Hardball Has Begun

Wow, I'm am learning by the minute how naive I am regarding the world of politics. In the past 24 hours I've personally felt the sting of hate coming from those who are attacking tea partiers. Because my name figures prominently on our tea party groups social networking website, I've received an email from the ACLU and one of the opinion writers for our local paper has targeted our group and the accusations of racism, violence, and affiliation with the Republican Party have begun. As I scrolled through the comments in response to the op ed piece the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The hatred was palpable. The email I received from the local ACLU asked to come and talk to our group prior to our congressman's town hall meeting and the stated purpose for this meeting was to ensure that we don't behave violently. WHAT? We have held three events thus far and our behavior has been exemplary. Most of the day and even as I type this I feel a low grade nausea. The hate that these people spew toward those of us who have chosen to voice our views is overwhelming. You have to ask yourself, why? Why are these people making personal attacks rather than entering into a reasoned discourse? Are these just random people who like to spend their time reading political postings and venting their anger and hatred or are these committed ideologues who's sole intent is to squash the opposition? I don't know, but it is not comfortable being in the cross hairs. My gut is telling me it is the later as these attacks are not only coming from the left, they are also coming from the right. It's a game. Both parties want to protect whatever power that they have. They don't care about what's best for this country. They care about what is best for their party.

I immediately went to our tea party website and removed my picture and created a phantom account that I will post events in the future to lessen the possibility of future contact with those who want to intimidate us. While I'm not willing to back down on my activist efforts, I'm learning that caution is needed. These people are serious and will do just about anything to shut us down. The lies just keep on coming and there is little that we can do to counter them other than document for ourselves what goes on at these events and use the internet to get an accurate portrayal of our actions out there. The fact that so many Americans are saying enough with both parties scares these people and they are playing hardball to shut us up. I pray that they don't win, because if they do, we all lose.