I've been meaning to blog more for a long time now, but I was caught up in some stupidity that (thankfully) collapsed under its own weight late last week.
I'm talking about the inordinate amount of time I wasted posting to the local Mommies site here in Charlotte, in particular to their "controversial" discussion forum known as the "Sandbox."
I probably had no business being in there to begin with. I mean, it was obvious from day one that I was in the minority as a conservative, never mind a conservative who also supported Israel, homeschooling, stay-at-home moms and all things decidedly non-"liberal." I should have known I would spark anger in people when I saw post after post of verbal adulation for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore (and his movie), socialized medicine, and weeping emoticons over the plight of the poor put-upon Palestinians.
Yes, I should have known, but this is me, which means that even though I *did* know, I trampled on into the sand anyway, ready to defend truth, justice and the American way no matter how much sand got flung in my eyes.
And how did that work out for me? Well, let's just say that I presented such a threat to their idyllic little fantasy world--which cast them as the "good guys" and people like me as the "selfish, rapacious, greedy, uncaring, racist, jingoistic, anti-intellectual warmongering idiots"--that they felt the need to organize and conspire to get rid of me!
How did I manage it you ask? How did I drive a bunch of women to behave like, well, a bunch of women? Well, how does any conservative manage to tip a bunch of hyper-emotional, ill-informed, holier-than-thou, estrogen-overdosed liberals over the edge of reason and sanity (to which they were only clinging by a fingernail anyway)?
I bombarded them with facts.
And what happens when such people are confronted with facts (especially if they are presented in posts longer than one paragraph that are replete with "big" words like "replete")? Do they simply fire back obscenities, launch into personal attacks and openly mock the conservative (that would be me in this story)? Well they do that, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Because when they realize (all-too-quickly for them I'm sure) that you aren't running off to lick your wounds after their first or even second salvo, they call out the big guns...They ORGANIZE, they plot, they scheme and they manipulate, all with one goal in mind:
To disqualify you from participating in the discussion in the first place!
And how do they do that?
First: Start a thread *asking* other members of the forum if they "feel" the forum is turning into something it should not be...
Second: Suggest that that "something" is a place where people write posts with all the style markers of the enemy (highlight things like length of posts, use of links to sources, use of vocabulary words above eigth grade level, use of quotations from other posters in the forum). Make abundantly clear that "people" who write such posts are creating a "hostile" environment for others who want to share their opinions because such posts are "intimidating." And to cap it off, complain bitterly about the choice of topics--namely politics--citing a lack of interest in such "divisive" topics (belied by the fact of course that within seconds of making this complaint, the same poster will be clicking over to gleefully celebrate Obama's candidacy in another thread!), and accusing those who have an interest in them of being "unsupportive" of other mothers in the forum!
More plainly put, they ganged up on me to write a post about me without naming my name, just using a detailed description of my writing style, and when I (and a few of my gutsy friends) called them on it, they pulled the typical junior-high-catty clique maneuver of saying "AS IF! Get over yourself!"
But we *all* knew exactly who they were talking about, and it was clearly ME.
To make matters worse, the way they constructed their argument, their "talking points memo" if you will, was to ensure that any challenge to their premise--that people like me make the sandbox "intimidating"--would come across as proof of their argument! If you quoted one of them, you were using quotes, "calling people out" and they said that was bad. If you tried to write a response longer than a short pithy paragraph, you were "boring them with lengthy posts," and if you had the nerve to praise someone like me for her "temerity" you were using those pesky big words again! Most importantly, if you said you liked to read or write about politics, you were (gasp) clearly someone who doesn't understand that the purpose of the forum is to be "supportive" of women, and since the "majority" of the women there either don't like to talk about politics, or only like to discuss politics they can agree with, challenging them in any way is automatically taboo and "unsupportive."
I almost bailed after reading this one thread (which went on for 8 or 9 pages by the way), but then I realized that I had a right to speak *my* piece too! So I posted a separate thread as an open letter to the forum to speak to the complaints, one by one, from my point of view. I figured I'd play their game right along with them! If they were going to use intimidation to talk about how awful intimidation was, I was going to talk about their hypocrisy by giving them an opportunity to demonstrate it!
So they don't like my posts, they're too long and big-wordy? OK, here's one I'm starting, obviously authored by me, thus easy to avoid for people who want to avoid me--people who feel "intimidated" or "offended" by me. And they don't want to talk about politics, so OK, this won't be about that, so presumably if they respond, we can assume they *were* at least interested in the subject matter!
But did they stay away? No. They did for a day or so, during which time I got tons of support from those conservatives who felt targeted vicariously through me--who felt that I was their sacrificial lamb of sorts because they enjoyed my posts, just didn't post that much to say so in public for fear of being torn asunder by the other side. I had no such fear, so I had no trouble "representin'" our side!
Then the cats clawed their way in and let me have it right between the eyes. One even went so far as to *admit* that her foremost concern was making sure that I didn't read the many notes of support as evidence that I wasn't the most offensive person in the forum! Another just wanted to call me names. And mind you, this was in a thread in which I only attempted to say that I never meant to intimidate anyone, hurt anyone or offend anyone, but rather that I was only interested in intelligent debate. Rather than taking me at my word, these women accused me of lying and said they knew better than I what my intentions were, and clearly they were malicious.
Yes kids, presenting facts to the ignorant is "malicious" apparently. You read it here first. Couldn't make this up if I tried.
Anyway, after several posts insisting that I was evil incarnate, the moderators FINALLY did something about what was happening. But do you think they banned the individuals who were mud-slinging and breaking forum rules? Nope. Do you think these support-obsessed women checked in with me to see how I was taking being viciously attacked in an open public forum? Nope again. All they did, after several hours of allowing me to take this abuse, was close the entire forum for everyone. It was the classic "If you can't share the toy, no one gets to play with it" instead of just taking the toy from the selfish kid who won't share!
And what do you think happened next? Do you think these cats got the message? Nope again!!! They went into one of the other forums and started a thread to explain to those mommies who missed all the high drama why their sandbox was no more. And since those women never got to read my post, it was open season on reinventing history to suit their aims! Straight out of the Democratic Playbook again! When the facts are unprovable, MAKE THEM UP TO SUIT YOUR SIDE! The most famous example is probably to be found in Hillary's book when she says she had no idea about Bill and Monica, but there are countless others.
These women even went so far as to take a private message I'd sent to another mother--one who complained bitterly about being "forced" to read my opinions in the forum--and parse it all to hell so that it would appear that I threatened the woman with a gun! What I wrote was a simple question as to whether she had a gun against her head, and if not, why she would even bother opening a post of mine in the first place. What she wrote was that I had sent her a "private message" referencing guns to her head!
So I went from just being an uppity conservative daring to pop her head up out of her gopher hole to voice an opinion or three, to a would-be gun-totin' attacker!
I swear to you, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried! I'm conservative remember? We have our talents, but creativity in the fiction department (outside of military fiction anyway) ain't our thang!
Epilogue? The sandbox is no more, I'm sure at least a few hundred women blame me (if only I'd had the good sense to just take a hint and leave in the first place, they wouldn't have had to resort to such verbal violence, just ask the Palestinians from whom they got their inspiration, they had "no choice!"), but luckily, at least a dozen don't. In fact, the same dozen (or more actually) have written to me in support of my assessment of this situation (so I know I'm not paranoid or narcissistic) and in support of my specific views and style. I daresay I've even made a few friends from this horror.
But on balance, it was awful, it was proof positive that women in groups are some of the most vile, hateful, MEAN creatures on the planet. So remember this tale when you consider voting for Hillary, and remember it when you hear how great it would be to have a woman running things, and remember it when you hear large groups of women expounding on how vital it is to do what they want you to do "for the chiiiiiiiiildren!"
They sure didn't give a fiddler's fart about *my* children this week! Considering we all have to live in this city and might bump into each other (or have our kids bump into each other) in the not-so-distant future, it would have behooved them to set an example at least and simply be POLITE in their disagreement.
But then they wouldn't be liberals at all now would they?
Posted by insomnomaniac at January 22, 2007 11:09 PM | TrackBack