Try giving some thought to the TSBD

[Lance Payette]

Yet another topic where I find it useful to step back from conspiracy minutiae and attempt to think rationally …

All discussions of the TSBD take the circumstances as they were on 11-22-63 and work forward from there. Where was LHO when the shots were fired? How did the real assassin escape? Yada yada.

Step back and think about what the circumstances easily MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

According to a report dated April 3, 1964 from Hoover to Rankin, 73 individuals were known to have been in the TSBD on that date. Truly testified the warehouse crew was 15 employees, plus the administrators of the TSBD such as himself. In addition, seven publishing companies had office suites, and the Warren Report states that publishing company employees comprised the majority of people in the building.

If there were conspirators, how would they have had ANY IDEA what might be taking place inside the building when JFK’s motorcade passed by? No one had any control over what the publishing company employees and their guests might be doing. No effort was made to control the TSBD employees. No memos were issued instructing all employees to be outside during the motorcade to show support for our wonderful President or anything like that. No one had the foresight to block off the 6th floor as a construction zone. No one had any way of knowing that DPD officers or SS agents wouldn’t be assigned to the roof or upper floors.

Any number of persons – i.e., potential witnesses – could have been ANYWHERE inside the TSBD when JFK was shot. How does this square with ANY rational conspiracy scenario that involves the TSBD? “We’ll just wing it and hope it all works out” – really? “We’ll just control our patsy and get our gunmen out of there somehow or another” – really?

Even LHO as a Lone Assassin is difficult to explain, but much easier. LHO did have routine access to the 6th floor as part of his job. He did know that a crew was replacing the flooring and the area was a mess, with boxes stacked in the southeast corner. But how could LHO know that 3, 5 or more individuals wouldn’t decide to watch from the 6th floor? He couldn’t – and I don’t think he cared.

What would LHO have done if Williams, Jarman and Norman had decided to watch from the 6th floor instead of the 5th – simply called off the assassination? Shot them too? I think not. I think he would have fired from his hidden perch and dealt with the consequences. Until he actually found himself outside the TSBD, I don’t think he had any plan of escape or expectation of escaping. I think he was astonished to find himself alone on the 6th floor and then outside on the sidewalk.

When we step back and consider what MIGHT HAVE BEEN OCCURRING inside the TSBD during the noon hour, and what no conspirator would have had any way of knowing WOULDN’T BE OCCURRING and NO WAY OF PREVENTING IF IT DID, no conspiracy scenario makes any sense at all – does it? Only LHO as the Lone Assassin makes any sense, and then only if you accept (as I do) that he had nothing resembling an escape plan or expectation of escape. Even if you dispute whether the descriptions fit Oswald, we KNOW a gunman was observed on the 6th floor – and it makes no sense for that gunman to have been anyone other than LHO.

Try running your pet conspiracy scenario through the Bayesian Common Sense, Logic and Rationality Meter ($32.50 at Walmart) and see if it really makes any sense at all. Spoiler alert: No, it doesn’t, at least if it involves conspiratorial shenanigans inside the TSBD. If your conspiracy theory involves LHO doing pretty much everything that Lone Nutters posit him doing, with some additional factors that make it a conspiracy, at least the needle on the Bayesian meter won’t immediately shoot into the Giggle Zone.

I realize these "common sense" posts aren't nearly as much fun as the minutiae-oriented mental masturbation that is the lifeblood of CTers and LNers alike, but epistemology is kind of my thing.

[Royell Storing]

  The above builds a solid case for a shooter(s) firing shots from OUTSIDE THE TSBD. Why risk someone stumbling onto you inside that building? Makes sense. Thanks for endorsing a Conspiracy being in play during the JFK Assassination.

[Lance Payette]

  The above builds a solid case for a shooter(s) firing shots from OUTSIDE THE TSBD. Why risk someone stumbling onto you inside that building? Makes sense. Thanks for endorsing a Conspiracy being in play during the JFK Assassination.

You're quite welcome! As you note, my point is that, if there were a conspiracy involving a gunman other than LHO, rationality demands that said gunman was outside the TSBD. I will now post a thread to the effect that rationality likewise demands a gunman at the rear whose shots could plausibly be attributed to LHO and that a frontal gunman makes no sense whatsoever. As we narrow our thinking to what rationality demands, we find that much Conspiracy Thinking and innumerable Conspiracy Factoids fall by the wayside.

The distinction that you in your CT zeal fail to make is that I am not "endorsing a Conspiracy" but rather "endorsing rational thinking about what any Conspiracy could possibly have looked like." If Conspiracy World operated according to common sense, logic and rationality, 85% of Conspiracy Thinking would simply go poof.

[Steve M. Galbraith]

You're quite welcome! As you note, my point is that, if there were a conspiracy involving a gunman other than LHO, rationality demands that said gunman was outside the TSBD. I will now post a thread to the effect that rationality likewise demands a gunman at the rear whose shots could plausibly be attributed to LHO and that a frontal gunman makes no sense whatsoever. As we narrow our thinking to what rationality demands, we find that much Conspiracy Thinking and innumerable Conspiracy Factoids fall by the wayside.

The distinction that you in your CT zeal fail to make is that I am not "endorsing a Conspiracy" but rather "endorsing rational thinking about what any Conspiracy could possibly have looked like." If Conspiracy World operated according to common sense, logic and rationality, 85% of Conspiracy Thinking would simply go poof.

Of course he misses your other point about the difficulty - impossibility really - in framing Oswald for the shooting. As in: how do you control events INSIDE THE BUILDING? How do you control or know not just about Oswald's movements during the shooting but about the movements of the dozen-plus other people in the building who could give him an alibi?

So they control/manipulate Oswald. As usual. In conspiracy world he never has agency anyway; he's always being directed by others. How about the others? How are they going to be controlled?

In the real world with actual human beings and human nature you can't. In conspiracy world you can. You can control people, alter evidence, plant rifles and shells and fingerprints, alter films and photos, coerce and kill witnesses. And then cover all of this up for half a century.

It is bonkers. Absolute bonkers.

[John Iacoletti]

What would LHO have done if Williams, Jarman and Norman had decided to watch from the 6th floor instead of the 5th – simply called off the assassination? Shot them too? I think not. I think he would have fired from his hidden perch and dealt with the consequences. Until he actually found himself outside the TSBD, I don’t think he had any plan of escape or expectation of escaping. I think he was astonished to find himself alone on the 6th floor and then outside on the sidewalk.

Cool story, bro.  Isn't it fun to fantasize?

I realize these "common sense" posts aren't nearly as much fun as the minutiae-oriented mental masturbation that is the lifeblood of CTers and LNers alike, but epistemology is kind of my thing.

"Common sense" is not evidence.  It's what people appeal to when they don't have evidence.  Basically the argument you are trying to make is that it makes more "sense" to you that Oswald did it, therefore he did.  That's one way of approaching the subject, but I wouldn't call it epistemology.

[Lance Payette]

Cool story, bro.  Isn't it fun to fantasize?

"Common sense" is not evidence.  It's what people appeal to when they don't have evidence.  Basically the argument you are trying to make is that it makes more "sense" to you that Oswald did it, therefore he did.  That's one way of approaching the subject, but I wouldn't call it epistemology.

Ever say anything substantive or are your 11,000 posts all pretty much inane observations such as these? Perhaps you can point me to some post where you actually said something? Are you posts supposed to be witty, is that it?

As Alvin Plantinga, one of the premier epistemologists of the 20th century pointed out, epistemic warrant (i.e., justification) hinges on "properly functioning cognitive faculties." If you can't articulate how your interpretation of evidence is rational, logical and coherent, you might want to check the old cognitive faculty dipstick and see if you're a quart low.

My post here makes the limited point that no inside-the-TSBD conspiracy scenario makes any sense. If you think it does, add a quart - or maybe two - to your cognitive faculties and get back to us with your explanation.

Play the one-liner game with me at your own risk.

[John Iacoletti]

Ever say anything substantive or are your 11,000 posts all pretty much inane observations such as these? Perhaps you can point me to some post where you actually said something? Are you posts supposed to be witty, is that it?

Like your appeals to "common sense" and "no conspiracy would do that" are substantive?

Like your notion of "rational, logical and coherent" is agreeing with the fantasy stories you like to make up?

Like you insist that you don't really care that much about the case, but you spend all this time and energy trying to debunk any challenge to the orthodoxy?

[Tom Graves]

Like your notion of "rational, logical and coherent" is agreeing with the fantasy stories you like to make up?

Iacoletti,

What "fantasy stories"?