It's quite fascinating how often this sort of statement is made by CT extremists (the most charitable term I can think of) like MTG, Dan O'Meara and Royell Storing. If you don't see what they see, you are a novice, unserious, unworthy, even dumb. You lack the deep, arcane knowledge and understanding that only they possess.
I was blessed by this on another thread today from Dan. The topic was the cosmically unimportant distinction, if any, between the phrases "right in front" and "almost directly in front" as applied to women standing on Elm when JFK's limo passed by:
"Your truly sad attempt to pass them off as the same thing is yet another example of the dumbness that plagues your every post."
Really? I won't strut my IQ or academic honors again (except by request! 
), but "dumbness" is not something of which I've ever been accused or that most people think shines through my writing.
One could, of course, fill pages with the number of times Royell has told others they are out of touch, out of date, unable to grasp the brilliance of his "research."
Why do CT extremists do this? It isn't that your POSITION is flawed or even silly - no, it's that YOU are a novice, unserious, uninformed, unworthy and just flat dumb.
The answer is in what psychologists call the "social" dimension of the conspiracy-prone mindset. As with many religions and cults, CTers are prone to thinking they are special, that they are the keepers of secret knowledge, that only they see and possess the dark truths that the mass of sheeple fail to see. The corollary - again, common to many religions and cults - is that the sheeple are uninformed, unworthy, even dumb.
Pay attention and you will be astounded at how often this card is played by CT extremists like MTG, Dan and Royell. Weirdly - or perhaps not - it's most commonly played against opponents whom the characterization pretty obviously DOESN'T FIT AT ALL. I might think Jim DiEugenio (just to cite an example) is neck-deep in the conspiracy-prone mindset and capable of believing things I find unbelievable, but I would say more about myself than him if I characterized him as a novice, unserious, uninformed, unworthy and dumb.
One problem with this polemic is that John Corbett
is unserious, and
is uninformed. Although he is technically not a novice since he has been debating the JFKA for a long time, he talks like a novice; he repeatedly talks like someone who is new to the case and who has read very little on the case. Did you not just read his severe blunder of claiming the FPP identified a piece of missing skull as frontal bone when in fact they did nothing of the sort (and, indeed, denied there was any missing frontal bone)? Did you miss that?
He also erroneously claimed, based on his incomplete reading of McDonnel, that the only area of missing frontal bone is nowhere near the hairline, when Dr. Angel's diagrams of the missing frontal bone refute this notion (and when numerous other experts have noted the skull x-rays show a substantial amount of missing bone, contrary to the FPP's fiction).
I only label WC apologists as unserious and uninformed if they prove they are unserious and uninformed. I do not automatically apply those labels to anyone who disagrees with me. I have acknowledged several times that some lone-gunman theorists are well read on the case and are willing to read pro-conspiracy research.
You, on the other hand, label anyone who posits a conspiracy in the case as an extremist and as a part of the lunatic fringe, and you've even said that conspiracy theorists suffer from warped brains and from a form of mental illness. You've even claimed that Greg Doudna, one of the most careful and thorough researchers around, a scholar who has even earned the respect of many lone-gunman theorists--you've labeled him as part of "the lunatic fringe."
And, I notice that you have not said one word about Corbett's embarrassing blunder, not to mention his transparently dishonest dodge to my previous reply to him. You pull this stunt all the time.
One of your comments about those who posit a conspiracy deserves special attention:
only they see and possess the dark truths that the mass of sheeple fail to see. The corollary - again, common to many religions and cults - is that the sheeple are uninformed, unworthy, even dumb.
LOL! This is exactly
your attitude. Let me remind you that innumerable surveys, going clear back into the late 1960s up to our day, show that 2/3 to 3/4 of the Western believes JFK was killed by a conspiracy. I've lost count of how many times your fellow WC apologists have responded to this fact by saying that Americans and Europeans have been "misled by conspiracy documentaries," that they "don't know all the facts," that they "haven't studied the case," that they don't know what pro-WC scholars have written, that they've succumbed to "Internet conspiracy mythology," etc., etc.
And, again, you've gone even further. You've claimed that anyone who believes JFK was killed by a plot must have a warped mind, must have a form of mental illness, must already be prone to see a conspiracy in major events, must have developed faulty neural pathways, etc., etc.
I have to chuckle at your assertion that conspiracy theorists claim to have some secret, arcane knowledge, (1) when the last federal investigation into the assassination concluded that JFK was killed by a conspiracy, that two gunmen were involved, that one of the shots came from the grassy knoll, etc., etc., (2) when conspiracy theorists have published their research in books that became best sellers, and (3) when the ranks of conspiracy theorists include credentialed historians, forensic pathologists, ballistics experts, physicists, physiologists, federal prosecutors, federal investigators, radiation oncologists, research scientists, acoustical scientists, law professors, neurologists, neuroscientists, surgeons, etc., etc.
Your pettiness is reaching new lows. After citing Dr. G.M. McDonnel to support your narrative, you turn around and chastise me for quoting from his report which you provided the link to.
No, your dishonesty and immaturity are reaching new lows. As anyone with a grasp of English can readily see, I did not chastise you for quoting from Dr. McDonnel's report. I chastised you (1) for only quoting his analysis of the enhanced skull x-rays, which obscure some of the damage; (2) for failing to acknowledge that the FPP even ignored Dr. McDonnel's analysis of the enhanced x-rays, not to mention his analysis of the unenhanced x-rays; and (3) for dishonestly trying to avoid admitting that you badly blundered in claiming that the FPP identified a piece of missing skull as frontal bone, when they did no such thing.
I could have also pointed out in my reply that you also wrongly claimed, based on your incomplete reading of McDonnel, that the missing frontal bone was nowhere near the hairline, even though I had already pointed out to you in another thread that Dr. Angel's diagrams of the missing frontal bone show that it extended nearly to the hairline and consisted of a large part of the frontal bone.
BTW, Dr. Doug Ubelaker, a renowned forensic anthropologist with the Smithsonian Institution who studied the autopsy materials at the invitation of the ARRB, has noted the inconsistency between the amount of missing frontal bone and the intact appearance of the forehead in the autopsy photos:
. . . the apparent absence of bone in much of the anterior portion of these x-rays seems inconsistent with the intact appearance of the right forehead in the photos. (Meeting Report, ARRB, 1/26/96, p. 2)When I noted this fact in another thread, you responded by calling Dr. Ubelaker a "clown" and dismissing his analysis because he is "only" a forensic anthropologist. Yeah, never mind that forensic anthropologists are frequently asked to examine forensic evidence in criminal cases and to testify as forensic experts in criminal trials. Never mind that forensic anthropologists are trained in forensic radiology. Never mind that Dr. Ubelaker has written articles on forensic science that have been published in peer-reviewed forensic journals, including
Forensic Science International,
Journal of Forensic Sciences, and
Forensic Sciences Research.
I guess it never occurred you to ask yourself why the ARRB asked Dr. Ubelaker to examine the autopsy materials, just as it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to ask yourself why the HSCA FPP asked forensic anthropologist Dr. Lawrence Angel to study the skull x-rays and the skull fragments to help them reconstruct the skull damage.
