I recently received several “forwarded” email attachments from well-meaning people concerning a certain candidate for President of the United States. I do not agree with the particular candidate's political or moral stand, and I do not plan to vote for him/her should that person become the nominee of his/her party. But, I am very concerned about people telling the truth. I may not agree with a person’s politics, but I believe that it is immoral to purposely lie, or tell an untruth, or half-truth in order to turn people against someone. Usually, there is enough clear truth, facts, and evidence to properly use to persuade people not to vote for someone, or to vote in favor of someone.
Some of the email attachments I have received claim that the website “snopes.com” has verified the truthfulness of the outrageous claims made against the candidate in question. The fact is that when I went to "snopes.com" to see if the attachment I received was true, I found that it was NOT true! “Snopes.com” has NOT verified such information, and in fact, “snopes.com” has shown such claims to be false. The statement that "snopes.com" had verified the claims of the attachment was a lie, and the attachment itself was a lie. When people begin to simply “forward” email attachments without checking out the veracity of such claims, it may be said that such “forwarders” have perpetuated a lie, a slander, or a libel. It usually only takes a few minutes to check out a story or a claim to find whether it is true or false.
Politics is bad enough as it is without people thinking they have to lie, smear, and denigrate one candidate in order to have their own choice for candidate win an election.
Many people receive email attachments daily. Some foolishly believe that just because someone sent them an email the contents of the email must be true. After all (they reason), it was on the internet! And, they somehow feel an obligation to carbon copy it and forward it to a few dozen other unsuspecting people. Maybe this comes as news to some people, but the internet is used for all kinds of evil, including lies. Often, the contents of emails are simply the figment of someone’s imagination. A person should always check out the truthfulness of an email before sending it to others. But, remember this, some emails are just not worth sending on to others anyway, even if they are true.
Why not be a truth-seeker and truth-teller rather than a slanderer, or libelous, or a talebearer? Don't you be guilty of forwarding an attachment to a host of email recipients without checking the truthfulness of what you are sending. Check it out before sending it to others! Also ask yourself, is it really necessary to send this on? In the overall scheme of things, what good will it do?
