Right Wing E-mails
There's a strange phenomenon I've noticed with e-mail. I kind of hinted at it in an earlier blog entry, How to Spot an E-mail Hoax. I was fairly neutral in that entry, saying to be wary of politically related e-mails in general. But the thing I've noticed, is that the vast, vast majority of dubious politically related e-mails I've received are from the right side of the spectrum. In fact, I can't recall a single chain e-mail I've received personally that has denigrated Republicans, social conservatives, or the religious right. But I've received plenty that criticize or demonize their opponents, almost always by either stretching the truth or by outright fabrication.
At first, I wondered if this just had to do with sampling bias. I do live in Texas, after all, which is pretty well known for being a "red" state. But after doing a Google search for "are all e-mail forwards right wing," I found that I'm not the only one that's noticed this correllation. A guy by the name of Chris Hayes published an entry on his blog, The New Right-Wing Smear Machine, which examined how this phenomenon has spread. I found a blog entry on The Blog From Another Dimension dealing with this very issue, which even addressed an e-mail that I've covered before here. There's even a blog, My Right Wing Dad, devoted entirely to posting examples of these types of e-mails.
So, assuming this is a real phenomenon, what I don't understand is why. It would be tempting to quote studies such as this one, which indicates that "liberals are more likely than conservatives to have a strong response in the area of the brain used to inhibit responses at the time when they are supposed to inhibit response" (which could be taken to mean in relation to this e-mail question - stretched beyond the actual resuls of the study - that liberals would be more likely to question the validity of an e-mail even when it confirms their political biases). You could also point to this article. One of the paragraphs states:
The most comprehensive review of personality and political orientation to date is a 2003 meta-analysis of 88 prior studies involving 22,000 participants. The researchers--John Jost of NYU, Arie Kruglanski of the University of Maryland, and Jack Glaser and Frank Sulloway of Berkeley--found that conservatives have a greater desire to reach a decision quickly and stick to it, and are higher on conscientiousness, which includes neatness, orderliness, duty, and rule-following. Liberals are higher on openness, which includes intellectual curiosity, excitement-seeking, novelty, creativity for its own sake, and a craving for stimulation like travel, color, art, music, and literature.
But, as those articles also point out, political affiliation is a pretty complicated thing. Plus, even if you were willing to say that on average liberals were smarter, or more interested in checking the veracity of claims, could it really be such a big difference as to account for my inbox getting a dozen dubious right-wing e-mails per week, and no such left-wing e-mails in the last five years? I mean, there are also liberals who don't always have such a good grasp of reality. What keeps these people from spreading all types of false e-mail rumors about the right? And is it really just the right-wingers that forward on all the other e-mail hoaxes?
I don't know, maybe it's still a sampling bias. Maybe I just happen to be finding all the bad examples of right-wing e-mail, while other people find all the bad examples from the left-wing. No matter what the case, could everybody just please do a little fact checking before clogging my inbox with all these false rumors?
Updated 2013-06-17: Fixed three links:
Comments
Maybe you don't think all the left wing emails are bad and you forward them on? Haha, jk.
I actually get a lot of right wing emails too. I assumed it was because I have two very right wing relatives that discovered the internet, not because the majority of all emails are right wing. Wonder how much truth there is in it and how much is just sampling bias.
Only thing that runs kind of counter to the right wing emails are the gas prices emails. I consider most of those to be left wing, although maybe I'm classifying them wrong.
Posted by: Eric Jones | June 23, 2008 9:02 AM
I've been wondering about this same phenomenon lately. I don't consider myself beholden to any political party or belief system...but I've always wondered why it seems that people who hold "right wing" opinions seem to believe ANYTHING that seemingly supports what they want to believe. Facts are ONLY facts if is supports their version of reality. I really have a hard time with a few of my relatives concerning this issue. Talking to them about it is a waste of time. I wonder if they assume that I think they way they do as evidenced by the emails they foreward me. These emails may get forewarded by those who don't know any better as well. Anyway, as stated above I've known those with left wing points of view to be full of crap as well, but it I agree it seems more rampant on the right.
Posted by: Michael Skidmore | July 1, 2008 1:25 PM
SO, YOU'RE BLACK, YOU VOTED FOR THE MESSIAH OBAMA, AND THINGS ARE PEACHY KEEN FOR YOU???? THINK AGAIN, FOOL.
A black minister who founded a website called BlackGenocide.org charges the Obama administration's health care reform legislation is designed to INCREASE the number of abortions in the African-American community.
"It's sinister, but President Obama has become the face of black genocide in America today," said Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., senior pastor of the New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, N.J.
According to Childress, about 35 percent of the nearly 4,500 abortions performed each day in the U.S. are on African-Americans, even though African-Americans are only about 13.5 percent of the population.
Childress said 52 percent of all African-American pregnancies end in abortion, and three out of every five African-American women will obtain an abortion.
He estimated 16 million African-American babies have been aborted since the passage of Wade v. Roe in 1973.
Had the approximately 16 million African American babies aborted since the landmark Supreme Court decision been allowed to live, there likely would be more than 50 million African-Americans in the U.S. today. The last count, in 2007, was 40 million.
WND contacted Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America for comment and received no response by the publication deadline.
Statistics on abortion maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the rate of abortions for African-American women is three time higher than for white women. About 10.8 percent of white pregnancies resulting in a reported abortion, compared to 33.4 percent for African-Americans.
If the Democrats' health-care measure provides government funding for abortions, Childress expects the number of African-American abortions to increase dramatically.
Childress pointed to a hidden "marriage penalty" included in the House-passed version of health care reform under which the cost for health insurance for two married individuals would exceed by approximately $10,000 the cost if the two individuals were single but living together.
"Skillfully placed in the bill is an incentive not to marry," Childress pointed out. "Unwanted pregnancies to unwed mothers are a major cause of abortion in the African-American community."
According to U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, 70.2 percent of all African American babies were born to unmarried mothers in 2006.
"Few people appreciate the health risk a woman takes with an abortion," Childress argued. "Abortions in first-time pregnancies increase the risk of breast cancer by as much as 66 percent. Abortions used as a contraceptive makes the woman a high risk for future illness, with the cost of her subsequent health care likely to increase by three or four times as a result of the abortion."
President Obama is on record arguing the right of a woman to choose an abortion is absolute.
On Jan. 23, as one of his first acts as president, Obama issued an executive order rescinding the so-called "Mexico City Policy," a Reagan administration-era prohibition against all non-governmental organizations receiving federal funding to perform or actively promote abortions.
SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT HOPE AND CHANGE, NOW?
Posted by: Tony | December 24, 2009 2:56 PM