(no subject)

[miss_kae_oz]

Dear LJ Land,

I need your help. Research and information help.

I have lately been receiving emails from family that make me sick to my stomach in ways I don't want to go into at this exact moment. I have been dwelling on them, thinking about them non-stop. It is not in my nature to just ignore them, let them slide, let anyones xenophobic and ignorant beliefs go unchallenged. I am constantly going over and over in my head things to say. These being my family members, I can't just call them ignorant boobs, though I am tempted.

There are many things I have learned that form my opinions and beliefs. Unfortunately I did not memorize the facts or log resources of information. I had no plans to need precise info for debates in the future. I had no plans for debating. Now, I have been forced to change my mind.

I know you people and I know how informed and intelligent the majority of the people on my lj are. Even more, you are much more organized than I would ever be. I need your favorite resources for facts. Political and economical facts. Preferred is info on Socialism for the Rich, republican vs democratic spending, welfare and welfare reform, and if anyone has favored info on immigration and, perhaps, crime, it would be appreciated.

Let me include for you a snippet of ONE of the emails. Not the worse, but the most recent.

Professor Joseph Olson, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Democrats: 20; Republicans: 30

Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000; Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million; Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2; Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase. One step away from collapse.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we have maybe five years before collapse.

Apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom... but then who cares?

Comments

3 Things

[funghoul.livejournal.com]

It seems you're looking for facts regarding immigration? Unfortunately all I have about that is anecdotal. Living in Arizona, I've worked with many Mexican, South and Central American immigrants, and I've heard many times that increased border control has only resulted in them bringing their whole families and staying in the U.S. because it's too difficult to cross every year as migrant workers used to.

For other issues, I highly recommend Freakonomics, the book (http://freakonomicsbook.com/thebook/index.html) or the blog (http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/). You can probably get the book or audiobook at your local library. It's enjoyable, random and thorough.

As to that e-mail, you could point out the classic defense that the same line of reasoning would lead one to believe that ice cream causes drowning, since ice cream sales and death by drowning both increase in the summer. Democrats typically gain greater support in areas with higher population density, which -the e-mail doesn't mention- have higher levels of education, but also more violent crime.

So clearly, education causes crime, eh?

[scarletstar.livejournal.com]

Hello there - are you sure you can't ignore this? Was this just an e-mail that was forwarded, or did someone in your family actually take the time to "compile" this "questionable data"?
I am very liberal democrat (NO on 8!) that lives in the Bay Area, and the rest of my family voted Bush into office twice. We coexist by NOT talking politics ever, or me walking out of the room when they get nutty, or my deleting the crap that they forward to me (along with everyone else in their AOL contact list.) I am NEVER going to change the minds of my family, just as they are not going to change mine. Will your counter attack to this e-mail even move the needle in terms your family changing their minds?
Because I know exactly what you are going through, I hate to see this cause anxiety and stress for you. that's all :)

[djdelilah.livejournal.com]

What you should do is email all of them a porn picture. Then when they email back and say "Why would you send this to me, I find this offensive!" say "Now you know how I feel. Quit forwarding that stuff to me."

[baconmonkey.livejournal.com]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp
http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2006/10/request_regardi.php