I've been described in these terms for a very long time, for 20 years I've felt some pride over these descriptions. It's been liberating. Recently I've had a couple of blogs blow completely up, and of course I contribute heavily to this, I admit it. I know there are folks here at TPM who are very offended by my in-your-face, no apologies attitude. For that I do not apologize.  When the loons come to my blog to deliberately blow it up, I am in for the game, and I will continue my personal assault on people I consider to be bullies.

Every girl growing up begins her life trying to be the opposite of what I just described to you. High school was particularly difficult, how do you get along with everyone? I was in student council, I participated in sports, but I sough never to be obnoxious or overly argumentative, in-your-face and mean. I always thought being the opposite was the prime directive, and being civil in the face of incivility was the ultimate goal.  At the same time this seemed to get me walked on and taken advantage of, this attitude of getting along with everyone and believing all opinions were valid seemed to leave me open to being taken advantage and I am not writing about teenage sex, I am talking about people just taking advantage of civility.

Eventually I went off to college and ended up in an engineering school, predominantly men, in 1981 there were 22 men to every woman enrolled in the school. Men in engineering school did not like having women in what they perceived to be their realm, and their realm of course was science and engineering. Women really didn't belong there and the male students as well as the professors made it known we did not belong there.

As an example, the first day of physics 104 the Professor was making his announcements, what was expected, grading, etc and all of the sudden he says "If you are a woman in my class you will not pass". I really couldn't believe what I'd heard! I'd never had any teacher say BS like that to my face and to the faces of many other women in that class, okay we were girls, I was 18 years old, do you know what that kind of talk does to the psyche of an 18 year old, holy shit. There seemed to be nowhere to turn to complain or to make someone do something about this professor, I couldn't even believe people could say that stuff without there being some consequence, but as the dean told us, it was "that idiots (my word) class and he could run it however he wanted, but we could certainly switch classes if we wanted" All of the sudden my being changed and I knew one thing for certain, women had put up with entirely too much before me, because if it was this bad in 1981, how bad was it previously? How much did women have to put up with?

From that point onward I began to learn things about life. I would watch people who just sat back and didn't argue and didn't try to fight for what was right, and fighting with words is the ultimate in patriotism and fighting back. The older I became the less I cared about what anyone thought about me or what I thought, I also began to care less about how I fought back politically.

Let's fast forward to the year 2000.  We as a nation were still recovering from the Monica Lewinsky BS. Republicans and conservatives are getting more obnoxious, loud, mean, and during the election and afterwards during the recount they became out of control. It was ugly remember.  I began then to fight back, and to never let a conservative or a republican get the upper hand, not ever again. I vowed I would fight them with words whenever I got the chance. Then we had 9-11 and suddenly everyone who was a liberal was a Benedict Arnold, and non-patriot. Commuting on the ferry was and is a daily spar and at times a nightmare for my husband who wondered if someone would try to kill me. There are many blue collar workers who are conservative, or who consider themselves conservative, you know they listen to Rush Limbaugh etc, we commuted on the ferry every day we ride motorcycles (ok I have a super cute plum Vespa LX150, but it is like a motor cycle), we were together every day, even people like me, Data Managers/Analysts and sometime database designers.  Every day, every single fucking day they throw in their option to have a "discussion". There have been several times as I sit there and refute each ridiculous assertion and falsity when a couple of these guys absolutely lose it with me, they break out into a yelling screaming fit, (you know where their face turns entirely red and you wonder if they will have a heart attack right there and if they do will you attempt to help them) here I am a 5'6", 121 pound woman and some huge concrete worker is screaming his head off at me simply because I do not agree with him and because I refute each and every false assertion. I say stuff to their face they don't want to hear. When they talk about health insurance and how no one else should have it cause it's socialist, I say to them, "well that is easy for you since you have health insurance".  Oh they hate that truth stuff, they really hate it, but they come back for more every day anyway. Of course I do not allow their screaming to stop me, ever, I will not be bullied. Not by anyone.

So when it comes to my little blog, my little rant, my little portion of the world, when you come and you bring your republican filth with you, you are going to get attacked. Period. There will never be a question of my not responding to that filth and crap unless I am direly ill, or on my bicycle ride.

I know there are a few out there whose sensibilities were wounded reading the responses on my blog, some even went so far as to report others responding. That is disappointing. Here is a lesson, there are times in your life when there are people you just don't like or you don't like what they've said, or what they believe, and that is okay, but don't stop them from posting to my blog, because words can't hurt you unless you allow that.  And I would beg of you not to come to my portion of the blogosphere and have folks banned, it somehow feels counter to this milieu. And no I will not stop using my tactics against the bullies and their filth, not ever.