I only get forwarded chain letters from one source: my party-Republican step-father. He seems to be under an impression that I am a Democrat. (I’m not. I’m an independent civil libertarian, who despises the people currently running the Republican party.) Regardless of the truth of my individuality, he still thinks that I am a Democrat in need of saving from the dark side.
So he sends me from his AOL account all these rather stupid urban legends about how evil liberals and Democrats and since my spam blocker notices that they are spam I have taken to ignore them.
Now after getting a four megabyte spam today, I’ve changed my mail filter to delete all emails from him on sight. I’m simply tired of people who have no idea how to use email tactfully.
My mother-in-law is in the habit of forwarding excited chain letters that _always_ turn out to be either urban legends (easily verified on Snopes) or America-is-a-Christian-country rants, complete with the usual lies and misquotations. (The weird thing is, she’s a pretty sensible person, and not given to discussing such things face to face.) I finally got tired of simply deleting the damn things, and responded a couple of times with point-by-point rebuttals, complete with links and references.
She ignored my responses, and I kept getting the damn things. So I did the careful rebuttal routine again, but this time I replied to the entire list of people she’d sent the chain letter to.
I have never gotten another one.
Update