Saturday, August 7, 2010

Check Your Facts People!

I know, I never post twice in one day, strange.  But I just did a little internet search to do a little fact checking on a disturbing email I received.  I am not an extremely political person, nor do I want to use my blog for political purposes- unless it is something I feel will benefit the military and military families.  I am a little biased in that respect.  I did not vote for Obama, nor have I written him off to be a bad president.  The jury is still out on that one.  Just because I did not vote for him does not mean I am totally against him.  I just liked the other guy better.  So I really take issue with emails circulating around that are written to discredit our president, by using personal and sometime even racist, attacks.  To top it off, half of that crap isn't even true!

CHECK YOUR FACTS PEOPLE!

Just because someone typed it up all pretty and clicked "send", doesn't make it true.  And how is easy is it to cut and paste to make something sound so terribly different than it should have?

What spurred this post is an email I received from a loving family member.  It claimed that Obama called veterans selfish- referring to the opposition veterans voiced against the proposal for veterans to use their own private health care to pay for combat injuries.  The quotes in this email were not only sensational- but totally false.  You have to be smarter than the average bear to make it to be president, I just don't see the President saying such things.  The said proposal was withdrawn, by the way.  There is more to it, of course.  Reading the details, I did not agree, and I am glad it didn't come to pass.  Oh, and this was all from last year.  That goes to show you how long these emails float around in cyber space.

So how do I get my point across to said loving family members, without ticking them off?  Any thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. My mom tells us. If there is an email that she gets that she doesn't think is true she checks it at TruthorFiction.com and there's another site too, it starts with an S and I can't think of it now. She will absolutely let us know that this email is false and we shouldn't be sending it out......lol in a loving family way =)

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  2. How do you get your point across? If you figure it out, tell me!

    My family has a well-meaning wackadoodle who sends all kinds of half-baked untruths that 60 seconds on Snopes could debunk. When she mass-sent a militantly anti-homosexual e-mail, my (gay) uncle finally had had enough and tried to give her a polite but firm lesson in biology and basic human compassion/tolerance. She told him off, won't speak to him, and now won't allow her sight-impaired mother (his aunt) to communicate with him in writing either.

    So because she's the gatekeeper to my great aunt, I suck it up and delete the e-mail forwards without reading. I feel like a coward, but I don't know how else to keep the peace.

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