Douglas Young ponders how close to the edge our lives are.
In the wake of the near assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally, a large number of Americans have wondered if he survived solely “by the grace of God.” Indeed, many believe that the Almighty Himself must have altered the direction of the assassin’s bullet so that it grazed Mr. Trump’s ear instead of hitting his head.
But if we accept this and are logically consistent, do we not also have to believe that God guided the assassin’s bullet that killed the devoted father shielding his wife and children at the event, as well as the bullets seriously wounding two other men? Or that He simply did not care about them?
I think the July 13 assassination attempt is all the more disturbing because it highlights so starkly just how huge a role luck plays in our lives. It is sobering to realize that, no matter how good or careful we think we are, very often we have no control over whether we get terminal cancer, crippled or killed in a car wreck, or even shot.
I suspect the major novelist Norman Mailer was right that this is why we prefer conspiracy theories to make sense of senseless tragedies. So instead of a total loser like Lee Harvey Oswald being able to kill President John Kennedy and change history all by himself, we much prefer to believe that only a massive cabal involving the CIA, our military-industrial complex, the Mafia, the Russians, or the Cubans could have managed such a massively consequential crime.
Now, despite clear evidence of recent rank incompetence at the U.S. Secret Service, we are sorely tempted to believe that last month’s extremely close call with the GOP presidential nominee had to be the result of a well-coordinated plot involving the CIA, other government officials, and/or even the Secret Service – anything but that awkward and lonely assassin barely out of his teens acting by himself. Yet almost every shooter of an American president has been an utter failure who somehow single-handedly pulled off what was assumed to be almost impossible.
In 1835, President Andrew Jackson survived an assassination attempt by a deranged man convinced he was a 15th century English king. In 1881, President James Garfield was murdered by a lone gunman and likely schizophrenic whose life had been a complete catastrophe. In 1901, President William McKinley was shot to death by an unemployed socialist-anarchist. In 1963 President Kennedy was cut down by a mentally ill high school dropout who had become a communist. And in 1981, President Ronald Reagan was shot by an insane loner hoping to impress a famous actress he had not even met.
The assassins of other American public figures were equally pathetic losers acting alone. In 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by an elementary school dropout and career petty criminal. Also that year, U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was slain by a miserably angry Palestinian college dropout and failed horse jockey. In 1972, Alabama Governor and Democratic presidential hopeful George Wallace was shot and paralyzed by a mentally disturbed tech school dropout. And in 1980, the great Beatle John Lennon was assassinated by a jobless psychotic.
So should we really be shocked that former President Trump was almost taken out by a 20-year-old nursing home dishwasher with body odour Considering the pitiful profiles of almost all major American political assassins (only President Abraham Lincoln’s killer, the very successful actor John Wilkes Booth, was the exception – and Lincoln’s murder was a conspiracy), why should we expect otherwise?
However disruptive to our desire for public order, there is much incompetence and failure throughout all societies, including even at elite government agencies like the Secret Service. To be fair, bodyguards can successfully protect a president in 999 out of 1,000 public appearances, but we will only remember that one failure; nor will we ever know of all the other attempts on leaders’ lives that were thankfully thwarted by law enforcement.
Recalling the many times I have been blessed to meet famous folks I admired, most had no security. How chillingly easy it would have been for an evil person to attack them. Perhaps we are actually fortunate there have not been far more such tragedies. It might also be instructive just to remind ourselves that this is a deadly dangerous world which none of us will survive.
If not even the best-guarded people on the planet can always be protected from the most pathetic of murderous lunatic losers, then perhaps each of us should resolve all the more to make every effort to reach our fullest potential, and as soon as we can, precisely because this life is so precarious, brief, and therefore precious.
___
Dr. Douglas Young is a political science professor emeritus who taught government and history for over 33 years and whose essays, poems, and short stories have appeared in a variety of publications in America, Canada, and Europe. His first novel, Deep in the Forest, was published in 2021 and the second, Due South, came out in 2022. His most recent book, This Little Opinion Plus $1.50 Will Buy You a Coke: A Collection of Essays, was published in 2024.
Clearly, the writer is a paid-up full-fledged member of the Illuminati, here to distract us from the continuing efforts of the New World Order to destroy any figure who rises high and then attempts to educate us about this deadly Cabal.
😉
(I’d posit that the acceptance of “global warming” is related to our need for conspiratorial explanation. “Us versus Them” is less frightening than “stuff happens.”)
The situation looks more dubious when you know that the Secret Service had been refusing any protection to Robert Kennedy, Jr., and had been turning down Donald Trump’s requests for increased protection. They may not have trained or recruited the assassin but they were sure acting as if they would be just as happy if one showed up, even if it was emotional bias rather than conscious scheming.
How many times did God save Hitler?
20 years ago I shook hands with, and had a brief natter with the Duke of Edinburgh, after HMQ started to natter to the person just past me. In reflection it’s amazing how much society has changed that that seemed just so “normal” back then.
John Wilkes Booth was the most famous actor of the day. It would be like Tom Cruise popping the president.
This book analyses in depth the Kennedy assassination in Dallas:
https://archive.org/details/FryTheBrainTheArtOfUrbanSniping
The illustrations in the original, printed copy are poor so no need to buy a copy to get clearer pictures.
If you watch the video of the assassinaton, then the time taken for the shots to hit Kennedy, from the supposed range that Lee Harvey Oswald fired from then it is impossible for anyone to have manipulated the bolt of the rifle (or any bolt action rifle, Lee Enfields notwithstanding)he used . Therefore it must, by simple deduction of the published evidence and the videos, have been multiple shooters, minimum of two.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump: the shooter was on a roof about 130 metres from the speaker’s podium and in direct line of sight, and that roof had not been secured.
And the writer thinks that was simple incompetence?
There is a Great Deal of Incompetence in a Nation.
It is obviously true that luck can play a large part in our lives. On th other hand it is also true that “sheer luck” is sprinkled on a base composed of choices / behaviour that permit the sprinkled luck to have a greater or lesser effect.
Thus, by running for President, you greatly increase your chances of having a nutjob (or a wicked Commie agent) take a pot shot at you. Nearly 10% of US presidents have been assassinated. If you smoke you’re more likely to get lung cancer. If you save diligently and invest diligently in the stock market from age 20, you are more likely to be rich at 60, than if you invest in champagne and dancing girls from age 20. (Which is not to say that a misspent youth is less valuable than a comfortable old age.)
So there is a companion to Mailer’s theory of conspiracy theories serving as a comfort blanket against the cruel vicissitudes of fate. And that is the theory of “I just had bad luck, it’s not my fault. And he doesn’t deserve it. He just got lucky.”
Since most of our apparent “luck” , good or bad, derives from an untangleable mix of “sheer luck” and “our own choices” it is probably sensible, if incorrect, to order society on the principle that we each deserve our luck. For that is the way to get more people making good choices. If we order it on the equally unsound basis that our own choices are a puny nothing compared to the action of fate, we will get more bad choices.
There is little serious theological training now – certainly not for ordinary people, and often not for priests and ministers as well (instead there is a lot of “Social Justice” stuff – about how more government spending and regulations helps-the-poor – which it does NOT).
So basic things, such as why God allows bad things to happen to good people, are not taught.
Miracles are possible (David Hume’s “refutation” of them basically amounts to saying that miracles are not possible because they violate scientific law – which totally misses the point that the very definition of a “miracle” is that it violated scientific law), but they are not delivered for political reasons.
Free will, moral agency, exists – which means that people have the freedom to choose to do evil things (in the full knowledge that they are evil things) – and also that people have the ability, with great effort, to resist the passions – to choose NOT to do evil things.
But accidents, chance, also exists – and, contrary to Epicurus, this is a totally different thing from free will.
It was chance, accident, when President Trump moved his head when he did.
The question that has been on my mind regarding the Trump assassination attempt, but which I’m not aware anyone’s been asking, is: what about all the Trump rallies before Butler?
To explain: either the Secret Service properly secured all previous venues to a highly professional standard, as we would hope and expect they ought to do, or they were lax and the previous venues were, as in the case at Butler, not secure. In either of those cases, there ought to be evidence available to find–if not from USSS directly, at least from local law enforcement at those sites, much as we’ve seen emerging at Butler.
In the latter case, it would surely clinch the case that this is institutional incompetence on a monumental scale, and further resignations or sackings need to follow.
In the former case, there is a follow-on question: how many would-be assassins were arrested at the well-secured venues?
If other potential gunmen have been arrested at Trump rallies, we can look at Butler as an outlier; incompetence in securing the site on that day, by that team. And while that is a terrible lapse, with tragic consequences, it is probably the least-bad scenario.
Because if every previous venue were competently secured, and there had been zero attempts thwarted on all those occasions, one has to wonder how it came to be that on the only occasion that USSS left the site woefully insecure, that was the first time an assassin tried to get to Trump.
I really hope that there’s evidence that previous sites’ security was also incompetent, because if there’s no track record of catching other potential shooters, the remaining alternatives at Butler are a startling degree of coincidence…or collusion.
Still a long campaign trail until the election.
I would be unsurprised if someone else didn’t have a pop at former President Trump.
Hopefully the Secret Service will be more on point this time.
Pete L said:
Unmitigated bullshit. The documented shooting of President John F. Kennedy was easily within the equally documented capabilities of Lee Harvey Oswald and the rifle he used, a Mannlicher-Carcano.
Note that I say “Documented”, because while I’ve seen the public evidence, and it all adds up (The Warren Commission managing at least plausibility…), I can’t account for the things that aren’t in the document trail that might militate for other explanations of what happened.
Carcano’s are not “bad rifles”; Lee Harvey Oswald was not a bad shot; the distances and speeds involved do not rule out the two of them together doing what was documented. That’s been demonstrated multiple times by reenactors with the same gear.
James Strong
And the writer thinks that was simple incompetence?
I do think it was most likely utter, cataclysmic incompetence. One should never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. And that is especially true of government agencies. I think we have been left with this idea of the secret service being this super duper premium organization, the best of the best of the best. But I don’t think that is true at all. I think they show all the classic signs of an American government agency. What they can’t handle though quality staff they handle through throwing massive gobs of money at it. Look at presidential motorcades or Airforce One: massive amounts of money and inconvenience.
Which isn’t to say I don’t think the line officers are competent and brave. They probably are, it is no small thing to throw your body on top of the protectee in an active shooter situation. Again, like most government agencies it is a “lions lead by donkeys” situation.
That roof was left unprotected because of bad communication, terrible organization and a general sense of complacency. These are very common attributes in big agencies. I doubt very much there was some big conspiracy. Their solution will be massive overstaffing, gigantic amounts of money. Swatting flies with jack hammers.
Do I think the Biden administration was less than enthusiastic to give too much to Trump? I think their attitude to JFK Jr., with his peculiar history, tells you all you need to know. But this was not some big conspiracy. Just layer upon layer of incompetence.
I agree with Fraser, with one proviso.
I don’t rule out the possibility of some middle ranking Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferer being told by an underling : “the Trump team is asking for more protection again” and thinking “if that jerk wants to do a lot of outdoor meetings, why should we put ourselves out ? It’s not as if he would be missed. In fact it might be cool if one nutjob cleans up another one.”
anon makes the same point on August 2, 2024 at 7:31 am, that I’ve been making since day one: If we are to believe that this was a one-time failure, and that the Crooks kid just happened to be able to wend his way through security that was overtaxed just this one time… Odds are somewhere approaching “impossibly unlikely” that there are two correct assertions: The first being that this was a one-off never-to-be-repeated security failure, or that he “had help”.
My guess would be that it’s not entirely all that unlikely that the first assertion is false, and that the second one is also likely to be true. The security being deficient is something I’d lay you long odds wasn’t accidental, and that “they” (whoever they are…) got tired of waiting for someone to notice and do something. How they got to Crooks? No idea, but from the appearances, he looks less and less likely to be a spontaneous actor. Those cell phone records showing someone near his house and then near the Secret Service/FBI admin facilities in DC? Hmmm? Strike you as a little… Odd?
Show me proof that the Biden Administration orchestrated this? I’d believe it. Show me proof that Trump or his organization did it? I’d believe that, too… The odds that this “just happened” are infinitesimal. Someone, somewhere, planned this and made it happen. I’ve no idea who.
I’ve been pleased with Trump’s performance, overall. Pleasantly surprised, even, except on spending. I only ever voted for him because “Not Hillary”, but… I’m overall happy with having done so. The flip side to that is that I still have my doubts; the man was clearly unprepared for victory in 2016, so I could be convinced that he initially ran as an easy “fall guy” for the Clinton crew, thinking he couldn’t win. That’d answer the question for why they’ve gone after him the way they have, at least…
We shall have to wait and see what eventuates. My mind is open to all possibilities, at this point. Up to, and including alien space bats screwing with all of our heads. If Kamala Harris were to unmask herself as a Reptiloid at her inauguration, I’d just nod my head and say “Yeah, I knew it…”
The only “conspiracy theory” that ever interested me about the murder of President Kennedy was more of a “cock up” than a conspiracy theory.
All but one of the Secret Service men had got drunk at a strip club the night before (the U.S. government was already going rotten) – the one sober Secret Service man, a Mormon, was given a rifle on the day (rifles were an experiment for the Secret Service – they had not long been in use), but he had not trained on it.
The theory is that when the convoy came under fire from the Book Depository the Secret Service man (who was in the car behind the President) raised his rifle to return fire and accidently (accidently) let off a round – which hit President Kennedy in the head.
I have no idea if this old story is true – but it is the sort of thing that happens in high stress situations using weapons with which they are not familiar.
I am also told that this agent was the one agent who did not give evidence to the Warren Commission.
Being a Mormon, so the story goes, he took telling the truth seriously – so might have blurted out that he had shot the President. Not a good look for the government to admit to accidentally being responsible for the death of the President (although Jack Kennedy was dying of Addison’s Disease anyway – there is no way he could have been the candidate in the 1964 November election, his illness would have been horribly obvious by then).
Again no idea whether the old story is true – the story was told to me a very long time ago.
@Paul Marks,
I’ve heard the same story from multiple sources, but I remain unconvinced on the issue.
LBJ was a little “too prepared” for what happened in Dallas, that day. I suspect that were you to go looking, you’d find someone in the Secret Service who was beholden to him, and who had influence over what happened in Dallas.
I still believe JFK was very lucky he was assassinated, in terms of his historical reputation. From what he actually did and had covered up by the press, in those days? He was ripe for either blackmail or exposure, and that wouldn’t have been good for his saint-like reputation of today. He was martyred; had he lived, he’d have managed an epic self-immolation such that he’d have likely looked back and wished someone hadn’t missed on that day in Dallas. Like the rest of his family, the man was scum of the basest order.
It’s bizarre how often these jackasses fool themselves into thinking they can “win” by doing things like this. LBJ wanted eternal fame for his presidency; what he got was one term and infamy for Vietnam. Similarly, the Biden cabal thought to ensure victory, and… Well, we’ll see what we shall see. I suspect that Kamala is going to implode, especially if she manages to eke out a win and take the office.
Biden should have been removed from office a year or two ago, under Article 25. The minute a Federal prosecutor says “Yeah, we’d go after him, but he’s too senile to put on trial…”?
That’s what I’d term a bit of a clue that the subject of said investigation shouldn’t be sitting in the Oval Office.
It’s also a testimony to the fact that it no longer makes a difference who the f*ck is sitting there; the people with their hands up his ass are who you’re voting for, and nobody knows their names… Nor were they ever elected.
Paul:
I am quite convinced that Kennedy was not killed by an AR15 handled by the Secret Service. No one heard it or saw it, and there were plenty of witnesses.
However, the AR15 is of interest. A deaf man called Ed Hoffman saw it, and had it brandished at him, when he approached the SS stopped under the railway bridge. He was trying to inform them that he had seen two men with a rifle behind the grassy knoll. For a long time he was disbelieved because the SS denied having a rifle that day. Eventually they had to admit they did, so now it is accepted that Hoffman was correct when he saw the SS rifle, but was somehow mistaken when he saw two men with a rifle behind the fence on the grassy knoll.
I’d be interested in Douglas Young’s debunking of Covid conspiracy theories. Not really.
I would also take issue with the writer about the assassin of Bobby Kennedy. Unlike his brother, Bobby had a proper autopsy, and we know for a fact that he was hit four times by bullets from a .22 revolver fired within two inches of him. All the bullets entered the rear of his body, going forward on a right to left trajectory. The fatal would was just behind his right ear.
Sirhan Sirhan was in front of him, firing wildly with a .22 revolver. He was never behind RFK, and never closer to him that several feet. The only man behind RFK to his right, armed with a .22 revolver, was the security guard, Thane Eugene Cesar. His revolver was never tested by the LAPD.
Was he part of a conspiracy? Was he the world’s worst security guard? We don’t know. But the facts of RFK’s autopsy do not lie.
Incidentally, none of this came out at Sirhan’s trial, because he didn’t have one. He was induced to plead guilty in return for the state not seeking the death penalty.
“I’d be interested in Douglas Young’s debunking of Covid conspiracy theories. Not really.”
too funny
Such a strange combination of thoughts/concepts in this essay, from the “disturbing” role of luck in our continued existence (and the patently obvious yet “sobering” realization that tragedies occur) to smelly dish-washers and other pathetic losers to an “instructive” reminder that “none of us will survive.”
Sobering realizations and instructive reminders, indeed. It may be sobering to realize – and instructive to remember – that past generations rarely experienced a day absent a conscious awareness of tragedy and mortality, and that their learning could be ours, too, if we were bent toward accepting it.
Is it possible that the demigod perspective of a humanist like Mr. Young needs occasional reminders of the precarious nature of his life? There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Additional thoughts, beginning with the conclusion.
“…perhaps each of us should resolve all the more to make every effort to reach our fullest potential, and as soon as we can, precisely because this life is so precarious, brief, and therefore precious.”
Life is precarious and brief; therefore, it is precious? I sense a faulty syllogism here. Every moment is held precious, perhaps that is the sentiment he was aiming at. But the value of life itself resides outside its frailty. Besides, the statement in full reeks of noisome desperation.
Is it doing that makes a life, or being?
Consider this summary: Douglas Young ponders the utilitarian power of 2 aspects of human life (its brevity and precariousness) to sustain humans’ fearful regard of life’s preciousness.
Would that he had pondered the etymology of “precarious” to guide his musings.
“fullest potential” – as compared to what? What is Mr. Young’s rubric to determine one’s fullest potential? I dare not suggest Solomon’s conclusion or WSC Answer #1. Possibly Aristotle’s eudaimonia?
“precious” – something of great value; not to be wasted or treated carelessly.
Perhaps he might share his musings regarding other aspects of human life that imbue it with value. Or was his appetite for intellectual rigor satiated with a weak, poorly reasoned argument to dismiss God and conspiracies on the way to scaring others into doing something with their lives?
Mr. Young writes, “It is sobering to realize that, no matter how good… we think we are, very often we have no control over whether we get terminal cancer, crippled or killed in a car wreck, or even shot.”
Again, how strange that Mr. Young – surrounded by eons of human experience and mountains of literature – is in a stupor concerning the nature of tragedy. How privileged one must feel to couple the merits of one’s own goodness to the occurrence of cancer, car wrecks, and random bullets.
However, to extend Mr. Young’s sobriety a little further, do not the most powerful demonstrations of the moral virtue of ‘goodness’ very often appear in the throes of tragedy? How good I think I am is proven/disproven by my response to tragedy, not the absence of it.
Why import a requirement for logical consistency to the Divine? Isn’t the Holocaust evidence enough that Divine Intervention is, at best, haphazard? Then there is the Red Terror in Russia and China. In a Steve Winwood song, Take It As It Comes, there’s the line ‘We’re written on wind, that’s a lot to haul.’ That Mr Trump survived was a miracle, that it was incompetence and not malice on the part of the United States that he was not killed would have been a greater miracle.
I myself think it was very kind of the Secret Service to let Mr. Crooks have a roof top without being disturbed and to politely let him get off 8 shots before bothering to react. Since we don’t have any previous instances of the FBI being this incompetent I’m inclined towards regarding it as deliberate.
I’ll guess that it’s easier to be less competent in guarding someone you hate.
“I’ll guess that it’s easier to be less competent in guarding someone you hate.”
This. My feeling is that there were a non insignificant number of people in Trump’s SS detail or the management thereof (probably more in the management side than the boots on the ground side) that really weren’t that bothered if he ended up dead. Ergo why bust a gut trying to cover every possibility? Do the bare minimum, have an easy life, and hey, if Trump cops a bullet its a nice bonus…….a passive conspiracy of indifferent incompetence rather than an active conspiracy of seeking to make an outcome come to pass. Both are still a conspiracy of course, its just rather hard to look into a man or woman’s soul in order to determine what the motivation for rank incompetence was. And therein lies the attraction to the conspirator…….
Jim,
That would be my take also. No conspiracy, just indifference. He gets shot, he gets shot. Who cares? Certainly no one in my chain of command.
All those dictators with the “fanatically loyal” personal guard suddenly make a great deal more sense. If you’re effectively running against the government, it is problematic to have the government in charge of your personal security as is to let them count the votes. Oh, wait…
Kirk – Johnson knew he was going to be President soon, indeed went around telling people (not something you would do if you were arranging a murder) – because he knew that Kennedy would have to resign because of his advancing Addison’s Disease and other health problems (Jack Kennedy even needed a corset to support him – yet the media pretended he was Elmo-the-mighty star-sportsman).
JohnK – the AR15 rifle had just been introduced to the Secret Service and was withdrawn (or at least restricted) soon after the Dallas mess.
By the way – if you want to shoot someone you do not have people out in the open doing it, so “the grassy knoll” is a blind ally.
The Castro regime (the DGI) had a motive for killing Kennedy – revenge for his anti Castro activities, although Kennedy was hopelessly incompetent (and blamed the CIA and the military for his own failings) – the American government had no motive to kill him, as he soon would had to resign anyway.
How the media would have reacted to their lies about “fit-healthy-moral” Kennedy, being exposed – I do not know.
Kirk – if Harris, or rather the people in the cities producing lots of fake mail-in ballots (and engaging in other fraud), does “eke out a win” is is all over.
What will “implode” is the United States of America.
It may implode anyway (even if Trump/Vance wins) – but with a Harris win, the collapse of the United States is certain.
As for Robert Kennedy – that was an obvious murder by the Arab gunman, there were plenty of people who watched him do it.
There was no reason for the U.S. government to kill Robert Kennedy.
The government, President Johnson and co, never had any intention of winning the Vietnam War (which COULD HAVE BEEN WON) – their intention was always a “political settlement” (which means defeat).
On the Welfare State – Johnson was at least as much a big spender as Robert Kennedy, and so was Hubert Humphrey and (it turned out) Richard Nixon. And they were all, including Nixon, supporters of the Civil Rights stuff. The “conservative” Nixon is a myth – he was a Progressive like the rest of them (he was an ardent admirer of “Teddy” Roosevelt).
So a “President Robert Kennedy” would have made no difference at all, all the stuff he wanted was happening anyway (with or without him).
Remember the establishment has been rotten since at least 1935 – when the Supreme Court ruled (5 to 4) that it was fine for the government to steal all privately owned monetary gold, and it was fine for the government to violate all contracts (public and private).
And the people de facto went along with that (60% to 40% – assuming that Governor Landon would not have done much the same sort of criminal antics as “FDR”, and I have nasty suspicion he would have been almost as bad) in the election of 1936 – and that can not just be blamed on biased radio stations (although they were biased). Although, yes, the Great Depression made people desperate and overwhelmed their judgement.
Belief in liberty, in limited government, was already a minority thing in the 1930s – both among the elite and among ordinary people.
If you had put the First Book of Samuel, Chapter Eight, in front of most voters they would have said – “but that says a King – we have an elected government, which can give us what we want and fight our battles for us”.
Thomas Paine seems to have been the first person to write, in the English language, that what was wrong for monarchies to do, such as issue fiat money and promise benefits to XYZ people, was fine if elected governments did it.
So this corruption at the heart of the Republic does not come from Marxism – as Thomas Paine died before Karl Marx was born.
High taxes as well for Thomas Paine – high taxes imposed a monarchy boo-hiss, high taxes imposed by a democratically elected government – wonderful.
But the high taxes should only hit the rich, the landowners – as if all taxes were not passed on and did not hit the whole community.
The second part of “The Rights of Man” (published in 1792) and “Agrarian Justice” (published 1797) might have come from the brain of K. Harris – it would be called “equity” stuff today. Lots of benefits for children, the old, the sick, the poor…..
So the danger to the Republic was there from the start – as such men as Roger Sherman and John Adams knew well.
As for Conservatives – at least in Britain, and many in America to, most of them totally misunderstand Edmund Burke and other such writers.
Most modern “Conservative” leaders in Britain (and people such as Richard Nixon in the United States) – to them Edmund Burke was saying that “change” should be gradual and peaceful, totally missing the point that ever Bigger Government “change” was not what Edmund Burke and the others wanted at all.
They wanted smaller government not bigger government.
As for modern refutations of Thomas Paine and co – see New York City, Chicago, and the State of California.
Three decades ago, I was in Dallas on business. On my day off, I visited Dealey Plaza. Back then, and I don’t know if it’s still the case, you could visit the Book Depository. You could stand quite close to the window where Oswald fired from, albeit behind a Perspex screen. There was even a Carcano rifle within the screen.
Even more decades ago while at university, I was in the gun club (local Territorial Army range) and shot a Lee Enfield rifle many times (when you still could in the UK). I’m not the greatest shot, but the range from the Book Depository to Dealey Plaza was, if memory serves (and it was a long time ago), 100 yards or so. It looked quite feasible to me even given a (slowly?) moving target. I’ve never fired a Carcano, but it is surely as good as a Lee Enfield.
I also had a walk on the grassy knoll. That would probably have been a better position for a shooter, but safe entry and exit looked considerably more difficult.
So I tend to agree with Kirk (August 2 at 2.28pm) that Oswald was the shooter. He had been in the military, and he could have been a natural like the Turkish guy at the Olympics.
As for the Trump assassination attempt, cock-up rather than conspiracy might well be the answer. We’ll probably never know now the shooter is conveniently dead. If I was Trump, though, I would be obsessing about security.
If I was Trump, though, I would be obsessing about security.
But as Trump is Trump, the only thing he is obsessing about is….Trump 🙂
Yet Another Chris – yes, the Grassy Knoll stuff is NOT as crazy as the “Michelle Obama is a man” “Madam Macron is also a man” stuff that one sees in sections of the right (for example Candace Owens – in her case it is tragedy as she was a highly intelligent person who “cracked” under the terrible pressure she was put under for years), but it is not very sensible either.
Lee Moore – I found Donald J. Trump’s manner irritating (very irritating) for years, but I now understand that his absolute-self-belief is what has kept him going when most men would have broken under the constant attacks he has been subjected to for so many years.
I doubt that any of us here, including myself, could have mentally withstood the level of attack that he has been subjected to, every day, for many years.
Oh, it’s all just coincidence or incompetence, blah, blah, blah. Sure. People like this always seem reasonable because so many conspiracy theorists are unhinged. But just because its dry in the desert doesn’t mean it NEVER rains there.
This pleading falls apart when one considers that in the months preceding the attempt, the Democrats were making a push to REMOVE ALL of Trumps secret service protection (because they didn’t want him dead, right?). And in the years leading up to the attempt, we have the established FACT that: in the last two years the DOJ and state AGs (in collusion with the DOJ) have been attempting to jail and bankrupt Trump; during the last election, the FBI was in possession of the Hunter laptop but fed information to the media that suggested it was Russian disinformation – and the CIA through 51 “former” intelligence officials promoted that narrative; during his presidency and while he was a candidate, the FBI spied on his campaign by abusing the FISA process using a bogus dossier that they knew was sourced from the Clinton campaign and then leaked that investigation to the Media prompting a 3 year investigation that paralyzed his presidency. I could go on. It is obvious that elements of the government?, intelligence?, power? want this man gone. But it’s CRAAAAZY to think that a series of oversights, gross incompetence and negligence that seems highly unlikely to occur are really an active or at the very least passive conspiracy to see the man dead.
As to the Trump kill bid we’ll probably never know the exact “why?”. We do know about Ronald Reagan. The shooter was sexually obsessed with Jodie Foster. Basically a total mentalist. Following that shooting the Secret Service said they hadn’t gamed for that scenario. I think that is fair enough.
Lee Moore, August 2, 2024 at 7:19 am, “…it is also true that “sheer luck” is sprinkled on a base composed of choices / behaviour that permit the sprinkled luck to have a greater or lesser effect.”
Who said “chance favors the prepared”?
Some dead white guy I’m pretty sure…but it’s true in most aspects of life, certainly in science, my profession.
Another thought: really rich people have armed guards, right? Uber-rich likely have a lot of armed guards and I’ll be they are really good, with not just the physical security but intel services feeding them threat info. Is such protection, the Zuckerberg/Musk-level protection (Ryan Reynold’s “AAA Executive Service”), as good or better than the USSS?
Probably!
Oh, and this is an old joke by now, but the reason the USSS did not have a guy covering that roof was “CIA already has their guy on that roof”.
I’m not ready to claim the Trump assassination attempt was a conspiracy, but I don’t blame anyone who does.
Unless new evidence materializes, the reasonable explanation is that it was negligent incompetence by the SS(DHS). Note that, if intentional, it required indifference to collateral damage, and recall that the security team in Butler was not the team usually with Trump, and they were not all SS.
Look at the Covid debacle or the Ukraine debacle, it’s clear that Western institutions are shot…and not beyond doing crazy pathological shit, paraphrasing Dominic Cummings.
Paul:
Sirhan Sirhan literally did not kill Robert Kennedy. The facts do not allow it. The only man who could have shot him was the security guard Cesar.
Plenty of people saw Sirhan firing wildly, but he was not behind Kennedy, he was about six feet in front of him. Kennedy was shot from point blank range from behind.
Who arranged it? I don’t know. Sirhan was extremely suggestable under hypnosis. Kennedy was promising to end the Vietnam War. Join the dots.
In the case of the USSS, it would appear that other frivolous, inane agendas hobbled the primary mission, the security of the protectee, the reason they exist.
Paul:
You seem very confident John Kennedy was going to die young. He was poorly, but steroids kept his condition under control. I do not think Johnson could have been confident of becoming president before the 1964 election.
The AR15 theory is a complete red herring. The only civilian who actually saw the AR15 that day was Ed Hoffman, and his evidence was ignored because he saw two men behind the picket fence with a rifle. Obviously, he did not hear any shots.
The railway workers on the bridge also saw gunsmoke and heard a shot from behind the picket fence. Lee Bower, who was in a railway signal box to the rear of the grassy knoll, saw the same two men, and saw a flash.
In reality, the grassy knoll was a good place for a shot. The motorcade officially ended when it entered Dealey Plaza, and there were no police on the ground. Behind the knoll was a large unsecured car park. Within seconds of shooting, the two men had driven off.
Yet Another Chris:
It is still possible, just, to own a bolt action rifle in the UK.
The Lee Enfield is a much better action than the Carcano, nonetheless it is possible to fire three rounds from the Carcano in 6 to 8 seconds (we do not know when the first shot was fired).
However, I am sure there was a fourth shot fired from the front right of Kennedy. Large amounts of blood and bone hit the police motorcyclist who was to the left rear of the car. Mrs Kennedy was trying to get a piece of his skull from the trunk of the car, and a large piece of skull bone was found on the grass about thirty feet to the back and left of the car.
Many witnesses also said the final two shots came right on top of each other, almost instantaneously. Obviously, this is not possible with a bolt action rifle. So my best guess is that three shots were fired from the rear, and one from the front.
I don’t doubt that there a dozens of entities and countless individuals who would like to take Trump out, but how could they have known the Keystone Kops would be on duty. For that to make sense, they would have to have been tipped off by a security detail insider.
Sort of OT, but here’s an interesting sort-of-techie-gunner article dissecting the Trump assassination attempt.
https://www.anarchonomicon.com/p/parallel-coups-1-of-2-the-blood-of
JohnK.
Yes Robert Kennedy was not interested in winning the Vietnam war – which could have been won had the American elite had not been the people they are (cut the enemy supply lines by putting conventional forces into Laos, it was know since the 1950s that this was necessary). He wanted a “political settlement” (i.e. defeat) – just like Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard “Paris Accords” Nixon and all the rest of these types..
Why would they want to kill Robert Kennedy when he was pushing the same policy as them? He was also pushing the same domestic policies – more “War on Poverty” spending, just like all the rest.
I can understand the American establishment killing Barry Goldwater in 1964 (if they had thought he might win) – as he actually wanted to win the Vietnam War (unlike the American establishment WHO NEVER DID) and was against the “Great Society” orgy of domestic spending – but why kill Robert Kennedy? He was NOT offering an alternative – he was offering more “talks with the Communists” (the same Washington policy that lost China in the 1940s) and more “war on poverty” spending at home – just like the rest of the establishment, which never learns anything and has been rotten since at least the time of Woodrow Wilson (whose deepest fear was that “reactionaries” might regain control of Russia – or Mexico for that matter).
As for being suggestable – Robert Kennedy Junior is sadly suggestable, he went to see his father’s murderer in prison and believed everything he said. Men turn when they are under attack – a few, exceptional, men turn towards their attacker (as Henry Wilson is said to have done when the IRA murderers attacked him at a Memorial Service after the First World War – although he did not have a firearm he is said to have turned towards them and tried to close the distance, as if he was trying to take on two men with pistols with only his ceremonial sword – the only weapon he had), but most men turn away from an armed attacker.
“President Kennedy’s disease was under control”.
In reality Jack Kennedy, in utter desperation, was using every drug (legal and illegal) he could lay his hands on – but you can not cheat nature, he was a dead-man.
Not that it would have made much difference had he had been as fit-and-health as the lying media claimed.
There would have been the same “limited war” farce in Indo-China, Jack Kennedy would no more have tried to win the war than Johnson did (VICTORY was a forbidden concept for both men), and the same endless welfare schemes.
After all Kennedy had started it – “Food Stamps” in 1961, still perhaps Kennedy would have been more restrained than Johnson – who pushed through an utterly insane series of domestic schemes.
I admit that I haven’t studied the various theories surrounding JFK’s assassination. I was 15 years old when it happened and I remember watching the news reports with my dad.
I’m not a student of what might or might not of happened, however I have been to the scene and Oswald’s shot from the window of the Book Depository looked feasible to me. The grassy knoll would have been my choice as someone who had used a 303 with iron sights.
JohnK (4.30pm on 3 August) could well be right about the Carcano, although I’m not sure I could shoot three accurate rounds from a Lee Enfield in six to eight seconds, but then I’m a lefty shooter.
If you want to kill, or incapacitate, someone and you are the government.
Then arrange for heart failure or a massive stroke – both can be produced.
But the government had no reason to kill either Jack or Bobby Kennedy – they were both following the script on both “no victory”, against the Marxists, foreign policy (remember the government was horrified by the desire of Ronald Reagan to actually win) – and endless domestic spending.
This has been in line with establishment thinking since at least the time of Woodrow Wilson.
Paul:
As I have mentioned re NSAM 263, it seems likely JFK did not intend to commit to a land war in South Vietnam. If you do not intend to win, better not to start.
I am sure RFK would have tried to get America out of South Vietnam. The betrayal which happened in 1975 might have happened in 1969 instead.
But as I have said, I cannot state as a fact who wanted either man dead. But I can draw your attention to evidence. Witness and forensic evidence strongly points to one shot at least from the front of JFK’s motorcade, and there is no possible way for Sirhan to have shot RFK at point blank range from behind. There is only one man who could have done that, and it was the security guard.
After these assassinations, I happen to believe that Nixon was got rid of by a less violent method. If you really think the FBI was offended by his actions re Watergate you would be very naive. I had thought the practice of using snipers to kill opponents of the deep state had gone out of fashion, but recent events cause me to reconsider.
JFK sent 19 thousand men to Vietnam.
It would have been the same policy as Johnson – fight but do NOT fight to win.
It would have taken Robert Kennedy a couple of years to “negotiate peace” with the Marxists in Indo China – the same as it took Richard Nixon to get the “Paris Peace Accords”.
Time table not changed.
At least that is my guess.
By the way – Robert Kennedy was once interesting, back in the 1950s he really did seem to be interested in exposing pro Communist elements in the American government. If Senator McCarthy had appointed Robert Kennedy, rather than Roy Cohn, as his assistant – history might have been very different (partly because Joseph McCarthy would have had the protection of the powerful Kennedy family).
But then Robert Kennedy sold out – perhaps because he witnessed what was done to Joseph McCarthy.
Yet Another Chris:
It is my belief that three shots were fired from the book depository, and one from the grassy knoll. This last shot was the head shot, and as it was fired Kennedy’s car was approaching the knoll. I think the third shot from the depository, which ear witnesses said was fired almost simultaneously, was the one which missed the car entirely and hit a paving stone near the railway bridge. This shot would have been the furthest from the book depository.
An odd fact is that the Carcano found in the book depository had one round left in it. Three had been fired, yet the Carcano magazine takes six, so the assassin had not bothered to load the rifle fully. Also, no other ammunition or clips were found amongst Oswald’s possessions. Only two gun stores in Dallas sold 6.5 mm Carcano ammunition, and both denied selling any to him. Indeed, they hadn’t sold any of this unusual ammunition for a long time. So how Oswald got hold of any ammunition, and what he did with it, are also mysteries.
Paul:
President Kennedy had actually been to Vietnam when the French ruled it. He knew more about the country than most.
He did send 16,000 advisers to South Vietnam, but had decided to remove them by 1965. He may have changed his mind had he lived, but in 1963 he had concluded that he did not wish to commit US combat troops to South Vietnam.
JohnK said:
Odds are excellent that he didn’t bother going to any store in the Dallas area, and ordered the ammunition by mail. Which you could do, back then, before the GCA68 abrogation of civil rights. You can do it now, but there was an interregnum where you could not, after ’68.
I don’t doubt but that the shooter’s nest from which Oswald shot was sanitized, either by him or someone else. Dropping the extra ammunition into a convenient trash can would have been eminently doable; I do not think that we know, to this day, what his exact path was upon departing the book repository, nor would I expect anyone to have properly searched every potential drop-off he could have used.
Hell, I’m not even all that sure that anyone can say with absolute certainty that it was Oswald making those shots… It isn’t as if he was caught red-handed, laying down behind his Carcano. He had time to get away, in the confusion, and you have to trust the investigators that they made correct attribution of that rifle and shooter.
Way, way too many doubts around the circumstances, there in Dallas that day.
Remind you of anything…? Imagine the chaos surrounding Mr. Crooks success, not all that long ago. I don’t doubt that we’d be witnessing similar “oddities and similarities” in comparison to Dallas…
Kirk:
The FBI was keen, as you might imagine, to link Oswald to the rifle and the ammunition. Oswald did not receive any packages at Mrs Paine’s house, where his wife was staying, nor at his rooming house. He did not receive any packages via his post office box. They could find no way of showing he had ever bought a round of rifle ammunition, and they tried as best they could.
JohnK.
President Kennedy clearly knew nothing about Indo China, in spite of having gone to Vietnam, if had understood the situation he would have sent large scale conventional forces to cut enemy supply lines in Laos – the very thing he forbad, and so did Johnson (they both vetoed any military plan to win-the-war).
The idea that Kennedy would have followed a different policy in 1965 to Johnson is, I think, false – but it is also beside the point, as Jack Kennedy would have had to resign or be removed (under the 22nd Amendment) anyway.
You now seem to be denying that Lee Harvey Oswald opened fire on President Kennedy – do you also deny that Mr Oswald killed a police officer later that day?
Paul:
The US could hardly invade Laos to protect South Vietnam. It seems Kennedy at least had the sense to realise that there is no point fighting a war which you do not intend to win.
As to who shot Kennedy and Tippet on 22nd November 1963, it is hardly for me to say who did either or both crimes. I am sure as I can be that Kennedy was shot from two places, so if Oswald was involved, he did not do it alone.
Incidentally, I am pretty sure Oswald was part of the US Navy false defector scheme which operated in the 1950s. He was a low level intelligence asset. His precise role in the assassination of Kennedy is an open question.
How about defending Laos.
The Marxists wanted that country to – as they want all countries.
Mr Oswald murdered JT Tippet.
“I am pretty sure Oswald was part of the USD Navy false defector scheme”.
At this point I would normally go to bed – but I have a coach to catch in a couple of hours.
Paul:
I don’t see how Kennedy could have put troops into Laos unless he had the agreement of the government. He had decided not to commit the USA to a major ground war in South East Asia. I thought we agreed, that one should either fight a war to win, or not fight it at all?
With regard to our old friend Lee Harvey Oswald, we do know that within 60 to 90 seconds of the shooting, he was in a lunch room on the second floor. This was because an alert cop called Baker saw the pigeons fly off the roof of the TBSD as shots were fired. He had the building supervisor, Roy Truly, take him through the building and identify the staff.
It is hard to see Oswald getting from the sixth floor to the second in that short space of time, especially as he would have had to hide the rifle first. It is even more problematical, because there was only one staircase from the sixth floor, at the rear of the building. Immediately after the shooting, an office worker from the fourth floor, Victoria Adams, came down that staircase, and saw and heard no-one else. At the foot of the staircase she met Officer Baker and Mr Truly. So I cannot see how Oswald got to the second floor lunch room in the time available, without being seen.
The murder of Officer Tippit relies on timing, which is highly disputed. Oswald left his rooming house at 1.00pm according to his landlady. Tippit was shot about a mile away. Witnesses put the time at around 1.08pm, so the question is could Oswald even have got there in time?
We do know that Oswald went to the Texas Theater cinema. There were only a few patrons, but he went round the auditorium sitting near to all of them in turn, as if he was trying to meet a contact. When arrested, he had the halves of two dollar bills on him, a standard way of proving your bona fides to a contact you don’t know. A dollar was worth a lot in 1963, and Oswald was poorly paid, so I doubt he would have cut up two dollars for fun.
NickM, knowing what we do now about how the intelligence agencies target vulnerable individuals, the RR attempt is definitely not clear-cut.
JohnK, they’ve tried other methods (and half torn-down the country doing so). Trump is like a modern-day Rasputin or Castro when it comes to taking him out. He’s had 8 years of the deep-state throwing everything they could at him. That’s inhuman levels of resilience.
Rob:
I don’t know how he does it. I had thought that the days of using snipers were over, but then again…
Dr Chris Martenson is doing good work analysing the Trump shooting at his Peak Prosperity site. It is clear there were three initial shots, fired at a measured pace, and then five rapidly fired shots which sound quite different. The conclusion that there were two shooters is growing stronger. However, the FBI claims to have fired eight shell cases on the sniper’s roof position. So who do you believe, the FBI or your lying ears?