Why So Many Conservatives Accept the WC or Just Don't Care

[Tim Nickerson]

In my experience, in general, conservative folks tend to accept the word of authority more readily than liberal folks do.

Not any more. With the JFK case, it's not a matter of accepting the word of authority. It's a matter of knowing and accepting the evidence.

[Tim Nickerson]

Are conservatives more logical than liberals?

Just ask this question - Can a man get pregnant?

What are conservatives saying on this issue and what are liberals saying?

Boom!!

[Martin Weidmann]

Not any more. With the JFK case, it's not a matter of accepting the word of authority. It's a matter of knowing and accepting the evidence.

It's a matter of knowing assuming and blindly and without any question accepting the evidence.

There, I fixed it for you, Tim

[Michael T. Griffith]

The George Floyd case is another example of a subject that has no business being discussed in a book about the JFK assassination. Yet, a very good book on JFK's murder that was published just last year includes a recitation of the erroneous liberal version of Floyd's death.

Why risk annoying or alienating a sizable segment of your potential audience by including opinions on a controversial issue that has nothing to do with JFK's death? Why?

Another example: I'm very comfortable with my moderate position on illegal immigration and Dreamers. That's one reason that Trump was not even among my top three picks for the GOP nomination in 2016. I wanted Kasich, Rubio, or Carson to get the nomination. Now, I know that most conservatives ardently, passionately reject any pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
That's one reason that I do not discuss my views on the subject in my JFK writings, not to mention the fact that the subject has nothing to do with the JFK case.

As I've mentioned, I know lots of conservative Republicans who don't buy the lone-gunman theory, but most of them don't care about the case because they have the perception that most pro-conspiracy books are written by immoral, anti-American, anti-military ultra-liberals.

I've had a number of conservatives send me angry e-mails after they came across my websites on the OJ Simpson case, the Pacific War and the A-bomb, and Pearl Harbor. I've never mentioned these issues in my JFK writings, but I do include a link to my Real Issues Home Page on my JFK site, and sometimes conservatives visit the home page and discover that I hold what they regard as very non-conservative, even "anti-American," views on those subjects.

On the other hand, I've had other conservatives tell me that because they respected my research on the JFK case and/or on Joseph McCarthy, they were willing to consider my views on the A-bomb, OJ, and Pearl Harbor when they found my websites on those issues, and that I either changed their minds on one or more of those issues or at least enabled them to respect my views on them. This may not have happened if I had included my views on those issues in my JFK and McCarthy writings.

[Michael T. Griffith]

I remember how "shocked" and "dismayed" some conspiracy theorists were when Jim Marrs revealed in 2016 that he was big Trump supporter and that he viewed Hillary Clinton as the deep state's candidate. Marrs had never discussed his political preferences in the various editions of his famous book Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy. I think most researchers just assumed that he was a liberal, so many of them were shocked to learn that he supported Trump.

I happen to know that some of the experts that conspiracy theorists cite with glowing approval are conservatives, but conspiracy theorists seem to have no idea about this because those experts don't inject their politics into their JFK writings. They don't do this because they're the least bit ashamed of their politics but because they feel that their politics have no place in their JFK research, and also because they don't want to alienate anyone.

Some conspiracy theorists can be very closed minded when it comes to accepting research done by people who they know disagree with their politics. Of course, I know there are plenty of conservatives who will likewise summarily reject any research done by people who they know disagree with their politics, "e.g., if you're dumb enough to support Obama, I have no interest in anything you have to say." But this cuts both ways: many liberals have the attitude that "if you're stupid enough to vote for Trump, I don't trust a word that you say about anything."

I have personal experience with this sort of thing. Back in the late 1990s, when a certain prominent conspiracy theorist found out that I worked in the intelligence field in the U.S. Army, he began to view me with great suspicion and would not discuss the JFK case with me. I was like, "Seriously?" In his mind, anyone with any ties to U.S. intelligence was automatically suspect, and he simply refused to have anything else to do with me.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Regarding the reply that said that Vietnam is now friendly toward America and that many Vietnamese want American products, etc., etc., this observation ignores the brutality and tyranny that the communists imposed on South Vietnam. It ignores the tens of thousands of South Vietnamese who were executed by the communists, the hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese who were put in "reeducation camps" for years, and the million-plus South Vietnamese who fled South Vietnam rather than live under a communist dictatorship, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of North and South Vietnamese who starved to death because the North's leaders badly mismanaged the food supply after they took over South Vietnam.

If the Democrat-controlled Congress had not broken our treaty promise to provide South Vietnam with financial aid, weapons, and supplies if the North invaded, and had not broken our repeated private promise that we would provide air support if the North invaded, South Vietnam would have become another South Korea, another beacon of freedom and democracy in Asia and another counterweight against Red China.

I recently watched Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited, which presents new evidence that JFK planned to withdraw from South Vietnam even if it meant that South Vietnam fell to communism. Yet, RFK adamantly insisted that JFK did not intend to let South Vietnam fall to the communists.

[Joe Elliott]

Most of the replies are missing the point that JFK assassination authors should refrain from expressing their views on issues that do not directly relate to the JFK assassination, especially if those issues are controversial political or historical issues. That's the point.

For example, I have reluctantly and sadly concluded that the January 6 committee has presented solid evidence that Trump purposely delayed calling on the rioters to stand down. This shameful conduct makes him an accessory to the riot, and the GOP should repudiate him and expel him from the party for it. But, I'm never going to inject my view on this matter into one of my articles on the JFK assassination, even though I know that the majority of my readers would agree with it.

My guess is that by 2024, you will find reasons to support Trump's run for President. We will see if I am right on this.