I think there are a few issues that separate people into large groups. Pro-life vs Pro-Choice, Liberal vs Conservative, vegetarian vs carnivore, pro-gay-marriage vs anti-gay-marriage, and so on and so on. Binary issues are convenient, because the subtlty of the issue itself can be distilled down to an all-or-nothing opinion that is just easier to attack by one's opponents. The issues I've listed here are nice because they area mainstream, generally-accepted, and essentially rational because they're personal opinions on what are typically personal issues.

The thing I've always found interesting is that the issues that get the most of this sort of attention have a right and wrong answer that simply has to be gotten to. Some of the more abstract issues like gay marriage or the best way to improve job outlook do not have an absolute answer, yet it appears that some people think they do.

Take the fate of young Scott Peterson, recently convicted rather quickly for the first-degree murder of his pregnant wife, Lacy, and the second-degree murder of his unborn son, Conner. While a jury may have found him guilty based on an evidentiary presentations from both sides of the case, the jury has no access to the right answer, which is known to exist. That is, Scott Peterson knows whether this verdict is just or not, and if it's the latter then someone else out in the world knows as well. With most issues that divide people nowadays, the right answer is not known, with only opinions of variously-trusted pundits and experts to shape one's opinion by. No one knows if the pro-life vs pro-choice question has a right or wrong answer, and no one knows if there will be an answer waiting for them in this life or after it.

So when it comes to the Kennedy assassination, we know that someone in this world knew with absolute certainty whether LHO was the lone assassin or if he was involved at all, so there are two groups of people, namely those who are correct and those who are incorrect. Yet in this discussion, there's a certain sense that those who want to revisit it, who doubt the veracity of the US Government, or who put forth theories of various flavors are labeled as "conspiracy theorists" and dismissed. Every finding by anyone not Gerald Posner seems to be tossed into one big "CONSPIRACY" bin, trotted out each year or more likely on 5- and 10-year anniversaries of the assassination as airtime is filled with the replay of old documentaries and repetative Posner interviews.

Oh well. I have some real doubts about whether a single nut in a book depository could have pulled off the entire thing un-aided, during a time when this country was in the midst of tremendous, polarizing upheaval. Can one pissed off guy with a rifle really just do that? Maybe the Hinkley assassination attempt on Reagan, or even the Squeaky Fromme attempt on Ford are examples of how this is possible, but both of those were close-in attacks with handguns, and neither was successful. Sure, I saw Stone's movie, and I read some of the research material it was based on, and I think there is a lot more to this whole story than we will ever know beyond conjecture and conspiracy and whatnot. But someone out there knows the right answer...