My brief foray into the Glenn Beck inspired Mommy Brigade of tea baggers has been pretty much what I expected it would be. A lot of angry nothing backed up with about as much substance and intelligence as a Brittany Spears concert.
That is, until today.
In the spirit of full disclosure to my fellow Kossacks (which I obviously didn't give to the Mommy Brigade) I'm exceedingly socially liberal. I think the term "flaming hippie" has been an accurate descriptor on multiple occasions. I am, however, pretty fiscally moderate - maybe even bordering on conservative. I was hoping to get more closely in touch with that aspect of myself in effort to relate and, well...stay under their radar for a bit. And it would have worked, too, if not for those meddling social conservatives.
In my last blog, I highlighted some of their wonky forums and discussed that, at times, some of their members could be brought to recognize sense or logic if presented to them by someone they felt was "one of their own". I also worried about being outed if (or when) anyone decided to do a little research. Considering the tea baggers' obvious disdain for analysis, I truly believed my activities would go undetected for quite a while.
Apparently, I should mark a calendar since tea bagger research began last night. (Really, they couldn't have bothered doing this with health care?!) I evidently pissed off one of the Conservative Mommy Police who went through my posts and discovered logical presentations of facts, which then set her off onto all sorts of looking-for-progressives-behind-the-curtains mode. She began relentlessly attacking of my posts, even those agreeing with or in support of other writers.
While holding my own against her "attacks", thankyouverymuch, the unexpected occurred. Several other posters chimed in to support my dissension, saying:
If those of us who don't have 100% socially conservative views aren't welcome here then that is a shame, and we're going to lose a lot of great women.
And then that poster was attacked, as well.
Sigh.
Still, though -- I'm a bit dumbfounded that it dawned on anyone over there that the tea party should include anyone not apoplectic with their social conservatism. Either sensibility is beginning to dawn within the Mommy Brigade, or these are fellow progressive posters in my same vein.
Even if it is other progressives chiming in, I still think it's helpful and injects rationality into the discussions. Allowing tea baggers to get away with bullshitting their own people doesn't help anyone. Showing them pushing out moderates exposes their true colors as Talibangelists.