Preying on the elderly is morally reprehensible, regardless of the group whose pockets are being filled. It is a shame that the GOP name is associated therewith.
The error is the tendency to overestimate disposition factors instead of situational ones, which is exactly what you’re doing.
'nuff said
'nuff said
Implies to me that their relatives are a bunch of irresponsible douchbags. Even if we consider this comment the other way, this is the only situational attribution you’ve made.
“Nuff said” is not an explanation.
What’s to explain? The first two comments are clearly attacking the personalities of the victims.
Why are you shocked? They’re a bunch of young ideologues and theoreticians, not young businesspersons. Besides, they’re grasping crony capitalism: if my organization continues to use your business, your business just might give me a job someday.
The problem is, the point at which you realize an elderly relative needs to be protected from stuff like this (not to mention, the point at which they or a court will let you do it) is usually after something like this has happened.
Kimstu has already spoken for me there.
But some of this stuff strikes me as barely within the law - such as giving the impression that they’re all these different groups. (I’m assuming that there’s a place, somewhere down in the fine print of their mailings, where they say who they really are, thereby keeping their ploy technically legal.) And claiming that you’re running out of money when the checks are pouring in is wrong - legal or not - whether you’re Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, or the College Republicans, or whoever.
FWIW, the backhand slap at the GOP itself was hiring sleazeballs is becoming a pattern for them. They hired a bunch of guys who were being looked into for voter fraud complaints in SD for their Ohio operation; they hired a guy who was in on the 2002 NH phone-jamming (monkeywrenched the Dems’ election-day GOTV efforts by tying up their phone lines electronically) for their New England operations; and now this. Third time is enemy action, and all that.
Old? Statement of fact.
Vulnerable? Attribution.
Senile and badgered? Attribution.
Coerced? Not from a letter, so deminstrably false.
Threatened ? Again, surmise on your part, as my post was.
Sorry, but your criticism of my post applies to yours equally.
I guess I’m insufficiently partisan to feel that way. I may disapprove of people supporting Bush, but I hardly think Bush supporters deserve to be swindled as a result of their political allegiance.
Fight my ignorance: are we sure that College Republicans is even a legitimate organization of, well, college Republicans? It seems more likely to me that they’re in cahoots with the mail vendor, some scammy group that’s out to make money off of the political process, and not a group of activists at all.
But I could well be wrong: the nonprofit fundraising landscape is littered with the corpses of groups who put too much faith in direct mail merchants.
Daniel
What’s most disappointing about this, IMO, is the negative light in which it casts campus conservatism. I’ve actually been pleased (lefty though I am) to see more conservative political activism on college campuses in the past decade, because I think it makes for a healthier intellectual climate to have a more balanced debate. Some conservatives who complain about campus liberalism stifling thought are just being whiny, but some IMO have valid complaints about the current status quo.
However, the College Republicans are not going to maintain their status as a respectable opposition group if they earn a reputation for sleazy grammy-scamming fundraising tactics.
Er, that would be “sleazy granny-scamming fundraising tactics”. As far as I know, the music industry’s annual awards are not involved here in any way. 
My sentiments can be best expressed in thei line from Clerks:
If you support scammers, don’t be surprised when you get scammed.
Oh fun, a trip into semantic nitpicking land.
A situational statement of fact.
A person can be in a situation in which they’re vulnerable
A person being badgered is situational.
Many people can be coerced from a letter. Send me money or I’ll break your fucking kneecaps, I know where you live.
Yes. but what does this have to do with my comment about the FA error?
You’re not the only person that can commit the FA error.
It wasn’t like this when I was a College Republican.
We made our money the old fashioned way - through mandatory student activity fees. 
Damn tax-and-spend conservatives! 
So can you tell us–have you ever heard of the College Republican National Committee? Is this a genuine group, or is it a scam group who named themselves something like the College Republicans in order to get old folks’ moolah?
Daniel
Gobear, as a friend? Calm down, step back, you’re coming off as a… well, if this was anywhere else, I’d say jerk, but that has loaded meanings here, so… prick?
Seriously, this is so not you. Maybe take a break till the 3rd or something?
I certainly don’t wish to come off as either a jerk or a prick, but if I’m willing to risk your bad opinion, does that mean I still may not express my opinions freely?
You know what I do with direct mail appeals for my cash? I throw them in the trash. I never give money to anyone who asks for it. I buy food for food banks, give to charities that I choose, but I never, ever, give money in response to begging letters.
I’m not defending the ethics of the College Republicans–what they did is slimy and should get them sent to jail. But at the same time, I think that the donors bear some responsibility for giving away their money so prodigally. They should not have given more than they could afford to throw away, because that is what giving your money to a charity means: throwing your money in the trash with no expectation of ROI.
And it’s OK if you’re mad at me, E-Sabbath–I still like you.
I’m not mad at you at all, gobear. Just concerned.
The intensely partisan in me (which is alpha dog amongst my split personalities these days) gets in the first reaction: “Damn good thing they weren’t pretending to be collecting money for the Democratic party instead, it would really suck for money that was supposed to go towards the Democratic Party’s election-year efforts to end up in the hip pocket of some sleazy phony college campus group!”
Then perspective sets in. I know the Republican Party, and I know Republican voters and Republican partisans. Blaming any of them, in any way, for this ripoff is totally unfair and insults their intelligence. These folks are thieves, not Republicans. Whatever else you’re going to say about them, by God if they solicit contributions to support the GOP’s initiatives, that’s exactly how they’re going to spend them. And, meanwhile, diverting individual partisans’ donations from where they intended them to go in a fashion such as this is only marginally less threatening to our democracy than hacking voting machines or forging absentee ballots.
I hope the Republican Party has the opportunity to disembowel them in court, scoop their resources, jail the participants, and ruin their credit rating but good.
People like that ruin things for everybody.
(I’m still glad that if contribution money had to be illegally diverted that it wasn’t money that might otherwise be helping John Kerry win on Tuesday though)
There’s a difference? rimshot
(Sorry, but that was a line so straight you could use it to locate satellites in geosynchronous orbit… )