Responding to Polemical Arguments

[snarkyman]

Those of you who have been long time readers of my blog know that from time to time, I publish responses to items emailed to me by my family. The two preceding times I've posted these responses to LiveJournal, I did not have the courage to actually send the response.

I've been doing a bit of thinking about if, or possibly, how to respond to the current flood of bogus arguments, polemical misstatements and general BS that's been spouting out my the email from members of my own family.

I've already responded to the blatantly false internet lie (Urban Legend? Hoax?) about Ollie North and Osama bin Laden titled "Lest we Forget".

http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/Oliver_North.shtml
"*The facts: *Oliver North testified about a home security system during a July 7, 1987 joint Senate-House hearing on the Iran-Contra investigation. The questioner was not a senator, but committee counsel John Nields. Col. North testified the security system was installed because threats were made on his life by terrorist Abu Nidal."

Now I'm considering what to say, if anything, about The Future of Texas and how GWB can retire there and how The Republic of Texas secede from the US. You can read about it here:
http://www.houstonbeats.com/board/showthread.php?t=29544

I also have a misguided piece from my dad about Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law about the temporary nature of democracy and how it's the Democrat's fault. It's actually sounds like a reasonable argument, up to the point where everything is blamed on those receiving social services - but says nothing about the large corporations and their influence in the government. It's also completely bogus.

http://www.hamline.edu/law/facadmin/olson.shtml
DISCLAIMER: There is an e-mail floating around the internet dealing with the 2000 Bush/Gore election, remarks of a Scotish philosopher named Alexander Tyler, etc. Part of it is attributed to me. It is entirely BOGUS as to my authorship. I've been trying to kill it for 3 years. For details see: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp

So the question I have for all of you is this: Should I bother responding to such drek? If so, how? I'm sure some actually consider themselves thoughtful. But they don't bother doing the proper fact checking. Honestly, I'm tired, I don't want to do it, but somehow feel compelled to respond.

I guess the problem is that they're conservative Republicans and I'm not. It's kind of like teaching a pig to sing - It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

Comments

[siderea]

This sort of begs the question of: why are they sending these things to you in the first place? Surely they know how you feel. Are they just doing it to get your goat? Or have you not made your position plain?

One option is, instead of replying to the things they send you, send your own. It certainly takes less brain power or effort. Just every time you see something on the web or in email which illustrates, well, any position you advocate, fire it off to them.

They'll either get the picture, or get enlightened.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I would have to say that you're in a tight spot. Not responding obviously means you agree, right? But the issue is deeper than any one email -- if you refute one bogus argument, they will fall for another.

I guess it depends on what your goals are. Are you trying to change their mind? Are you trying to get along with them? Are you trying to get them to stop sending you these emails?

If it's the last, you could probably say that directly. It might cause some stepped-on toes, but if it's upsetting you this much...

it's not worth the effort

[twif.livejournal.com]

nod, smile, ignore. you cannot change them. trust me, i've tried. it's most frustrating.

so, while i don't get emails, i do have to do the old "nod and smile" when i hear my grandmother talk about what a good, moral man bush is...i choked down bile when my uncle, a gideon, floated the idea during the week my grandfather (his own father, and catholic, mind you) lay dying in the hospital from a stroke, that he was living longer than expected because "the right person hasn't gotten a bible yet". i choked the same bile down when he told him that those people he "saved" by dying and giving my uncle an excuse to pass those bibles out would line up behind him in heaven, as gold stars on his record.

politics and religion. never discuss them with your family, particularly when you've divergent views. unless you hate either yourself or your relations. or you have relatives that are passionately polarized and you just want to watch them square off. then go ahead. otherwise, think of ten-foot poles.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I have many dear and wonderful friends. One of them is an attorney who volunteers for the ADL - The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group dedicated to stopping the defamation of Jewish peoples.

It's nice that he does that. But he kept sending me the most amazingly rude and ignorant arab-bashing materials I have ever seen.

Eventually, I very nicely asked him to stop sending me hate mail. He was astounded that I considered his (and their) work hate mail. But I was, gently, able to convince him that it was hate mail. Or at least hate speech.

Is it possible to convince your family that they are sending you what you consider the equivalent of "hate speech"? Because that is separate from the issue of making them more informed and intellectual readers of facts, or changing their minds...

[jducoeur]

Personally, I'd send a polite and concise but clear correction of the errors. This is potentially a lot of work (since it doesn't stop them from sending you the drek), but might possibly help instill a little bit of doubt, and doubt is the very most important element in the upcoming election. Every small tick away from the hard right (even to the extent of making the people who are voting Republican anyway push it less aggressively at others) helps in such a tight race.

Then again, this is easy for me to say: my family is, by and large, to my left, so this isn't the kind of argument I typically have with them...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I have a cousin who is the stereotypical "AOL STUPID EMAIL REPOSTER". (I mean, down to the capitalization, never trimming headers, huge broadcast list in the To: field....)

I kept refuting her wild claims with Snopes - and slowly but surely that became my job. Now she posts the same stuff to the same people, but asks me to correct it. (:-)

[snarkyman.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd send a polite and concise but clear correction of the errors.

That's what I've been doing, but honestly, I'm tired and I don't want to do it any more.

I have better things to be doing with my time.