Here's a weird question - email and Snopes

[TheSassyOne]

I have a "friend" who is ultra conservative on the political spectrum. She constantly sends me emails detailing how unpatriotic Obama and anyone who supports him is. I have this quirky system that doesn't allow me to block emails though, so I've asked her nicely twice and not so nicely once to stop sending me this junk. It's usually forwarded along with a list of 30 - 40 of her friends.

Today I opened up my email to another round of about twenty letters, half of which were political. Four were taking potshots once more about who is truly an American and who is unpatriotic. :evil: Ugh. I usually just delete, but sometimes I give in and read one or two. I think I'm going to forward her and all her pals some good reading material. Any suggestions?

[sacrilicious]

Hm, what about finding the wackiest pro-liberal stories on The Onion just to see how quick on the uptake they are. That might be fun.

[shesinsane]

Have you checked Snopes.com? There's a lot of stories breaking down Obama related emails lies. My grandmother forwards me a lot of garbage and I can't tell her to stop (after all she's 87 and can use email), so I just reply with the link from Snopes explaining why Obama isn't going to end social security or hasn't taken more vacation than any other president in history.

[Effie]

Is she a bit fundie as well? In that case you could send her an e-mail about "Facebook's identity crisis":

We often take for granted our ability to create an online identity that reflects who we are, but for millions that's impossible – because their gender does not fit in Facebook's checkboxes.

http://www.allout.org/facebook

Thank you for speaking out so that every All Out member is respected for who they are. We appreciate you!

All the best and All Out,

Aaron, Andre, Erika, Guillaume, Jeremy, Joseph, Nita, Oli, Prerna, Tile, Wesley and the rest of the team at All Out

[jenny_islander]

Unfortunately Snopes is getting a reputation for being an evil liberal front for evil liberalness because of their insistence on actually checking the facts (how dare they!).

See if something at People for the American Way is useful. It's a good name for getting under the radar of jingoist know-nothings.

[TheSassyOne]

Oh yeah, I tried several times to show her some mistakes through snopes.com, but her retort was that she was surprised that an intelligent woman like me was brainwashed by that liberal agency funded by flaming liberals and can not be trusted by [wait for it] real Americans! :doh:

[JesusFightClub]

would have suggested counterpunch.org and the World Socialist Web Site as well as Lenin's Tomb and the SWP site but not if she is struggling with Snopes. I wonder what would be good? does it need to be US?

[demgirl]

If your goal is simply to get her to stop emailing you, I would simply flood her email the way she floods yours, whether it be with liberal information or just random stuff. So, if she sends you 20 emails, send her 20 back. See if your email lets you set up a Rule or an Automatic Response to just one email so that every time she emails you, it automatically sends one back.

[nutella addict]

What about a very subtle mainstream Christian thing, that might gradually suck her in before it hits the OMG THIS ISN'T WHAT FUNDIES BELIEVE part? Can't think of anything just now, but I think if she's going to refuse anything that's not fundie as liberal, that's about the closest Trojan horse you might get.

I am so sick of the lies trying to make our president look bad. He's not perfect, but nobody is. He's our president, he at least deserves respect rather than slander, even if you disagree. If you have an actual, factual, CLEARLY CITED AND BACKED UP report of something truly wrong, fine. But shit like "Oh he was clearly born in Africa" or "He's a MUSLIM" (which wouldn't be a problem even if it were true which it is NOT) and whatnot is going to drive me out of the damn country. Oh wait, it already did. I want to duct tape the Fox News Table's mouths shut (also Trump, Palin, Bachman, etc) and enforce a reasonable amount of education when I see that sort of thing. And generally I'm pretty live and let live. It *really really really* pisses me off.

[xDreamerx]

Could you just add her address to your junk mail list? You said you can't block them but does it have some kind of spam filter?

[Terrie]

Rightwing Watch - http://www.rightwingwatch.org/

She'll dismiss it -- heck, honestly, she'll dismiss anything you send her -- but it might give you some satisfaction.

[AnnieC 305]

My step-mother used to do that.

The trick is to send the snopes.com info, or anything else, but hit "reply to all" Make her look foolish enough in front of all her friends and she'll stop in a day or two.

[gustava]

My usual response to anti-Obamites is to comment on his cute butt.

[Rosa]

Yeah, snopes.com and reply all stopped almost all the crazy rightwing emails I used to get.

She may not give a shit but the rest ofher audience might.

[Joykins]

Those emails are usually full of inaccuracies, most of which are revealed on snopes.com.

Every time you get one, reply ALL, give the snopes link, and ask her to look things up on snopes before sending you hateful and/or untrue emails. Do not further engage.

Depending on the mental density of the individual, it may take a few rounds, but she'll drop you from her cc: list. I get NONE of those things anymore.

The reply ALL is necessary because it publicizes the problem and expedites the stopping.

Also if they are forwards, send her this link:

[bananacat]

Send them to snopes.com

[Patsy]

My usual response to anti-Obamites is to comment on his cute butt.

Oh, my.

(This is a fantastic response.)

[Burris]

I used to get those. I sent back a few mass replies, to the same list (because that's key), containing fact-checks and snippy remarks. I got some angry e-mails after that, but then the stupid political forwards stopped coming.

[TheSassyOne]

I love the Weird Al video, I do believe I will send that to her.

I've tried all of those suggestions. I've tried logic and send links to show how she had incorrect information. Once she was even using kooky info that had been spread about President Bush and was now being used with Obama. I even showed her that info. Her response was to send more kooky stuff to show that Obama is truly Satan and hates all Christians. I finally had it out with her and said that you may disagree with someone politically, but to simply say hateful comments, because you don't like the person - well that says more about her than Obama. At this point, I didn't even waste my breath to try and convince her that the man is a Christian (though should that even matter?) Needless to say, she didn't send me any emails for months, I thought our friendship definitely was done. Then a few months ago she began emailing again, but just silly, non confrontational stuff. But this week...BAM...here we go again! The crazy has been let loose again. What also irks me is I'm a teacher and all those emails clog up my school emails. I even told her that was a reason I wanted her to delete me from her mailing list (but she refused!!!!). UGH. We're transferring to a different system soon, so I'm hoping I'm able to block her then, until then, I just check and delete...check and delete.

Okay, so I really want to be BAD BAD BAD and just cram tons of wacky info from the Onion to her and her pals to see in they go nuts. But that would be so wrong of me, wouldn't it? Did I tell y'all I'm a Religion Teacher? :pray:

[Lainey]

So...my dad used to do this--kept sending me a bunch of random crap. He wouldn't stop even though I kept asking him to, so I signed him up for a bunch of online newsletters that went against everything he rants about.

Didn't work. :(

I got a new email address and refused to give it to him. He has one of my other ones, but he sends me WAY less crap now.

[Cassandra]

I have a "friend" who is ultra conservative on the political spectrum. She constantly sends me emails detailing how unpatriotic Obama and anyone who supports him is. I have this quirky system that doesn't allow me to block emails though, so I've asked her nicely twice and not so nicely once to stop sending me this junk. It's usually forwarded along with a list of 30 - 40 of her friends.

Today I opened up my email to another round of about twenty letters, half of which were political. Four were taking potshots once more about who is truly an American and who is unpatriotic. :evil: Ugh. I usually just delete, but sometimes I give in and read one or two. I think I'm going to forward her and all her pals some good reading material. Any suggestions?

Speaking of...sigh.

I just got this in my inbox 15 minutes ago.

Obama looked at Michelle, chuckled and said, "You know, I could throw a $1,000 bill out of the window right now and make somebody very happy." Michelle shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I could throw ten $100 bills out of the window and make ten people very happy". Hearing their exchange, the pilot of plane said to his co-pilot,"Such big-shots back there. I could throw both of them out of the window and make 256 million people very happy."! If you're one of 256 million, pass this on :)

Yes, murder and causing the orphan-dom of two children is funny. :angry-banghead: :angry-screaming: :angry-cussingblack:

[Joykins]

I think that last joke has been told about every president since the invention of airplanes.

[DamnPrecious]

Tell her to lose your e-mail.

[defrauding]

I have this quirky system that doesn't allow me to block emails though, so I've asked her nicely twice and not so nicely once to stop sending me this junk. It's usually forwarded along with a list of 30 - 40 of her friends.

Can you set up your e-mail account so that it forwards to Gmail or Yahoo?

[VintageJen1984]

I am terrible about cleaning out my inbox, so if I'm looking for something specific from someone I type their email address in to my email client's search box. It brings up everything they have ever sent me, and nothing else. Maybe when you get dozens of emails in a day like that, search her name, then click the select all box, and delete them all at once. If anything it sure speeds up your inbox cleanup time.