Political (junk) emails.

[draggar]

My father in law is a die hard Republican (odd since he is an immigrant). This means that every day I get several anti-Obama (and anti-Democrat) emails.

What irks me is the number of people who pass these along (from the long list of headers) without a SINGLE person checking for accuracy.

95% (well, by far most of them) of these emails are listed as false / urban legends on Snopes.

4% are listed as inaccurate, misleading, or similar (like the 1% tax - while the bill does exist Obama isn't going to pass it and it only has one supporter - the bill's writer).

1% are accurate (but these are limited to historical timelines, etc..).

I also see the same on some forums (on both sides of the political fence).

Do people seriously read these emails and take what is written there as 100% fact?

Maybe I should send an email out saying that if people want to be "preferred' voters I should have them send money to a paypal address - or maybe even a pyramind chain (send the last 5 people $1 etc..).

[Hobbs]

Do people seriously read these emails and take what is written there as 100% fact?

Sadly, they do. I just have to everytime someone tells me one. I especially love the ones that try to re-write history [/sarcasm].

[blas87]

My dad gets a lot of jokes.

Look, I don't like Nobama and I'm pretty against illegal immigrants and what they get away with, but seeing some of these jokes and videos on youtube, it's like Dad, please........no wonder people think we're inbred gun toting racist rednecks.

Some stuff just really isn't that funny. The Star Spanglish Banner just made me irate about immigration, but it didn't make me laugh at all.

[HYHYBT]

I think this from Snopes explains a lot... though I've found that, even if people don't stop *believing* nonsense when I send them those links, they eventually, at least, figure out not to forward any to me.

[Greenday]

Once people get a set of beliefs, there is no changing them. No amount of facts or evidence will change a damn thing. Birthers can be personally shown Obama's actual birth certificate and they will deny that it's real. There are still people who believe 9/11 was an inside job and there's no way it could have happened the way it did. There are still some nut jobs who believe the world is flat. There are people who believe women are property and trophies and that black people are dumber for no other reason than that they are black. Proof will never change their minds.

My aunt sends my family and I this stuff all the time. Lots of stuff about Bush when he was president. Lots of pro-military propaganda. Etc. Stop cluttering up my inbox. Just ask me if I want to see it and if I do, THEN email it to me.

[MadMike]

My one friend did worse than that during the time leading up to the election. He printed off a list of anti-Obama propganda, which consisted mainly of half-truths and outright lies, and tried to hand them out to everyone when we went out to bars.

One night I picked up this couple I was friends with and met him at this one place where they were having a band. As we were leaving, he handed me one of those papers. As soon as I realized what it was, I told him "No thanks!" and tried to hand it back to him.

He wasn't going to let it go. "You really should look over that. You don't want to vote for that guy"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not voting for McCain!"

"But he's a war hero! He was captured and tortured blah blah blah..."

"And I respect that. But that doesn't mean he'd make a good president."

"But whyyyyyy?"

"Because he's too much like Bush, and Bush has made a huge fucking mess of things!"

He finally gave up and walked away. As soon as he was gone, my one friend rolled her eyes and told me "Thank you!" I later found out her parents were harrassing her the same way.

As for the paper he gave me, I shoved it in the side compartment of my car door with the rest of the trash.

If he wanted to have a rational discussion about politics, I would have listened to him, but he's blindly anti-democrat, and he used to be a bit of a racist. He might still be, I don't know, but at least he's gotten away from spewing rants where every other word was the n-word.