Changes at Basecamp

>Treating people as anything other than individuals is a political act.

Absolutely, but so is treating them as individuals.

Thank you for being less incendiary, I appreciate it!

Yes, the Republican Party has been more staunchly traditional with its views of things like gay marriage, but the premise of Republicans being “THE party of homophobia and hate” is disingenuous from MANY angles.

Fact is, this 2016 platform is barely distinguishable from the policies that the left enacted in the 90s under people like Clinton, and continued as late as Obama’s stance early in his presidency.

The left has evolved just as the right has on these issues. The parties have been a handful of years apart in this regard at most, but the left is allowed, with the help of the media, to freely shed its past with flimsy justification at best, while the crudest voices of the right are amplified and made to appear as representative of the entire party.

Even the linked NPR article admits that Trump is more moderate on these issues, and judging from the makeup of the most recent CPAC, the direction of the party towards social libertarianism with limited government involvement couldn’t be more clear.

But the media tries to prevent that progress from happening in the party, both by deceiving its readers into believing Trump is Hitler, by cherry-picking voices on the right that clearly differ from how the party has evolved, while also gaslighting its readers on the left’s own troubled past.

Secondly, the notion that every LGBTQ or other minority status must be a single issue voter hyper focused on their supposed minority identity is itself a bit offensive, yet pushed by the left.

If you face homelessness as a kid as a result of government policies, suddenly you don’t have the luxury of caring about whether you can legally marry.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually very grateful for the cultural acceptance that the left has helped push towards LGBTQ causes, amongst others.

But for all of the cultural acceptance they’ve helped achieve, they have their share of policies that I feel continue to harm.

For example, I have no interest in forcing a bakery to bake me a cake. My only interest is that I also be legally allowed to open my own bakery that openly supports everyone. But I’ve been co-opted into this fight, whether I like it or not.

Which leads me to my final point, which is the notion that every issue is so black and white that everyone neatly fits into the “good” box or the “evil” box.

Both sides have perpetrated this division for their own needs, but I refuse to play into it.

For as much as the left has helped the culture change to accept me, they have equally helped push the notion that I can’t have nuanced views of marriage, of a bakery’s choice of service, and of government assistance policies.

We’re all either marching in the parade, or we’re nazis.

This leads to the very statement you initially made - a clear, binary choice, with one side advocating for the elimination of my entire existence, and the other, a utopia of acceptance and love.

Which in turn leads to the kind of dehumanizing, violent rhetoric I hear regularly at work from the supposed side of tolerance, who remind me that it might be ok if I “came out” as LGBTQ at work, but make it abundantly clear that my job, and likely my own safety, would be at risk if I ever “came out” as a Trump supporter.

If I take their “jokes” about re-education camps and forced sterlizarion and physical beatings seriously, that is.

Sorry, long winded response, but I have few outlets and I very much appreciate your efforts towards a conversation!

Seems like the GP tried https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions and failed

Just as you ask for the right to be political on work premises and channels, they ask for the right to be apolitical on those same places. There are people on both sides of the fence. Which right is more important and how do we choose which one to disregard. There will always be disagreement between people and it should be practically impossible to create a society of perfect harmony. In order for both sides to at least tolerate each other's existence you need to create autonomous zones for each one. A company which doesn't want political involvement other than what is directly related to its business is exactly that. If you want to be politically active during working hours, then you don't fit into this company and there is no one stopping you from working for another one which is politically active or starting one yourself. People work better with people with the same core values. Only when both choices remain you actually have freedom and some semblance of tolerance. Remove either option and all you get is strife. Obviously some zones are "banned", like "I would like to kill people" and "I would like to rape people", because we all(or at least most ) agree this is not OK. However, I really hope all(or at least most) people have not gotten to the point where being apolitical is actually not OK and so is its zone.

I don’t want to make any assumptions about who you are, and this is not an attack on you, but “no politics” isn’t a neutral position - it’s a position to take when you’re OK with the status quo and want people to shut up and just go along, because you’re largely not affected by the things that they are. I speak from experience - in my country our autocratic ex president also had a “no political discussions except the ones I sanction / that benefit me”, and enforced it with brute force, torture, imprisonments, even murder. His rationale was that “there’s a lot of work left to move the country forward - so let’s put politics aside and work together”. This was nonsense, of course - HE still got to talk politics when he wanted, and used that fact to extend his rule. Yes the analogy isn’t perfect and it’s country vs company, but it’s the same underlying logic. The people who made these rules are not going to be affected by them in any way, beyond no longer having to see opinions they disagree with on Slack.

Yes you’re right no one wants their work slack to turn into the worst parts of fb and Twitter, but that’s not what we’re talking about here is it? We’re talking about employees being able to discuss current events and how they’re being affected by them, in a world where everything - even mask wearing - can be deemed political. This doesn’t have to happen on the main slack channels, but where’s the harm in letting employees still communicate in separate slack channels that are not mandatory to join and that employees can just ignore if they’re not interested?

They have every right to introduce any rules they want - it’s their company and I’m not contesting that. But this is not as simple as oh they’re just trying to make the work culture less toxic, good for them.