Re: Please NO POLITICAL EMAILS

[IdaBriggs]

Background: I ended up on a mailing list from someone about a professional topic (not work), and somehow started receiving political emails as well. I asked multiple times to be removed, got rude at least once, and thought it was fixed.

Earlier this week I received ANOTHER (group) political email asking me to help draft a conservative darling for President. I sent a one line response, and the subject heading in this thread. The person wrote back asking me to investigate. I did, and then sent a lengthy message explaining why there was no way in hell I thought this person was qualified to either be President or represented any of the views I hold dear as a Liberal Democrat. I got a "wow, you are being hostile!" email back, replied again saying I am not a wimp, again stating I was not interested, used emphatic language to explain why ("YOUR POLITICS SUCK!&quot and received yet ANOTHER SCOLD:

"It is about being respectful of other people and their opinions and about being gracious even when you disagree with someone. It is about tact and diplomacy and not being crude and vulgar. I hope you bring your game up a few notches with the next conservative you bump into so you don't demean yourself as you have in this banter. I respect your opinion and your right to be wrong (in my book) - that is America."

This was my reply:

I have expressed ZERO interest in having these discussions with you. ZERO. Your complete lack of respect for LEAVE ME ALONE AND STOP SENDING POLITICAL EMAILS, then attempting to play the victim of my lack of "tact and diplomacy" is insulting. We do NOT have this type of relationship, and your insistence/refusal to STOP SENDING POLITICAL EMAILS - starting with your Obama bashing, followed with insulting Democrats, then the gun nonsense, and most recently the "draft the doctor" who honest to God is opposed to everything I hold dear has to be some of the most condescending ignorant assholery I have ever been privileged to witness.

And yet you seem to think you have the right to chastise me for being "crude and vulgar" despite your own lack of courtesy and manners?

The APPROPRIATE response to my initial request was "I apologize, and I will make sure you aren't on my personal political email list in the future, but if you ever want to chat about these topics, please let me know."

Not you. You keep sending them, with the assumption that "everyone agrees with you" - my nephew is gay - do you really think I am interested in having him treated like a second class citizen because of a bunch of homophobes and their whack job selective sin interpretation of the Bible? Unless I get to start stoning the divorced people, or the ones who fornicate, or eat shrimp, or wear polyester cotton blends, or work on the Sabbath, I am not interested.

Oh, and remember that nonsense you shared about the Muslims and Sharia Law? I work in Dearborn, my children attended a Muslim preschool, and I have fasted Ramadan for the last five years, so again I say to you, your ignorance of these topics is OFFENSIVE, and the fact you keep spreading lies is an embarrassment to your cause. (And no, I am not a Muslim!)

Enough. I am royally outraged at your sheer unmitigated gall. But what else can one expect of a "conservative" -- create a problem (send inappropriate emails), ignore solutions (please stop!), then scold and play the victim when hostility ensues.

You are not deserving of courtesy. The word you are looking for is CONTEMPT.

Okay - too subtle?

Seriously, was I being "over the top"? My temper is starting to cool, but honestly I am still angry. Thoughts?

[Bennyboy]

1. Brilliant. Hit em over the head with a feather....

I am going to be using this myself i am sure in the next few months. The right wing is gearing up so be ready. excellent.

[IdaBriggs]

2. I was trying for a brick - did I really use a feather?

I am also wondering if it is partly my fault for not just hitting the delete key.

At the same time,

[Bennyboy]

7. NAH, WE GOTTA PLAY THE GAME.....

And the F word is the brick, this is very nice, explains some things, educates and tells them what you want. Wish I had that ability myself. I go right for the brick, or baseball bat.

THis happens to me around election time, people start thinking I am gonna stop being a hippie and vote for some right wing nut job so they feel it is their duty to fill my inbox with nonsense. And they don't take no for an answer. I don't react nearly as tactfully as you did.

[IdaBriggs]

8. Tactful?

Benny -

In the earlier email I applauded him for sending money to a candidate with no chance of getting elected. I won't lie and say I wasn't being snide, but I repeated my request to "take me off your political email list."

Thank you for your kind words!

[TreasonousBastard]

3. An autoreply might do...

"I signed up for this list because of interest in (insert subject here) but I see it has become political.

I have little interest in politics, and none whatsoever in conservative politics, and so have filtered all future emails from you to the trash bin."

[IdaBriggs]

4. The back and forth has been private email (after the initial group one).

The information (ON EDIT: not political obviously) is good, but I am not sure it is worth the grief.

[CurtEastPoint]

5. Ah! I felt good just reading that! GOOD FOR YOU!

[IdaBriggs]

6. Thank you. He actually *SCOLDED* me -

I'm a grown woman who POLITELY asked him repeatedly to STOP SENDING ME POLITICAL EMAILS and he *lectured* me on courtesy --

Maybe my blood pressure would have been lower if I'd ignored him, but who the HELL does he think he is?

Why even type that? I know the answer - he's a conservative, and now we know way too much about each other.

Grrr....

[laundry_queen]

9. Being someone who avoids conflict

I probably would've quietly unsubscribed, but I really like your response. It hits all the right spots.

This happened to me once - I subscribed to an email list (eons ago) about a subject that was near and dear to me, a subject that had almost zero to do with politics. It was a 'professional' list as well, for people in the profession or wanting to be in the profession or were training. We were a small group and had met many times IRL for training seminars, so we were all friends basically. All it took was one person to send a political email, a dear friend of mine who assumed everyone thought the same way, and all hell broke loose. Someone eventually sent a reply, worded much like yours, to the entire group. It was pretty quiet after that. At the time, politically, I was in between the 2 views in the original email and reply so I didn't comment but the group became very uncomfortable. It's unfortunate people feel the need to send political emails in non-political email lists. It never ends well.

Seeing as your email is private, I don't think you are being over the top. If I was writing the email I might comment on how tact and diplomacy includes respecting boundaries and that they crossed boundaries by pushing their politics on everyone else.

Good luck!

[IdaBriggs]

11. Thank you, laundry_queen.

(Love your name, by the way - lol!)

Wish I would have put in the bit about "respecting boundaries" - truth.

We'll see how it falls out. Sigh.

[spooky3]

44. That's good advice for future encounters.

[B Calm]

10. Great job! K&R

[JNelson6563]

12. Spot on. Keep on rockin'.

[Shrike47]

13. I loved it. What an arrogant, entitled jerk.

[libodem]

14. DAYUM,

That rocked. I'm effing proud of you!!

[FatBuddy]

15. or you could just create a message filter

and save yourself the frustration and mental energy necessary to get all riled up about nothing.

if you got the spam i get, you'd probably end up in a straightjacket.

[barbtries]

16. i love your response.

wouldn't change a word. this person is such a lump though, totally tone deaf. i hope it at least gets you off its mailing list.

[abelenkpe]

17. Please tell me you sent this Reply All

I have gone through the same shenanigans with my parents in the past. Love this bit:

"Enough. I am royally outraged at your sheer unmitigated gall. But what else can one expect of a "conservative" -- create a problem (send inappropriate emails), ignore solutions (please stop!), then scold and play the victim when hostility ensues."

Don't think you were over the top at all.

[NastyRiffraff]

18. Neither too subtle nor over the top

Just right, Goldilocks!

[eShirl]

19. Did he reply yet?

Did he reply yet, did he reply yet?

[joanbarnes]

20. Well said.

[A Simple Game]

21. Seems like a nice response to me. If it doesn't work perhaps in your next email to him you

could mention that you are also a member of a liberal message board with thousands of members, some of whom have expressed an interest in you sharing his email address.

[RedstDem]

22. guess thats an ok response

if you want to go easy on em.

i have zero patients for the RWNJ emails.

[Zambero]

23. Spot on!

Very well stated. The selective sin interpretation you noted needs to be emphasized every time one of these holier-than-thou types decides to throw stones.

[dixiegrrrrl]

24. I just tell people their messages will be filtered out

and then I delete them without reading when they come.
They soon stop sending.
If they ask about something they sent, I tell them I never see it, reminding them it was filtered out.
In my case, it is about stupid mass forwards, sent usually by relatives on the Cro Magnon side of the family.

I also have 2 email addresses, one is for dipshits, the other for nice people.
once a month I empty the dipshit one without going thru the messages.

both tactics keep my blood pressure low and avoid long drawn out arguments with folks who will never "get it" even after months of debate.

[hobbit709]

25. I've found the best way to stop getting them was to refute and hit "Reply All"

Pretty soon you stop getting them.

[blackspade]

26. Golf clap...

Seriously, some folks are OTT stupid.

[heaven05]

27. bravo

[Martin Eden]

28. "condescending ignorant assholery "

appropriately descriptive response

[jtuck004]

29. "...with the assumption that "everyone agrees with you"" < this

I was reading something the other day that pointed out one of the characteristics of the conservative point of view is to think that everyone around them thinks like they do - a completely different kind of worldview than a progressive or others have.

I think it was something I came across at DU.

The idea that you might look at it differently is hard for them to even conceptualize - and I think their email proves it.

You weren't being over the top. It won't matter - you are trying to explain how we need oxygen to someone who lives and breathes in the water. Not just a different world, a different species. There is almost nothing you could say that would change or help things until they unfreeze their thinking processes.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

30. Good. Typical reich winger....

"You need to respect me jamming my opinion down your throat!!!!!"

[get the red out]

31. That is a wonderful response

Why can't conservatives resist sending political emails, even to those who do not want them? The automatic assumption is that you MUST be on their side, and if not, you had better be silent and just take it.

[SheilaT]

32. Maybe you need to tell this person

what you really think.

I get almost no spam of this nature because when I do, I invariably do a "Reply All" which tends to get me off the original list. Which I like.

Since you actually had a couple of exchanges back and forth before this final one, you showed remarkable restraint.

I rarely assume another person thinks the way I do about political matters, at least until that person starts dropping hints. Even then, I almost never forward any of my left-wing things to anyone, not even those I absolutely know feel the way I do.

Spam of any kind is incredibly annoying.

[reflection]

33. You are the GREATEST.

This made my day! Bravo!

[Warpy]

34. No, it's about what I sent to people who were tacky enough

to forward Astroturf right wing emails to me. I finished it of with "If you send me one more piece of this trash, you will go on block. If you need me, pick up a phone or spend money on a stamp because my email will be closed to you."

That's what did it, I think. I did have to block a few recalcitrant idiots, one of whom appealed successfully and behaved herself. The rest were just plain good riddance.

[RoccoR5955]

35. Too subtle.

I would have used many expletives, but that's me, I'm from Brooklyn, where we all talk like that.

You were not over the top, you barely touched it.

[mrs_p]

36. You know

I gotta say that I loved this!

[reflection]

37. *** Please follow up with their response. ***

I can't wait.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

38. Yes, you were being rude and over the top. Sorry that's not the answer you want.

You will have alienated them and contributed to their mental image of what people who hold your views are like, which is regrettable.

[Arugula Latte]

40. She got scolded about courtesy after she asked several times for the sender to stop with the emails.

So, it's not like she went off just out of the blue.

[snot]

39. It rather looks like you sank to his level, or below it,

in which case, I doubt you did him any good -- or yourself, other than blowing off steam?

Would it be quicker to just block the sender? Or do you need to receive his non-political emails?

Hatred never ceases by hatred;
But by love alone is healed.
This is an ancient and eternal law.

-- "Dhammapada," Ch. 1, the Twin Verses 5, as quoted by Maha Ghosananda

[nyquil_man]

41. It might make you feel better, but the person won't get it.

He/she is annoyed because you didn't agree. Anything you send which does not agree will be seen as discourteous.

As you didn't want the interaction in the first place, the best bet now is to just walk away.

[pacalo]

42. Been there, done that.

I like the last part the best:

Enough. I am royally outraged at your sheer unmitigated gall. But what else can one expect of a "conservative" -- create a problem (send inappropriate emails), ignore solutions (please stop!), then scold and play the victim when hostility ensues.

You are not deserving of courtesy. The word you are looking for is CONTEMPT.

[IdaBriggs]

43. Thank you everyone - I feel better.

I appreciate the support. Haven't heard from him since.