Stilli,

I understand your frustration. I would suggest you ask him for the specific cites and resources for his 'allegations'. Explain to him you would like to review them as you try to always research both sides of the issue.

It's always easier to debunk with factual data that has been vetted once you can identify the sources. You can provide in context the 'counterpoint' in a non-gotcha manner.

May I ask what area he is from and his age? Also what his occupation was before he retired?

Anyway, I would try (your choice) to send him an email requesting this info.

Blessings.

Hmmm...

I think you did a great job Still. You could have redressed the Nazi/czar thing with previous presidents and czars and how silly that notion is. Also ask him to define socialism or show him the definition.

You could let him know that Fox News makes a regular practice of lying and distorting facts to serve their nutwing agenda. The purposely stir up fear etc. to manipulate the public. They blatantly lied about what the president said in his speech for example. KO did a side by side demonstration of one of those lies showing what the president said and then what Hannity 'said' the president said.

But I'm not sure if it would have made any difference.

You never know. Take a stand and a crack may appear in his thinking that lets in a little light.

For my father it happened not just because I told him that Bill O'Reilly was a lying slime ball but because other people 'also' said things to him about Fox News etc. and he still can get sucked in to some of that garbage but now he talks to me about it and he 'listens'.

I don't think your uncle is 'listening' very well to you, his filters are shutting out most of what you say but again... maybe a crack will create an opening.

One thing I am finding effective is asking a lot of questions:

Do you realize that President Bush had lots of czars in including Karl Rove?
Here's a link for that:http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/10/rove-czars/

So I guess in your book Bush was a Nazi? Wow.

Are you living in a fact free zone?

Why do you prefer to ignore 'all' of the evidence that President Obama was born in Hawaii? is an American citizen? and was elected by a majority of the American people who worked very hard to get him elected?

What scares you so much about our president? Is it because he is more educated? is black? is a decent man?

What is so scary about the situation that you would rather believe people who are motivated by corporate interests to dominate and control the public with lies, distortions, and manipulation?

Why are you choosing to listen to liars and shut out facts (such as just listening to the president's speech for yourself) rather than listen to anyone who would talk to you about truth, reason, and reality?

Is it because you would separate yourself from the pack of people who believe this garbage? (this could be it for some people out there btw)
______________

I'd throw a bunch of questions at people like this. They don't usually answer but they kind of shut up and go away for a little while:)

I do think it can make them doubt themselves a little... because in my experience they go away try to find 'new' evidence to back themselves up and make themselves feel better and come back to say ta dah... until I ask them some more questions.

Good for you for caring enough about your uncle to engage him this way and tell him the truth!

Stilli, your biggest mistake is answering his e-mails in the first place. Neither of you will be convinced of the others' point of view, so why bother?

It's hard not to respond, but next time treat his e-mails like spam - seriously.

I have a suggestion: Next time just stick and ice pick in your ear. Quicker and a lot less painful.

Oh, hell. That was painful to read. My sincere sympathies ... and I think I'll send my Aunt Mary a cyber hug out of the blue. She disagrees/is afraid of what Obama is proposing but doesn't go off into to the fringes or ugly hate (sorry, but that 'defacating on his grave' sent me over the edge)

You've probably figured out by now that going head-on with him is 1) bad for the blood pressure and 2) not getting much of anywhere. If there is any communication from him of this sort in the future, maybe try coming back with an entirely different tone: unemotional, cryptic even, and nothing but facts or questions. -- Sometimes (rarely, but sometimes) you can get someone to start questioning their "certainties" by exposing them to a concrete, factual inconsistency that is important to them. Of course, you can't tell what is important to them, so if you just keep calmly rebutting the facts underlying their opinions maybe one will catch. (Don't, by the way, expect them to acknowledge this - at least not right away. The best you can hope for is that they won't be so certain in the future when talking to someone else, or will choose not to talk about politics.)

Just grabbing a few lines from one of his posts:

>>your right I do get medicare. I pay $97.00 per month for it and seldom use it. I have been paying for it most of my adult life in payroll taxes.

-- Do you know what part you are paying for and what you would be entitled to if you paid nothing? I'm not eligible yet so not entirely sure how it works. What would happen if you needed a hip replacement like __(some family member)__? Would you pay for it yourself or would Medicare pay for it?

>>I have VA benefits because because I was wounded in action. I paid for that too.

-- I'm not eligible for VA benefits either, obviously, so can you tell me how that works? When you say you paid, do you mean your wounds -- which I agree is a high cost -- or do your have to make out of pocket contributions?

>>>Your president wanted to force wounded veterans to pay for their own insurance to cover their war wounds to but even his own liberal congress shot that down.

-- I've never heard anything even remotely like that and certainly if it's true would want to know. Can you please give me your source for this information. I find it hard to believe, but I will absolutely try to track it down and see if it's true.

>>I am not to fond of the republicans either but I am proud to be a conservative.

-- Can you tell me what being a conservative means to you. I thought I knew and that it was something I could respect, even if I didn't agree with it, but after George W Bush ....... if he's a conservative I honestly don't see what there is to admire.

>>>Medicare does not not pay for preventative care thus a tremendous waste.

Well, you and President Obama - and I! -- at least agree on one thing. I never thought much about the importance of early and consistent prevention until I started hearing him stress it in all his speeches, even during the primary campaigns.

I know. Tedious and sick-makingly sweet! But, on both sides, people don't really like to talk to someone who disagrees with them unless there is at least a faint hope that they will be able to convince them that *their* side is the right one. So while you want to believe you can get your uncle to change his mind --- HE wants to believe the same thing! So, to the extent you can, if keep his attention and flatter him that you're listening, then he's going to stay engaged and maybe acknowledge that one or two things are okay about Obama (like the preventive care), if only to make you feel good. At least he'll be calmer and paying attention, and **maybe** start questioning his certainties if he *can't* come up with a source for you or has to admit that this or that fact is wrong.

It's very, very hard to do - and discouraging -- and not fun -- and sometimes sick-making -- and you'll probably never know (or would be the last to know) if you make any inroads. But if you can go at it from an angle, instead of head-on .... I guess the goal is to ask him something that his "Fox news playbook" doesn't give him the answer for (or tell him something they haven't/can't refute) -- just about anything so that he has to do just a moment of independent thought. Rush and Fox and Co. absolutely depend on the "accept it because I say it's so" mentality, so if you can get someone thinking on their own, just in one or two instances...

People like your uncle are terrified -- I'm not quite sure of what but it's clear they are terrified. Like any terrified creature, they just aren't going to think any new thoughts, or reach any new conclusions, or raise any questions of their own unless and until they are calm and somehow a bit reassured. If you can keep it calm and civil (as Obama himself does) and can look him in the eye and say, in effect, "I'm not afraid to look at investigate any of your charges. In fact, I want to because it upsets me that people are believing upsetting things that may not be true. I am absolutely confident that in the end I will continue to respect and trust our President, but I promise to tell you if I don't" .... then maybe that will help open a crack in the ice somewhere.

But, last suggestion, only write back when *you* are feeling strong and calm yourself! Right now, for example - with the news about Boehner's 'no' vote - I'm so sick at heart and furious that there's no way in the world I could project any calm or tolerance or openness. In fact if anyone self-identified themselves as a Republican right now, I'd probably punch them in the face!!

Your uncle had some points. Pity you didn't pay attention.
Traditional American Conservatism wanted to maintain the essentials to preserve a privileged way of life for as long as possible ( I know Cheney would claim that for himself ) and minimze government interference with private property and persons.
Mostly it was smoke and mirrors from media owned by robber barons...but it sounded nice.
I can't see a guy like that enchanted with electronic surveillance of Americans...or even mountaintop removals.
And Obama ? I never had a 'JFK moment' with him. It's true I haven't much listened either. After coming in the door virtually salaaming to AIPAC and changing the focus of 'war' in the Middle East from killing Iraqis to nailing the neighbours, memories of Vietnam and escalation into surrounding countries is playing out again.
Somalia is a pretty good example of where it will take the natives.
Seeing as how I had a problem with calling a think tank's public program to take the Presidency and destroy governments in oil-producing countries a 'conspiracy theory'....what would oil moguls want with defenceless people sitting on oil resevoirs anyway?

Torture. Still on.
Secret prisons ? Bagram is expanding.
Collateral damage killing civilians in a 'war' zone ? Check.
Banks running senseless 'loan' programs ? Check.

'Change you can believe in.' Say what?

Okay: here is a re-link to the first article:

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/more-birther-nonsense-obamas-1981-pakistan-trip/

(Sorry about the screw up the first time.)

Now your conversation with him will probably go something like this argument. That's okay. This should drive him crazy.

You will be called elitist, condescending, disrespectful and a variety of other meaningless names. Mostly because you are simply chipping away at someone's self-esteem: you are giving them evidence that they aren't as bright as they think they are. That's pretty painful news!

Ignore that stuff. Be relentless in your facts.

More below:

Stilli! You've honestly got him listening! Seriously!!!

He's sounding calmer (if just as adamant) and he's now talking at least half the time in facts (wrong facts, but facts, not just accusations and slogans). And about one of them (the birth certificate) he even admits that at least in theory he might be wrong.

This really sounds to me like a crusty old man who thinks you are ridiculous and wrong but is still enjoying the feisty exchange and attention you're giving him. And maybe, just maybe, he wants to belive that perhaps you're half-right and things aren't as frightening as they seem to him. So he's listening ... probably telling himself that perhaps he can change your mind. The important thing is that he's listening. You done good!!!

I've jotted down a couple of possible responses -- but whatever you reply, keep honing in on the facts. As Daniel Moynihan said, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts. If nothing else, sticking to the facts may be so boring and such hard work that he decides to pay attention to baseball and not Fox News...

------

So now you blamed George W Bush for our sour economy where was the democratic controlled congress?
– Actually, Congress was controlled by the Republicans for the first six years of Bush’s time in office and had at best a one vote margin (which was Joe Lieberman!) in the Senate after that.

----------

Obama is leading us to ruin and the democratic congress is helping.
– Obama has been in office less than one year, so don't you think it's a little early to be certain of the outcome of his presidency? Also, where were these alarms and dire warnings while Bush was taking the country from a surplus of $_______ [end of Clinton’s terms] to a deficit of $_____ [end of Bush’s term], into two wars that got nowhere, and on the brink of financial collapse at the conclusion of his 8 years in office? Why wouldn't that be considered “leading us to ruin” but I don't remember anyone calling him a ___substituted nasty names from his earlier posts___?

-------------

I have studied his background and his associations with the Chicago crime machine.
– Could you please give me some reliable sources for that information. I’d like to know for myself if this is true.

---------------

If you have his money how hard is it to have a paper printed whith his birth announcement in it. That is no substitute for a birth certificate.
–-- President Obama’s birth certificate has been released and it has been validated and verified by the State of Hawaii. The only supposed birth certificate that claims to show he was born elsewhere has been revealed as a fraud.
Also, when Obama was born, which is when the birth announcement was put in the newspaper, his family didn't have money or, so far as I can see, any reason to fake something like that. His parents were students, his grandfather worked as a furniture saleseman, and his grandmother was just starting her working for the bank (where she later became a supervisor) in a low-level position, riding the city bus to work everyday. (He writes about his early life in "Dreams From My Father" and if he wasn't telling the truth, I guarantee you that the Clintons or your friends at Fox News would have found out. They even found a paper he wrote in the 2nd grade, for heaven's sake, and tried to make use of that!)
But, these are the questions that just fascinate me about the birth certificate business – I would really love to hear your thoughts on it: why would a family like the Dunhams have faked a birth announcement in a Hawaii newspaper in 19__? What did they gain? And - the MOST fascinating question -- if some enemy of the US was planning a conspiracy to have a secret Marxist/Communist/Facist/whatever raised to take over our country, how did they know this baby would agree with their goals ...... and, beyond that, why in the *world* would they choose to make the “imposter” a bi-racial child born to a teenaged mother from a poor family in a suspiciously "exotic" State like Hawaii with a really funny name??? I'm no evil conspiratory, but I think if I was planting a "ringer" that was supposed to rise to power in the US, I'd propbably choose a white kid from a two-parent family, complete with white picket fence and family dog and “solid sounding” name, from somewhere in the Midwest. *That* person would be much better chance to be elected President some day.

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The one he showed originally was hand printed and proven to be a forgery. His first entry into an american college was in California and he was granted foreign student status. In 1991 he went to Pakistan. What Visa did he use? Americans were not allowed to go there in 1991.
–-- Please give me your sources for this information. Except for the fact that he began his college education in California as an out-of-STATE (not foreign) student, I don’t believe any of it is true -- but I promise I will read your sources with an open mind.

So, it's worth a try, don't you think? You truly DID make inroads. Take it from someone who has done decades of work in mediation, you've got him listening with at least half an ear and paying a lot more attention to provable (or disprovable) facts! Congrats. And, of course, good luck.

If someone makes factual allegations and you are interested in pursuing a dialogue with them, then you have to do some homework to find out which of the allegations are true, which are half-truths and which are just false, so you can rebut the half-truths and falsehoods. If you are not interested in doing that, it's best not to discuss those matters with them. Otherwise, your inability to offer an effective refutation will only confirm them in their opinions.

If the right-wingers spent half as much time developing sound policy ideas as they do developing melodramas about the insignificant, they might actually win some elections.

A family member emailed me the other day and asked what I think about ACORN, and I responded that I don't watch TV, and so don't know anything about ACORN. End of the matter.

I spend most of what little time I have to devote to politics reading and thinking about health care, foreign policy. As far as I'm concerned letting oneself get dragged down into the melodramas the wingnuts is allowing them to throw us off our games. It's like when you are trying to shoot a foul shot in a basketball game and the guys lined up on the foul lane are saying stuff about your mother. Let it go and stay focused on your primary objectives.

FWIW and IMHO.

If you want to deal with this rather than just spam filter him and try to reach some kind of "no politics" truce at family gatherings, I have a few thoughts of my own about how to deal with this.

First, and most important, stop trying to "win" the argument. That's impossible. And self-defeating. Fact by fact refutations of the lies and the direct exposure of logical flaws only work when two parties are trying to pursuade a pursuadable third party.

Second, control what a guy who writes a regular litigation column in the ABA Journal calls "your inner Mongo," the inner voice of the adrenalin and, for us guys, testerone surge that occurs in the heat of argument that causes us to make suboptimal decisions in the interest of gratifying our immediate need to pound on some dumb mofo. ("Opposing counsel embarass Mongo! Mongo kill now!") An email chain gives you an advantage. It gives you a chance to stop, take a breath, let the fight or flight hormones burn off and then, try some empathy instead.

Third. Try the empathy. All of this rage and anger from most of these people is coming from the same place, IMO. Fear, a pervasive sense of insecurity about almost everything in their lives and, in many cases, a raging case of cognitive dissonance caused by their inability to reconcile the fact that we spent eight years doing stuff exactly the way they always said we should do them and the result was unmitigated disaster on every front.

Fourth. Once you understand where the rage is coming from, you may begin to see where the chinks in the armor are into which you can insert a small wedge of reason. The thing is, you can't tell them anything. You can't win by challenging their "facts" with stuff like cites to fact-checking websites. They have their own facts and, in their eyes, we're the ones who are delusional and willfully deceived by malignant and cynical creeps and anyone who challeges their authorities is part of the plot.

Instead, the only hope you have is to lead them, by indirection, to a process by which they will themselves begin to question one of their own factual assumptions. I'd suggest maybe something along the lines of:

"Dear Uncle Bonehead (okay, don't really call him Bonehead):"

"I'd like to kind of reboot this discussion because neither of us can convince the other of anything and we're both only succeeding in making each other mad. And I think the reason for that is each of us has his own set of facts. So here's what I'd like to suggest instead of each of us arguing. I'd like to suggest that each of us look at our own factual assumptions and apply the 'EnZyte Test' to them.

You know what I mean, right? Those commercials on TV advertising nonprescription herbal remedies that are supposed to make your whang bigger and make you irresistable to women. They're raking in tens of millions--even had their own NASCAR car at one point and its all because people won't ask themselves a simple quesiton. 'Do I believe this claim because it I really, really want it to be true for some reason, or do I believe it because the source is inherently credible and it accords with common sense?'"

Then, I'd suggest you dredge up something you may or may not have believed about Bush and subject it to this test and admit you were, or may have been, wrong (even if you really don't think you were). The possibility that the Surge could work would be one that would appeal to a vet (again, don't be afraid to gloss over complexities or even tell a little white lie here--lord knows he's got enough lies stuffed into his head that one more won't hurt anything). Then go on to gently suggest that, just for example, you've never gotten anything in a fowarded email with something like "send this to everyone you know" at the bottom that didn't turn out to be complete bullshit, like all those fake virus scares or chain emails about how Bill Gates will send everyone a dollar.

This is a work of years, not days, you're embarking on, if you choose to try to do this. You've got to plant those little seeds of doubt that get him questioning his own assumptions. Find something he says that you can twist into something you believe to show that it is possible to question one's own assumptions.

Or, you know, there's always that spam list him and try to get him to agree with you not to talk politics at Thanksgiving and Christmas option. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that that was a lot more likely to work out for you.

All your uncle really wanted was for you to tell him "I love you, Unca! This much! (Outspread arms indicating intensity) I'll always be your little nephew" Than you could give him a big bear hug, and a little slap on the shoulder. That's all he wanted. And in completely ignoring any of his political chatter, you re-aasure him that all that suff in his in-box isn't worthy of your attention.
Instead, you made him all insecure, by admitting his nonsense is even debateable. Now he will be worse than ever.

"Anything you would have said differently?"

I think I would have just sent him the dictionary definitions of "paranoid," "hysteria" and "brainwashed," and just left it at that.

You can try anything, but first ask yourself, is he going to be amenable to any sort of facts you can produce second-hand (all internet-sourced proof is second hand) if not cease the dialogue, if so, start producing the facts for him. It's a hard slog, but worth it if you value your uncle, and can do something to help his world view.

You know, sometimes you just have to decide that someone is politically a lost cause and still love them anyway.

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