The haters are mobilized

My right wing friends often send me some of their emails which rally the loyal to one cause or another. I guess I inspire confidence that I'm "one of them". While the truth is I'm more sympathetic to conservative causes than I used to be, I still don't feel comfortable most of their politics. Usually I give a polite (in my opinion) non-response. Occasionally I fire back, pointing out the ridiculous and patently untrue claims. Here's one I received today from a "libertarian" friend, who actually fell for the claims in this email:


Subject: Fw: SB1437 - PLEASE READ - IMPORTANT

I did it!! This is disgusting....

If you don't live in CA, it'll just be a matter of time until it gets to your state if it passes. And, if you don't have kids in school now, what about your grandchildren....???

Don't let this immoral B.S. become doctrine.

Allen

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.


It only takes 30 seconds!

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California legislators have passed a bill, SB1437, that indoctrinates
school children with the homosexual agenda.
The bill requires that all new text books (k-12) highlight homosexuals
and eliminate all references to "mom" and "dad."
Instead they will be referred to as "sperm donors" and "sperm
receivers." This bill is ridiculous, it's expensive and it singles out a
small special interest group. We don't need elementary school
children exposed to this nonsense.

The governor is doing a phone poll. Urge him to veto this bill. It's
very easy, you don't even have to talk to anyone...just follow the
instructions below: [instructions to vote^H^H^H^Hstuff the ballot box deleted]

I couldn't let this go by without comment so I researched SB1437 and found out that it doesn't do anything like this email claims. As I interpret it, SB1437 is either a toothless statement of inclusive principles, or a redundant waste of time. Nonetheless, I responded with a polite rebuttal and a link with more information. I doubt it will be read. Opinion has already been set because the haters got there first.

What's irksome is that emails like this are out there in apparently great number, on all sorts of issues, and people believe them! What's even more irksome is that the ONLY left wing response to these issues is the weekly Move On! email that shows up in my inbox. The last time I bothered to read that tripe, they had codified national liberal opinion into a set of four principles for the next Presidential election, one of which was "Bring back Democracy". For Christ's sake, lose the hubris and get a grip!

So on the right side I observe a highly effective, highly mobilized, groundswell of hater email, mostly similar to the one above. On the left side I see an ineffective, pie in the sky, infrequent crapfest of email.

Advice to the left side: Get your hate on, it seems to work!

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Update: Beyond all reasonable expectation, my efforts were rewarded. Here's the email I got back after replying with a gentle correction:



Thanks for checking it out. I have to do more of that before forwarding.
I agree.

Al