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Comment by beowulfey | Hacker News Reader

At this point the effects of the JFK assassination are so far back in history that new knowledge of possibly real and alternative sequences of events should have little impact on society as it is now. Let’s say it was orchestrated by political enemies—what effect would this have on things today? The state of US government is so dramatically different from back then.

This kind of discussion is really only interesting from a historical perspective. It doesn’t really have any bearing on modern politics or society.

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>This kind of discussion is really only interesting from a historical perspective. It doesn’t really have any bearing on modern politics or society.

This is completely untrue. Some of his family members suspect he was murdered by the US intelligence agencies for planning to curb their power. Given the intelligence agencies have even more power now than back then, and are still not held accountable for their actions, if they were indeed responsible for killing JFK that heightens the need for the public to come out in mass in support of candidates committed to breaking up or disbanding those agencies.

> This is completely untrue. Some of his family members suspect he was murdered by the US intelligence agencies for planning to curb their power. [...] the need for the public to come out in mass in support of candidates committed to breaking up or disbanding those agencies.

The people have some kind of obligation to that but what looks like dynastic power is fine?

Completely agree.

I'd even go further and say that those still living should be tried for high treason.

Yep. An extra-legal paramilitary is antithetical to a free society. There's no right/left to this. Scatter it to the wind.

The family member is RFK Jr., right?

RFK Jr. simultaneously believes that his father and uncle were killed by the intelligence state, and that they ought to be providing him protection, and that they want to kill him. I find his opinions pretty confusing on this matter

The secret service is under the DHS, not the CIA or FBI, which have been the organizations criticized by RFK, and JFK for that matter.

The DHS didn't even exist back then, the SS was absorbed into it some time after it was created in 2002.

Regardless, one can want the usual protections given and needed and also hold the belief that some agencies are too powerful and corrupt and need to be broken up. (like breaking up the DHS and making the SS it's own entity)

> the usual protections given

He's currently receiving the standard amount of protection from the secret service for a primary candidate at this stage (none).

I can completely understand a young man being irrevocably changed by such tragedies, even if he hadn't already been on the world stage just because he was born.

That being said, dude is either non-serious or damaged to the point I wouldn't let him run Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand, and he wants to be President?

The U.S. tried that already recently (more than once if we're being honest), electing a non-serious and damaged human raised in a family where ambition was treasured over f*cking hugs. I'm not sure if anyone else is paying attention, but that went very very very wrong.

Why don't we stop putting people like this into power just to assuage our own insecurities? Wouldn't it be a better investment to try and find a way to change the culture to encourage mental health from the beginning of life rather than devolve our society due to late-life insecurity and low-information voters?

>At this point the effects of the JFK assassination are so far back in history that new knowledge of possibly real and alternative sequences of events should have little impact on society as it is now. Let’s say it was orchestrated by political enemies—what effect would this have on things today? The state of US government is so dramatically different from back then.

Is it? If it happened before it could happen again. And if a presidental assasination happened and was covered up, what other things happened and got covered up in the between decades, and what things still happen and are being covered up now?

History tends to have repercursions, even after centuries.

Of course, there's a lot of evil things from that same time frame that have since been uncovered: CREEP/Watergate, mkultra, cointelpro, or more recently Iran-Contra, Snowden.

It takes a long time for some coverups to be uncovered (Tuskegee syphilis experiment took decades) but I think we have to downgrade our expectations that an uncovering will happen as time goes on.

> should have little impact on society as it is now

If a US clandestine institution actually did this, and that institution still exists, then the news should have _massive_ impact on society as it is now. If anyone still involved is living, or if anyone involved with a cover up is currently employed, we have should expect unusually massive impacts.

There's plenty of room for it to have been orchestrated by political enemies even if Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the bullets.

> The state of US government is so dramatically different from back then.

Knowing the truth of historical matters seems like the first step in finding out if it really is.

Not so. If it turns out the CIA helped orchestrate it; for example, that would have significant ramifications today

Oh, well let's not bother asking questions then. I sure am glad we get to shut down all those archaeology departments and use the space for something else now we have all agreed we should only be curious about things that have a tangible bearing on modern society!

"This kind of discussion is really only interesting from a historical perspective. It doesn’t really have any bearing on modern politics or society."

That's like saying how rise of Nazism was just an episode in history that can and should be forgotten.

A lot of people have valid reasons to believe that deep state was responsible for JFK's death. If their fears are confirmed to be true, then that must have huge political impact on the current US establishment, considering how CIA still has too much power.

I think the main risk is that it feeds into validation of conspiracy theorists.

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