John Newman is way more interesting than you ever imagined!

[Tom Graves]

That's kind of my feeling too, but thanks! 

Fancy Pants Lance,

Just curious: Are you going to join Comrade Tulsi Gabbard's "Strike Force" against "traitorous" Barack Obama?

-- Tom

[Michael T. Griffith]

A vast body of psychological and sociological literature has identified a distinct, conspiracy-prone mindset that Newman exemplifies. It isn't necessarily pathological or aberrant, but it is "different" and does tend to skew one's perspective. Those with this mindset are often intelligent, articulate and educated, but they are fanatics and are viewing the same situations and sets of facts very differently from those who don't share the conspiracy-prone mindset.

This is just so much poppycock. I could say much the same thing about those with an everything-is-a-coincidence mindset. Hundreds of people each year are convicted of conspiracy in various crimes in the U.S. alone, ranging from conspiracy to commit violence to conspiracy to commit fraud to conspiracy to commit theft, etc., etc. The U.S. Code contains numerous statutes against a wide range of types of conspiracy. State criminal codes likewise contain numerous statutes against conspiracy. U.S. law contains so many statutes against conspiracy because conspiracies are a reality of human existence and happen quite frequently.

It is ironic that many of the same people who decry the so-called "conspiracy mindset" are quick to posit conspiracies against political figures and against others they don't like. These folks also seem to be oblivious to the many conspiracies in previous decades and centuries that have been identified by historians. They also tend to be loathe to acknowledge conspiracy on the part of politicians they admire.

For example, there is now no serious doubt that Biden's inner circle conspired to conceal the severity of Biden's mental decline, but many liberals still refuse to admit this fact. Similarly, there is now no serious doubt that Bush administration officials suppressed intelligence reports that contradicted their narrative that Saddam Hussein was developing WMDs, and that some of them even knowingly provided false intelligence estimates, but some diehard Bush supporters still refuse to admit this. 

Many of the JFK researchers I know have no "conspiracy mindset." They take each case separately and come to it with no inclination to find a conspiracy. If anything, personally, I am slightly inclined to be skeptical of conspiracy claims in any given case. I am certainly not averse to acknowledging evidence of conspiracy when I find it, but I generally come to a case with a small of amount skepticism about claims of conspiracy.

[Lance Payette]

This is just so much poppycock. I could say much the same thing about those with an everything-is-a-coincidence mindset. Hundreds of people each year are convicted of conspiracy in various crimes in the U.S. alone, ranging from conspiracy to commit violence to conspiracy to commit fraud to conspiracy to commit theft, etc., etc. The U.S. Code contains numerous statutes against a wide range of types of conspiracy. State criminal codes likewise contain numerous statutes against conspiracy. U.S. law contains so many statutes against conspiracy because conspiracies are a reality of human existence and happen quite frequently.

Yes, you could say the same thing, but you would be wrong. Over the past 20 years, a vast number of studies and peer-reviewed professional journal articles and books have identified a distinct profile of those prone to conspiracy thinking. If you believe this is "poppycock," you are simply uninformed. The profile that has emerged is not really what the popular idea of "tinfoil hat conspiracy nuts" was before the intensive research of the past 20 years, but it is a distinct profile shared by a distinct minority of people.

Those not prone to the conspiracy mindset are perfectly capable of recognizing actual conspiracies when they occur. The conspiracy prone mindset is something entirely different. Your response is precisely what is expected from a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracist: "Conspiracy prone mindset? Poppycock. There ain't no such thing. All the professional studies and literature are bogus."

I happen to believe an understanding of the conspiracy prone mindset is THE key to understanding the JFKA. 9/11, UFO debates and many other subjects where the conspiracy prone mindset is prevalent.

One excellent, scholarly book I read last year examined the most wild conspiracy theories over the past 100 years and made an extremely valuable point that is pertinent to the JFKA debate: In EVERY case, there was indeed malfeasance and incompetence and attempts at covering it up. This provided fodder for those with the conspiracy prone mindset to weave their fantasies. Alas, their fantasies had nothing to do with the actual malfeasance and incompetence. If those who had committed the malfeasance and incompetence had simply been transparent about it, the wild conspiracy theories would never have been launched.

I refer you to a professional, peer-reviewed article from June 2023 published in the Psychological Bulletin of the American Psychological Association, "The Conspiratorial Mind: A Meta-Analytic Review of Motivational and Personological Correlates," https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-bul0000392.pdf. It is an analysis of what the authors call a "tidal wave" of recent research comprising  170 studies, 257 samples, 52 variables, 1,429 effect sizes, and 158,473 participants.

Poppycock? Hardly. More like THE key to understanding the JFKA debate. Not as f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-i-n-g as mentally masturbating over the details of the SBT for 947th time, of course, but scarcely poppycock.