Hypersensitivity

Posted on March 7, 2003 in Mailbox

I got a mail message from a blogger who was upset because my Spamarrest message includes this paragraph:

If this is an invitation to launder your money using my bank account, know that if you let the email through, I will send the message with its full headers to the Federal Communications Commission and to Interpol. You will not interest me in the least, but I am sure they will be interested. Stop
while you are ahead.

Most of us know what this refers to: the infamous Nigerian money laundering scam. The writer had nothing to fear unless his message was a scheme to swindle me. It’s all clearly in the text.

I included this paragraph because the people who perpetrate the Nigerian money laundering scheme apparently operate in person. A couple of such messages got through my spam filtering site (it has definitively cut out everyone else!), so I added this paragraph. It has been effective. The number of such messages has dropped to zero.

I have little tolerance for anyone who takes offense because they can’t read a message for what it is. The cup of world opinion — alas! — overflows with views based on such misreadings. But to simplify what I said for those who still can’t understand after reading my paragraph: If your email is a swindle, I’ll turn you in. (Unstated corrollary: if it is not a swindle, I won’t.)

For the record, this particular writer is a liberal. For the time being, I am allowing him to continue to send me his email messages and not taking steps to ban him because the origin of his complaint seems to be a sensitivity based on a misreading. I am also preserving his anonymity: hell, I granted only a tiny bit less to the roach who came clattering through the other day and that one was being deliberately stupid and offensive. My beef with this other, so far, is trivial by comparison, but I mention it in the spirit of warning others to read carefully before they flame. If you lose it and break the rules, your politics won’t save you.