RiverDog wrote:There are three elements to every crime: Means, motive, and opportunity. Conspiracy theories are no different. Conspiracists tend to concentrate on just one or two elements. For example, after the Bay of Pigs invasion, JFK is known to have said that he wanted to "blow the CIA into pieces and scatter it into the wind", so people will take that statement and use it to support their theory, that the CIA had ample motivation to take him out.
But the theory runs into multiple fatal objections. The first is the physical evidence, proving that even if they wanted to, which is highly debatable to say the least, and had the means to carry out the task, of which they unquestionably did, they did not have the opportunity at 12:30pm CST on 11/22/63. Secondly, there's the smell test. Why would the CIA arm their assailant with a $12 bolt action rifle? Why wouldn't they have provided a getaway plan, or assign someone to eliminate him immediately after completing the task rather than allowing him to get arrested by the police? It's preposterous to believe that an organization as professional and sophisticated as the CIA would make such huge oversights that the simplest of minds wouldn't make.
Such a conspiracy theory would have required the cooperation of hundreds of people scattered thousands of miles apart and all sworn to secrecy, many in very high political places. They would have had to have been prepared to fake autopsies at three possible locations: Parkland Memorial Hospital, Bethesda Naval Hospital, and Walter Reed Army Hospital, and done so within hours of the murder.
And that's just a snapshot of one example. So yes, my default position is that I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but it's not because I prefer a good night's sleep to a restless one. The vast majority lack the 3 elements to a crime nor do the pass the smell test.
Your focused every much on conspiracy theories amongst the popular culture crowd. These I view as distractions to the very real conspiracies that occur in the open that people tend to ignore even though they are criminal in nature, openly executed, and no one is answering for them such as the long, documented, and problematic alliance with Saudi Arabia to control oil which passes the smell test for a crime, but nothing is done about it.
Means? Control of the apparatus of government, the ability to make treaties and alliances, means to use the intelligence network of the American government, etc.
Motive? Control of the global oil supply, specifically price and the type of currency that can be used to purchase oil to ensure U.S. dollars are used as the global reserve currency thus making the dollar the most valuable and used currency in the world. The currency of international business.
Opportunity? We had the opportunity after World War 2 as the remaining dominant Super Power whose nation had not been torn apart by the war to assert ourselves as the dominant international player in oil and commerce. We took advantage of it.
The Crimes? Too numerous to list but include nation building, installing leaders, providing intelligence, weapons, and support to dictators used to murder competitors, defeat opposition groups, and install murderous dictatorial regimes who could provide stability in oil producing regions that agreed to take only U.S. dollars for oil.
Have we Americans greatly benefited from this move? Yep. Our corporations more than than the individual citizens, but our citizens as well.
This is an open conspiracy. Why folks like yourself have fun taking shots at the "looneys" who want to debate something like who murdered JFK or whether UFOs exist, I view that as more of the distractions humans use to avoid thinking about the real, well documented conspiracies that occur every day that lead to far more pain, suffering, and tyranny in the world than who shot JFK or whether a UFO landed because they know they are absolutely powerless to stop the real conspiracies in the world that do the most harm.
Even the invention of the atomic bomb was a conspiracy driven by global competition for control and power, not for the benefit of regular humans who will be burned to ashes in wars between powerful nuclear capable nation states.
My point is there are criminal conspiracies every day that you do nothing about. You are focusing on conspiracy theories you can easily make fun of because everyone does it, while you ignore the very real conspiracies committed by people in America often in collusion with people from other nations that are harmful to us and to the people in those nations. You ignore these conspiracies because to do otherwise would invite the kind of insanity you see from conspiracy theorists. I don't imagine you to be a person with no moral sensibilities, so I would think some of this stuff American involves itself in would not align with your idea of right and wrong.
The world is a competition. The rules aren't the same for everyone. I think not believing conspiracies is not in line with the evidence. There is a lot going on in the world and a lot of conspiracies all the time. The whacky conspiracy theories are just distractions from the reality of what is being done to hold power in this world. JFKs assassination is small potatoes compared to what is done to hold power and even if you proved who did it, who cares. Far worse has and will be done in this world in the global competition for power and money.
I'm hoping as communication world wide gets better, it will be far more difficult to manipulate large groups of people into conflict. We get used far too often as pawns in the world power game to tragic ends.
I'm sure you one of those folks that doesn't spend much time thinking on existential matters like this. I spend too much time on it. So I'll move back to the thread topic now as this could go on endlessly. Most people just aren't that interested in an existential discussion on global competition between human power groups for control and wealth.