Oh, before I forget.

So, I was also getting these emails recently. I’m a kinda middle of the road guy when it comes to the other great touchstone of our lives, namely politics. I kept getting these emails about the current president or the speaker of the house, I guess the intent was to spread that general air of discontent over a series of like-minded people.

Which is fine, we need to have a dialog and all that. There should be some kind of profusion of opinions when it comes to these things.

However, one of the things I really can’t abide is out and out bullsh*t lying. What I mean is when a statement or action is attributed to someone and it’s just fake, didn’t happen, wasn’t said, was said by someone else or just is absolute and utter crap.

Example: Politician (insert name of hated politician here) said today he is going to surrender all American women to the Middle East, sell all of the veteran’s down the river, spend every last dime we have until our children’s, children’s, children’s children’s future is mortgaged, open our borders to anyone at anytime who wants to come in and enjoy a welfare state.

Look, there are a lot of issues I stand solidly with what would be considered the ‘right’ on but there are a surprising number of issue where I would be considered ‘left’ leaning. When I get an email like the example above, the first thing I do is to go to SNOPES.COM to check out whether or not it’s just the latest round of internet bullsh*t making the rounds.

The really unfortunate thing is when I get one of these things and I see the email trail of the many addresses it made it’s way to (is it any wonder we are a nation of sometimes idiots). To me, this is one step away from the kind of garbage we see in every dysfunctional government to come down the road. It’s as if the internet birthed thousands of Joseph Goebbels and it’s not about the facts but more about swaying opinion to your side in absence of facts and painting some group as the villain.

In the last few weeks, I got about three of these things. The first time I checked it and saw it was a fallacy and let the sending party know. The second time I got another checked it again to see it was false and again let the party know and asked they not send me anything else like it until they checked their facts first, the third time I got one and again found out it was fraudulent and wrote back a carefully worded statement asking the person if it was their intention to spread lies about current events and whether or not they thought it reflected on their own character in any way.

The third one did it, I’m just too much of a party pooper.

But here’s the rub, I had to put up with the same kind of crap from a totally different set of people during the eight years that Bush was in office. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.

What I fail to understand is how people can so readily attribute such foul, foul deeds and misstatements to their neighbors. To well intentioned people who are serving in the government trying to make our country a better place and even if you don’t like a specific person (politician), can you at least show some kind of respect for the office they hold?

Can people at least be mature enough to make that kind of distinction? You can run across a nasty cop every now and again but at least have the respect for the police who put their lives on the line. Show respect for their office, is that a concept that is so hard to grasp?

And if you can’t at least grasp it and you can’t get your facts straight, do me a favor leave me out of your discussion because I have the feeling anything I have to add will only upset you anyway.