I know this is pretty ridiculous but I'm not going to put it in ASB because it's in the realm of physical possibility and that's for the likes of Time Travel and wizards, but what if Jack Ruby was pardoned by President Johnson for killing Kennedy's assassin? What would the immediate fallout be?
WI: Jack Ruby is pardoned
- Thread starter President Benedict Arnold
- Start date
The conspiracy theorists have a heyday. Not quite as bad as if Johnson had pardoned Oswald, but they'd still be majorly enraptured.
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That would cause a lot of problems. Any examples you can think of?
Yeah-no
I didn't think of that angle. It'd be quite to picture how conspiracy theories would develop from this.
Yeah-yes, because there is no way this would have happened. It'd be one thing if this were a slim chance scenario. I'm all for those. But this would just never happen. ASB is not a matter of just magic and fantasy. It is also a realm of things so totally out of character that they cannot be reasoned to have actually occurred with any possibility. If JFK declared a war to eradicate all ducks in the United States because he hated the sound of quacking, that's something set in the real world to be accomplished by real means, but it is nonetheless ASB because he wouldn't do that.
Since I addressed this in the initial post I reacted kind of childishly to your comment and for that I'd like to apologize, but at the same time I really disagree with your interpretation of ASB. ASB is something that is not at all possible.
Any decision somebody makes is entirely possible with changing their circumstances or the general reaction of the country. If news media had reported the event with a different narrative, it could have sprung a bloodlust vengeance for Kennedy movement that celebrated Jack Ruby as a hero and lobbied LBJ to pardon him.
Is any of that at all likely? No, but I would expect somebody named for failed businessman - turned the Emperor of the United States would understand that.