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Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

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Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#41

Post by colanderman »

BeetleB wrote: post #29
colanderman wrote: post #5

Why would you not expect your co-workers to take a MAGA hat as a personal attack? The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. Remember that even some green card holders were briefly barred from reentering. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...

>The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. That's essentially saying that people have to agree with the whole platform or none of it. As an example, there are many liberals who voted for Obama and did not agree with all aspects of the platform (healthcare reform or military policies). Would wearing a "Yes, we can" shirt/hat be offensive, then? That kind of argument seems v…

False equivalence. (There's a lot of that in the Trump age.) Obama never explicitly ran on a platform of implementing a policy which would immediately destroy the livelihood of upstanding individuals based on their identity or associations. (See: Muslim ban, immigration policy, transgender ban.)

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#42

Post by Blackthorn »

majormajor wrote: post #17
colanderman wrote: post #5

Why would you not expect your co-workers to take a MAGA hat as a personal attack? The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. Remember that even some green card holders were briefly barred from reentering. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...

What if you don't have the hat but don't favor liberal immigration policies? Would expressing this political stance be taken as a personal attack? If so, that level of "we must stamp out the heresy!" is generally associated with more extreme religious types, not supposedly rational open-minded people. And that's where the danger lies: once you stop permitting the expression of contrary views, your ability to argue ag…

"don't favor liberal immigration policy" is not the same thing as Trump policy.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#43

Post by mfringel »

BeetleB wrote: post #29
colanderman wrote: post #5

Why would you not expect your co-workers to take a MAGA hat as a personal attack? The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. Remember that even some green card holders were briefly barred from reentering. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...

>The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. That's essentially saying that people have to agree with the whole platform or none of it. As an example, there are many liberals who voted for Obama and did not agree with all aspects of the platform (healthcare reform or military policies). Would wearing a "Yes, we can" shirt/hat be offensive, then? That kind of argument seems v…

Your elected officials own the messaging on your political brand. You don't actually get a choice on this one.

If I have to get a read on someone before I directly interact with them, their wearing of a MAGA hat will give me a bunch of useful going-in assumptions, just like any other political insignia worn as clothing.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#44

Post by colanderman »

chippy wrote: post #38
colanderman wrote: post #5

Why would you not expect your co-workers to take a MAGA hat as a personal attack? The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. Remember that even some green card holders were briefly barred from reentering. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...

The article suggests the novel view that showing one's political side in the workplace should not be considered offensive nor for it to be taken personally.

Hard to not take someone's political views personally if they would destroy your livelihood, personally.

I am lucky to be a citizen. Were I an Iranian green card holder visiting family abroad when the first Muslim travel ban was implemented? I would now be facing losing my job and my home. A transgender member of the armed forces now? Facing losing my livelihood in a matter of months. An undocumented immigrant who is the only support for his documented family? Now the entire family is homeless and fatherless.

At best this argument applies to Hillary/Obama through some hand-waving abstract argument about environmental regulations and international trade agreements that ignores economic opportunities created by their policies. Someone banned from their livelihood because of their identity has no recourse.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#45

Post by hasbroslasher »

I've worked places (not in tech) where I was not allowed to talk about my support for Barack Obama for fear of being shouted down, mocked, or forced to listen to racist diatribes about his history. I have been on the other side of this kind of bullshit. I moved from the small, Midwestern town that harbored these people and their insane beliefs to a liberal, coastal city that "gets" me a little more. I'm happier for it. I work with other coastal liberals and none of us have much respect for anyone who out-and-out supports Donald Trump, and we probably won't any time soon. A lot of us share this background.

I suggest these men do the same. Move to Dallas or New York or somewhere where conservatism is a little more appreciated. Move to Denver or Atlanta. Find somewhere that feels like home, where there are other conservative techies. Claiming the victim status as a white man in the most expensive city, in the highest paying industry comes off as a little entitled, at least to me.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#46

Post by CalChris »

majormajor wrote: post #17
colanderman wrote: post #5

Why would you not expect your co-workers to take a MAGA hat as a personal attack? The MAGA platform is associated with explicitly barring some of them from the country. Remember that even some green card holders were briefly barred from reentering. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13769#Green-ca...

What if you don't have the hat but don't favor liberal immigration policies? Would expressing this political stance be taken as a personal attack? If so, that level of "we must stamp out the heresy!" is generally associated with more extreme religious types, not supposedly rational open-minded people. And that's where the danger lies: once you stop permitting the expression of contrary views, your ability to argue ag…

It's not like I have much of respect for out conservatives but I have even less for closeted conservatives when I eventually find out.

Got the hat? Wear it and defend your ideas. I am open minded and rational, or at least I think I am. But if you think I'm stamping out heresy because I don't tolerate bigotry, tough.

BTW, my paternal grandfather was an illegal. Paid his taxes. Stayed out of jail. The grand kids, at least on this half, have been amazingly successful and contributed a lot to the economy, society and our national defense.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#47

Post by rrauenza »

pklausler wrote: post #23

One of the problems that we face in the US today is that our two political parties, which once divided the electorate across fault lines of policy or values, now appear to have reshuffled the electorate across epistemologies. I sincerely believe that one party now provides a happier home for those who prefer empirical science.

It depends on the issue (edit: and how it fits with their world view). The left can also be irrational when it comes to science on some issues as well:

http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2014/10/20/are_...

Ending quote:

>The bottom line is that the CDC data makes it very difficult to argue that conservatives and liberals share equal blame in the anti-vaccine war. Anti-vaxxers are clearly more associated with the political Left.

I would tend to agree the left's leadership, however, tends to be less anti-science.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#48

Post by zeveb »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #36
majormajor wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you don't have the hat but don't favor liberal immigration policies? Would expressing this political stance be taken as a personal attack? If so, that level of "we must stamp out the heresy!" is generally associated with more extreme religious types, not supposedly rational open-minded people. And that's where the danger lies: once you stop permitting the expression of contrary views, your ability to argue ag…

The problem, of course, is that there's no way to tell from outward appearances what someone believes. A good example of this is the appropriation of Satanic imagery in rock music: few of these bands are theistic or LaVeyan Satanists, most of them are just doing it to send a message. The connotation of pentagrams and upside down crosses is "watch out, I'm evil, I like evil things, etc". Conservative Christians, howev…

> That hat in particular represents (sometimes fanatical) appreciation for a man that liberals believe is doing immense harm to our nation, it's citizens and its image via racist, reactionary and backwards-looking politics.

Of course, many people believed that the previous president was doing immense harm to our nation, its citizens and the world at large … but I don't think many were fired for wearing their Hope & Change or Yes We Can hats …

> Because of far-right extremists, I get scared when I see that hat, to me it signals some form of white supremacy that I need to stay away from. So yes, wearing it at work might make people uncomfortable.

And yet people have no problem whatsoever bringing stuff expressing the opposite viewpoint into the workplace. It's normal to hear people expressing moderately- and far-left opinions in the workplace. It's not to hear them express even centrist-right opinions.

FWIW, I don't subscribe to pretty much anything a MAGA hat conveys, and I didn't vote for the current president.

Re: Divided We Code: Undercover Conservatives

#50

Post by quotemstr »

jerkstate wrote: post #37
quotemstr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a child, I was taught that two wrongs don't make a right.

so you're saying it's wrong to shame/shun/undermine those at work because you disagree with their opinions on public policy?

I am saying that it's wrong to shame people at work for their political opinions and I can't fucking believe that this stance is controversial. I will go further and say that politics doesn't belong at work.
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