Why do Freepers love lying emails?

[GOPFighter]

This is my 1000th post BTW, and I'm using it to discuss something that bothers me. Last week I received another email from my freeper-minded family. This is how part of it reads:

-----------------------------------

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most
recent Presidential election:

Population of counties won:
by Gore, 127 million;
by Bush, 143 million;

Square miles of land won:
by Gore, 580,000;
by Bush, 2,427,000;

States won:
by Gore, 19;
by Bush, 29;

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won:
by Gore, 13.2;
by Bush, 2.1

Professor Olson adds, "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was(mostly) the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country, Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."

-------------------------------------------

Even though this has been debunked by Snopes (especially the murder rate differential) this email continues to have legs among conservatives.

My family all knows I'm a liberal (whoooboy have we had some arguments!), but she sent it to me anyway. I assume she thought these "facts" would make me see the light and I would come back over from the "dark side." Actually it made me see red, for two reasons, 1) it's inane premises (even though Bush got fewer votes than Gore, Bush is legitimate because he won in counties with more land than the counties Gore won?), and 2) because it was deeply insulting (Gore voters tend to be murderous and live in government-owned tenements and live on welfare).

In the past I've held off responding to these emails in the interest of family harmony, but I answered this one - as kindly as possible - pointing her to Snopes.com and reminding her that, in fact Gore got more votes than Bush and that's what elections are all about, right? I also made it plain I will not let these go unanswered in the future.

But here's what baffles me. I get emails like this at least once a month from family, friends, and coworkers. They all have a conservative message (often extremely mean-spirited) and most have been debunked by Snopes or others. But this appears to be an entirely conservative phenomenon. I have never received, nor have I heard of similar emails with liberal themes. The most I ever get from Liberals are links to articles in newspapers and magazines, or graphics poking fun of Bush. No lies, no mean spiritedness. Why? Why are conservative so hung up on this kind of trash? Are they so insecure in their political beliefs that they need distorted facts or angry, mean spirited hate-mongering emails to make them feel superior?

I haven't heard back from the sender yet. Have any of you responded to family members who have sent similar emails? How did they take it?

GOPFighter

[tabasco]

1. The simple-minded are easily duped.

And love to be told what they want to hear.

[lastknowngood]

2. You might point out that most of the taxes paid in this country

came from the small area in which Gore won because that is where the jobs industry are. You might point out that inbreeding is less of a problem in those areas and that the IQ is about 30 points higher.

[NewJeffCT]

3. please point out

that the Northeast and the West Coast are net losers when it comes to government funding - they pay in a lot more than they get back. The states in the south and midwest are net gainers - they pay in less, but get back more.

So, if we need to rein in government spending, the South & Midwest are where we need to look.

[Bake]

4. I"ve got an uncle who sends this crap around

He broadcasts it to a list of his "friends." On MLK Day he sent around a really vicious one, that most of you have seen, about "Things You Probably Didn't Know About MLK." That one just really burned my ass, and I responded -- to everybody on his list. I told him he was a racist and a redneck, and more importantly, just plain ignorant and mean, and that he was doing absolutely NOTHING to promote race relations or civil discourse or political debate in this country and that he ought to be ashamed of himself! I told him that if he was going to keep sending that kind of BULLSHIT around, to please take me off his list.

I got back a self-righteous reply from Uncle, saying that he was NOT A REDNECK (although he didn't explicitly deny being a racist!). Then he said he had personally devoted hours to Habitat for Humanity, etc., to help "those people." (DUH!)

Unfortunately, I'm still on his list.

By the way, quite a few of his "friends" replied to me to tell me how much they appreciated my comments and agreed with me.

Bake

[heidiho]

5. Keep debunking them and reply all

I do it all the time and have lost friends but the lies need to stop.

[NewJeffCT]

9. agreed

We have to debunk this carp... too much of this BS is out there and it starts to sink in to the mainstream - Clinton lost bin Laden & let Mohammed Atta go free, etc.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. My favorite part is: "Square miles of land won"

:eyes:

[Blue-Jay]

10. Yeah, the "square miles" thing is total BS

So, I'm supposed to believe that some dude on a farm in Nebraska's vote is more important than mine because he has more land?

ugh, the balls of these people.

[Wickerman]

11. Jim Crow laws were overturned years and years ago

starting with Guinn v. United States. Ownership of land, and certianly land mass ownership are not part of the voting equation. Strawman issues are at the heart of freeper "facts". ugh, the balls of these people, indeed.

[Devlzown]

7. I have one Republican friend who I correspond

with regularly by email, but we know better than to send each other political stuff. If I find something that strikes me as funny, I send it to all my other friends and bypass her, and I'm sure she does the same. The family members I correspond with don't ever talk about political matters. If my friend started sending me obnoxious emails like the one above, I'd start sending her links to Eric Blumrich videos -- especially that Bush/Nazi one.:evilgrin:

[Nay]

8. Yes, I have, and it is a dirty business. But someone has to do it.

A coworker sends stuff like this at work. She stopped sending it to me a while back, because I would ALWAYS, in a kind way, of course, send the Snopes refutation (or whatever) back to her and to ALL of the people she originally sent the email to. I think she finally got tired of me making her look like a dope in front of everybody.

But she must have forgotten that I was the big, but kindly, debunker of all her emails, because I got another one a week ago! It was the Target/veterans one -- we've seen it on DU. So I sent out the Snopes thing again. But the most wonderful thing of all was that several in her group, all of whom used to swallow these emails hook, line and sinker, ALSO sent her the Snopes refutation independently and debunked it at the lunch table! It is worth the effort to get everyone to examine their assumptions and stop being so knee-jerk about these right-wing lies.

[rock]

12. What? You would expect the Repukes to tell the truth?

That would be embarassing (for them).

[greekspeak]

13. I hate the underlying implications

Some people should be disenfranchized from the vote (i.e. the murder rate statistic)

Any way you skew it, Bush STILL lost the popular vote, and Bush STILL "won" the election under questionable circumstances. That is, his brother was governor and his flunky secretatry of state of Florida, and the SCOTUS is conservative.

[Norbert]

14. I got this last week too.

The stat that kills me is Bu$h beat Gore on square mile of land mass by aroung 5:1. LMAO. The city of Philadelphia probably has a greater population than Alaska and Nevada combined.

[Lefty48197]

15. People vote, dirt doesn't

That's my response to those maps showing all the red, barely poplulated plains and mountains that supported Bush.