How do we identify the lunatic fringe of conspiracy thinking?

[Lance Payette]

Like all Tinfoil Nutters, Lance has been told what to think by the ridiculous Warren Commission Report.
Can this ultimate of blowhards show us even the tiniest detail where he doesn't suck down what the WCR lies about?
Dear Lance - shown us a single instance where you differ from the WCR.

I think Dan must have been placed on earth solely for my benefit, at least insofar as the JFKA is concerned, because once again he unwittingly and witlessly raises an issue that had occurred to me after I had logged off.

I love how, at the lunatic fringe where Dan lurches around, the math works like this:

SUPPORTER OF THE LN NARRATIVE = CREDULOUS FOOL WHO KNOWS NOTHING MORE THAN THE WR AND BLINDLY ACCEPTS IT = PATHETIC WC SHILL

Uh, not exactly.

In fact, nothing but a straw man for Dan to attack because he's got nothing else, just as MTG attacks a straw man of me insisting all CTers are mentally ill. I'm confident MTG and Dan do have several screws loose and cogs askew, but I'll leave the actual diagnosis to a professional like Dr. Niederwacky. 

I had probably read 25 conspiracy-oriented books, maybe more, before I had read one page of the WR. I was posting CT-oriented blather at City Data Forum and elsewhere before I read one page of the WR. I spent almost an entire year reading NOTHING BUT what dedicated CTer Walt Brown had written, including his million-word Chronology, before I had read one page of the WR. I had read Harvey and Lee TWICE before I had read one page of the WR. I had ... well, you get the idea. AS WE SPEAK, I am rereading Gerald McKnight's Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why.

The WC per se means zilch to me. I posted only yesterday in a vein critical of the WR. My original post on THIS thread describes the SBT as the Achilles heel of the LN narrative. I have said that I respect the work of John Orr and his efforts to prove Mafia involvement, which I regard as by far the most plausible CT scenario. Oswald as a dupe of angry anti-Castro types is not implausible.

The WR and all the supporting documentation is simply a body of evidence, that and nothing more. There is nothing sacred about the WR. The LN narrative does not rise or fall with the WR. The LN rises or falls with the evidence, and so far it has stood the test of time. It is the only scenario that fits the definition of a theory - i.e., a well-established explanation supported by the evidence. The only real dents in the LN narrative are the "reasonable" or not-so-reasonable doubts raised about some aspects by those who like to play Oswald defense counsel. As I said, "I don't think Oswald would have been convicted in a criminal trial" is not an explanation or theory.

Dan and MTG play these straw man games precisely because they do occupy the lunatic fringe. MTG's work is so incoherent and internally inconsistent that it's almost spooky, if he really believes what he says and isn't just slinging poop in all directions in the hope that something, anything, will stick. Dan is just an angry blowhard and buffoon; I would like to think this is just a persona he has adopted for its amusement value, but if it's an act it's a pretty convincing one.

"Lance the uninformed WC shill who thinks all CTers are mentally ill?" Not exactly, but he makes a convenient straw man.

[Lance Payette]

Lance, I'm going to give a summary comment on the Tippit case and I would like you to explain if you classify it as "lunatic fringe" and say why. But first, a comment on the real issue you raise of what is the difference between a legitimate differing argument or interpretation of evidence, and "wacky" territory. I have an analogy here you might find instructive. It appears in a book I wrote a couple decades ago, "Showdown at Big Sandy", about a Bible college in east Texas I attended for two years in the 1970s. I was discussing the phenomenon of "cults", which is in some ways parallel to the definitional questions you raise here. What is the difference between a religion one does not personally believe, but which one does not regard it sociologically as a "cult"? At the time I wrote the book, one of the leading (supposedly) authorities on cults was Walter Martin, who wrote a book called "Kingdom of the Cults". He wrote from a conservative Christian perspective, and detailed an encyclopedic taxonomy of all sorts of various offbeat and idiosyncratic religious groups with which American history has been filled, part of America's claim to fame.   

The problem was in among the extensive cult listings in his book, Kingdom of the Cults, he listed Unitarians. Unitarians?? I found that odd. As I noted at the time, Unitarians have produced four American presidents and too many famous scientists to count--how on earth did he have them defined as a "cult"? Well, he gave his reasons, three reasons. Here is what, in his view, made Unitarians a "cult", and I am not making this up: Unitarians do not believe in the Trinity, they do not believe in hell, and they replace the authority of the Bible with reason. Those three things, said Martin, quite logically make Unitarians a "cult". Obviously Unitarians in America are not a "cult", and it is clear what was going with Martin: he was confusing his definition of "heresy" categories (beliefs different from what he considered correct historic Christian doctrines) with a sociological/behaviorial phenomenon, "cultism", not the same thing, a category confusion.

Greg, give me a bit of time to attempt to respond more thoughtfully to your Tippit scenario. It's 4:30 AM here, and I have six cats yapping for their food.

I have SO MUCH background in religion, and so much evolution of my own beliefs, that the "cult" label is one of my pet peeves. Insofar as what I think the actual Jesus was actually talking about, which I think had way more to do with how you live than what you believe, I have the highest respect for the supposed "cults" of Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons. I think some of their history and beliefs are "not exactly believable," but I also find it hard to believe that the Creator of the universe gives a crap about "correct doctrine." Ditto with the Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants - much that is "not exactly believable." That's why I stopped going to church many years ago; there is literally NO branch of the faith that doesn't require me to at least give lip service to major doctrines that I regard as "not exactly believable." The old saying that one man's ceiling is another man's floor can certainly be adapted in the vein of one man's religion is another man's cult. As Justice Stewart said about obscenity, I know a cult when I see one. (Scientology? Now THAT'S a cult!)