I do include a link to my Real Issues Home Page on my JFK site, and sometimes conservatives visit the home page and discover that I hold what they regard as very non-conservative, even "anti-American," views on those subjects.

On the other hand, I've had other conservatives tell me that because they respected my research on the JFK case and/or on Joseph McCarthy, they were willing to consider my views on the A-bomb, OJ, and Pearl Harbor when they found my websites on those issues, and that I either changed their minds on one or more of those issues or at least enabled them to respect my views on them. This may not have happened if I had included my views on those issues in my JFK and McCarthy writings.

[Michael T. Griffith]

I remember how "shocked" and "dismayed" some conspiracy theorists were when Jim Marrs revealed in 2016 that he was big Trump supporter and that he viewed Hillary Clinton as the deep state's candidate. Marrs had never discussed his political preferences in the various editions of his famous book Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy. I think most researchers just assumed that he was a liberal, so many of them were shocked to learn that he supported Trump.

I happen to know that some of the experts that conspiracy theorists cite with glowing approval are conservatives, but conspiracy theorists seem to have no idea about this because those experts don't inject their politics into their JFK writings. They don't do this because they're the least bit ashamed of their politics but because they feel that their politics have no place in their JFK research, and also because they don't want to alienate anyone.

Some conspiracy theorists can be very closed minded when it comes to accepting research done by people who they know disagree with their politics. Of course, I know there are plenty of conservatives who will likewise summarily reject any research done by people who they know disagree with their politics, "e.g., if you're dumb enough to support Obama, I have no interest in anything you have to say." But this cuts both ways: many liberals have the attitude that "if you're stupid enough to vote for Trump, I don't trust a word that you say about anything."

I have personal experience with this sort of thing. Back in the late 1990s, when a certain prominent conspiracy theorist found out that I worked in the intelligence field in the U.S. Army, he began to view me with great suspicion and would not discuss the JFK case with me. I was like, "Seriously?" In his mind, anyone with any ties to U.S. intelligence was automatically suspect, and he simply refused to have anything else to do with me.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Regarding the reply that said that Vietnam is now friendly toward America and that many Vietnamese want American products, etc., etc., this observation ignores the brutality and tyranny that the communists imposed on South Vietnam. It ignores the tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who were executed by the communists, the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who were put in "reeducation camps" for years, and the million-plus South Vietnamese who fled South Vietnam rather than live under a communist dictatorship, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of North and South Vietnamese who starved to death because the North's leaders badly mismanaged the food supply after they took over South Vietnam.

If the Democrat-controlled Congress had not broken our treaty promise to provide South Vietnam with financial aid, weapons, and supplies if the North invaded, and had not broken our repeated private promise that we would provide air support if the North invaded, South Vietnam would have become another South Korea, another beacon of freedom and democracy in Asia and another counterweight against Red China.

I recently watched Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited, which presents new evidence that JFK planned to withdraw from South Vietnam even if it meant that South Vietnam fell to communism. Yet, RFK adamantly insisted that JFK did not intend to let South Vietnam fall to the communists.