Got a crazy forwarded political email from your family? Post them here.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Got a crazy forwarded political email from your family? Post them here.

Sgt. McKill: Sep 30, 2005; kill kill kill

I got this e-mail from my dad the other day, I think it's a popular one.

quote:

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before,
but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK,
we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.
The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D!
No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering,
blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

# ¿ Aug 14, 2009 18:38

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:43

Sgt. McKill: Sep 30, 2005; kill kill kill

I'm not sure this fits exactly in this thread, but it is political craziness from family members that I'm sure has been debunked many times over in this thread. Really I just need to vent a bit, I'm kind of frustrated and upset. I was just having dinner with my dad and he started talking about Obama's past, citing a few things:

1.) His real father is some guy named Frank Marshall Davis
2.) His autobiography was written by Bill Ayers, due to him having never published anything before suddenly coming out with a whole book (refusal to publish grades from school and no evidence of anything he wrote in college or law school). The writing styles of Ayers and Dreams of My Father and Ayers are remarkably similar
3.) Obama is the ultimate Manchurian candidate, masked as a moderate. He associates with communists and was a communist when he was young, and if he had his way he would make the United States communist

All this is standard birther garbage, but I just can't get over how ultra-right wingnut he's become. What's worse is that when I try to argue these I don't have facts on hand to really refute any of it because I've never wasted my time with trying to refute WorldNetDaily Obama conspiracy theory poo poo. So he just comes out of the discussion with a smug sense of satisfaction and it's incredibly frustrating.

Later on in the dinner, we got to the topic of carbon emissions and he looked at me and laughed, "You don't believe in global warming, do you??" And the whole family shared a scornful laugh. I know there's really no arguing with this, but despite this I can't get over how crazy it drives me that none of these people will have any sense of how full of bullshit they really are and will die fully assured of their correctness. I thought the whole "discrediting Obama by painting him as a mysterious communist foreigner" thing had slightly faded in favor of criticizing his policies, but I guess not. Sorry to rant, it just frustrates me to no end. :sigh:

I hadn't heard the Frank Marshall Davis thing before, if any of you know anything more about that "theory."

summary: "MY CONSERVATIVE DAD"

Sgt. McKill fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Sep 2, 2012

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 03:20

Sgt. McKill: Sep 30, 2005; kill kill kill

Trivia posted:

Ask him why he thinks global warming doesn't exist. Give a man enough rope and he'll hang himself with it.

He had a few main reasons, all of which I've heard debunked over and over and are pretty standard bullshit conservative talking points:

1.) The data that does show evidence of global warming is manufactured and faked. The leaked e-mails (Climategate) prove this.

2.) If there's such an "overwhelming scientific consensus" about global warming, why was every scientist saying that the globe was cooling in the 1980s? Why were there cover articles in Time about an impending ice age?

3.) The earth has natural warming cycles (never mind the fact that these cycles take place over tens of thousands of years, not a hundred)

4.) Climate change is really a trojan horse for liberals to achieve goals that they couldn't otherwise, such as increased regulation and deindustrialization. Of course, the converse, that opposition to climate change on the part of conservatives is because it would necessitate extensive government regulation of the economy, couldn't possibly be true.

5.) He said he really thought better of me, and that he would think I would be more discerning and wouldn't just believe everything I'm told. :sigh:

It really does frustrate me, especially because my dad is actually a really smart guy. The sort of mental gymnastics you'd have to do to continue to believe all these things is insane, and basically requires exposure to nothing but conservative echo chambers for your news. It's especially depressing with global warming because I believe it is the single most important issue in the world today. The fact that we can't even get people to agree that there is a problem, much less agree on how to solve it, shows how truly hosed we are in the future.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 12:32

Sgt. McKill: Sep 30, 2005; kill kill kill

Sarion posted:

You could always try a different approach. Something like "Do you really believe there's an endless supply of oil and coal?"

Even if global warming was a hoax, we'd still need to be investing more into solar and wind and other alternatives because the supplies of oil and coal on this planet is finite and we need good, fully operational alternatives before we run out.

That's an interesting approach, it just seems incredible that I'd have to concede the point that endless carbon emissions are not good for the planet, and that Earth is getting warmer. I've always been a bit skeptical of "even if" arguments for that reason. Investing in alternative sources of energy certainly wouldn't carry the urgency that is needed if its necessity is due to finite resources rather than environmental degradation.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 13:06

Sgt. McKill: Sep 30, 2005; kill kill kill

Perestroika posted:

I'm pretty hazy on the details, but if I remember correctly some time ago a lot emails from a climate research institute were leaked. Somehow climate change denialists got it into their heads that there was evidence for a conspiracy in them, mostly by selectively quoting stuff out of context.

It's pretty convenient for deniers, because now literally any data proving climate change can be countered with "the data can't be trusted and is doctored." A cursory reading of a bunch of headlines from years ago that have long since been discredited allows them to keep their worldview entirely consistent.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 16:54

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:43

Sgt. McKill: Sep 30, 2005; kill kill kill

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Is there a good write up of the entire thing? I would love to learn more, I suspect it will be very useful going forward.

This response by The Guardian is pretty good at countering all the critiques. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/climategate-bogus-sceptics-lies

The Wikipedia article also gives a good overview. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy

# ¿ Sep 2, 2012 18:03

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Got a crazy forwarded political email from your family? Post them here.