Hitting 'delete' for the right-wing rants

It has been more than seven months, and still my "in" box is littered daily with three or four e mails decrying the horrendous mistake us liberals have made by electing an elitist black Muslim who really isn't a U.S. citizen and whose secret plan is to turn our government into a socialist state while creating a death panel to reduce the senior population.

The rants originate from anonymous troubled people who take issue with every word and deed of President Obama, and others with nary a kind word to say for anyone or anything Democratic, liberals in general and the biased liberal media in particular. But they are forwarded to me by well-meaning Republican friends who hope to enlighten me regarding my misguided political and social leanings.

Knowing these folk to be faithful churchgoers, I fact-check some of the most mean-spirited ravings at Snopes and elsewhere and forward the information back to the senders with a reminder about the commandment that says: "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

Alas, even good people are subject to the failings of human nature and prone to believe what they want to believe. E mails filled with vicious and often slanderous falsehoods continue to clog my "in" box. So I have begun informing the senders that, because I value their friendship, I will henceforth watch for anything of a political nature and immediately click on "delete."

Dan McGuire

Bensenville