What do you do? Ignore it? Ask to be taken off the list? Spend the time and effort to research and refute the crap out of it and send said results back to the original sender? Or to the sender and all the others who received it? It depends, ultimately, on what you want your future relationship to be with that person, vs. what harm perhaps you think they doing to the rest of society (not to mention your mental ear drums).
Speaking truth to idiocy has a cost. But speaking truth almost always does. And it has a benefit, too. Pick your battles, but remember the old Roman maxim that silence implies consent.
Reshared post from +don albertson
In which Jim Wright systematically disembowels the lies in yet another one of those emails that conservatives seem to love so well.
I get the same shit from Grandpa. But obviously can't reply like this. Just not worth it. But others, maybe depending on free time and mood.
It really does depend on the relationship, family or friend, and past and hoped-for future. And there are also ways to fact-check and comment that are (if desired) more respectful than Jim Wright's case here.
On the other hand, sometimes you have to go all Martin Luther on this kind of thing — "Here I stand — I can do no other." And sometimes you have to consider whether the relationship is worth continuing if it involves a high level of cognitive dissonance and tacit approval of bile.
(It's like, in its own way, friends or family who tell jokes that you find offensive. Sometimes staying quiet is the least-worst answer. Sometimes respectful pointing out of the problem is. Sometimes you have to unload both barrels and then withdraw.)