I have a friend who occasionally likes to do the same thing. The last one she sent was replete with statements like "Everybody knows", "Religious war", and "Bush lied".
I basically took her to task, asking her to prove her statements and back them with fact. To get her started, I supplied her with several links to news reports to refute some of the other claims she made. I have not heard from her in three weeks.
It took me a couple of hours to put the email together, but I think I got my point across. I don't like receiving this kind of garbage in my mail and if a sender is going to take the two seconds to hit the forward button, I am going to take as much time as necessary to make sure that friend knows better the next time she has that bright idea.
If this damamges the friendship, I can live with it. I cannot pretend to be something that I am not, only to save a friendship.
I've lost a number of so called friends since November 2001 - or, to put it more correctly, they *lost it!*
My Dad just won over his sister, and many of her friends who were leaning to voting J.Kerry! He had been talking to her on the phone, recently. He is a pro-Bush/Cheney Dem., and she and her friends were Kerry-leaning Dems. He and his family are Southern Dems.(SC), and most are mod. to conserv..
Well she was asking what he thought about J. Kerry and stuff that was happening in the elections. He proceeded to tell her some things about JK, and what many Dems. were up to, including the forged doc. issue. He said he was going to vote for GWB, not for Kerry because of the above.
Well, he talked to her again yesterday, and asked her slyly if she still intended to vote for JK. She said "Heck no!", she wasn't; and she had told all her friends what her brother told her about Kerry, and they aren't going to vote for him now either!
She also said that she had gotten on the internet, and looked up all the things my Dad had told her. She realized what he said was true; but she needed more info. to convince her friends. Sure enough, she convinced them to change their vote. (I presume to GWB.)Unfortunately, she did get a bit influenced initially with the AWOL stories on the president. But she doesn't believe those stories now, though.
I was shocked to hear that. But my Dad explained that even though she is a highly intelligent woman, she and many others, back there don't always pay enough attention to political issues, until it comes close to election time. Some others are not as well educated, and are influenced the wrong way, also. He said that a lot of them live up in the mountains, and are much more isolated.
Still, she was concerned enough to ask her brother what he thought, and kept an open mind. She probably would fall in the first category. I'll bet she's glad he told her now!