The Real #Resistance

Silicon Valley – and its various satellites around the country, including whatever software design culture that exists in the Twin Cities – has trended left of center for a long, long time (although not forever; it used to be fairly libertarian – a change that’s been a net loss for everyone).

That’s changed, of course; when James Damore was fired at Google for the high crime of pointing out the patently obvious about Google’s internal political culture – think Arthur Miller’s The Crucible – it surprised absolutely nobody that’d been following the way the Bay Area’s software development culture has been evolving.

An engineer at Facebook has started a conservative group.   Which is big news.  David French notes:

…the internal conservative revolt at Facebook may — just may — represent one of the most consequential news developments of the year. A senior engineer named Brian Amerige posted a short statement on Facebook’s internal message board. It began with words that will ring true to employees at hundreds of major American corporations and academic institutions:

We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views.​ We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology. We throw labels that end in ​*obe​ and ​*ist​ at each other, attacking each other’s character rather than their ideas.

We do this so consistently that employees are afraid to say anything when they disagree with what’s around them politically.​ HR has told me that this is not a rare concern, and I’ve personally gotten over a hundred messages to that effect. Your colleagues are afraid because they know that they — not their ideas — will be attacked. They know that all the talk of “openness to different perspectives” does not apply to causes of “social justice,” immigration, “diversity,” and “equality.” On this issues [sic], you can either keep quiet or sacrifice your reputation and career.

Amerige invited colleagues to join a group called “FB’ers for Political Diversity” and — as the New York Times reports — more than 100 employees have joined. It’s a small fraction of the Facebook workforce, but it’s enough that it can’t be easily squelched.

Indeed, the Times reports that angry colleagues have already tried to appeal to Facebook to shut down the group. So far, they’ve failed

This is something I wrestle with daily – at work (I work at a place with a bit of a political monoculture, as luck would have it, and suffice to say I’m not in the majority) and elsewhere in my life (I’ve changed my church affiliation, and the world of dating is rife with people who just can not tolerate the idea of being around someone whose politics challenge their own).  Like most conservatives, I want my politics to stay in my mind, my news, and at the polling station; I don’t want it to eat my entire life.

Which is of course what Big Left wants, and needs; to divide and conquer an inchoate mass of individuals.

And so this is something to follow – and, let’s be honest, emulate in our daily lives.

Much more to come.

12 thoughts on “The Real #Resistance

  1. I am so incredibly conflicted by this. I am a staunch supporter of the 1st amendment AND separation of powers (public vs. private in this case) . I dont know if the founders ever could forsee private entities becoming so much larger, powerful, and frankly influential than the state. I still stand by that while what they are doing is ioncredibly distasteful, concerning and flat out disturbing I fail to see how it is criminal, illegal, or how the courts could force their hand without themselves being in violation of the 1st amendment. Any constitutional law experts please correct me and tell me Im wrong, because I fear that Im not.

  2. oddly enough I work in a incredibly divided workplace, politically speaking, my views are opposite most of my coworks but in line with the bosses and management. Right track in other words considering where I want to go

  3. and the world of dating is rife with people who just can not tolerate the idea of being around someone whose politics challenge their own

    Mitch you think you have it bad, try being a conservative/libertarian millenial. I dated/bedded my fair share of SJW/leftist types in my 20s and I have simply decided for my sanity I can no longer do that, which eliminates 70% of my pool right off the bat and if I do by chance find someone who agrees with me politically there is a better than 50% chance they are already married.

  4. I’m jacking this thread, but no one was interested anyway.

    Watching the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, one cannot help but observe that Sen. Klobuchars staff consists entirely of hot 20 something leftist twaats.

    Now, rumor has it that A-Klo enjoys hot 20 something twaat as much as Al Franken, and that’s fine, as far as it goes.

    But is she gonna tell us that there was zero none, nada, males with the kind of creds a Senator expects, unless that Senator was a man hater?

  5. I’m reminded of how, after a few years in Boulder, it was wonderful to meet a girl who would eat venison. Married her two years later, and it’s been a wonderful 22 years.

    And I’ve been in political monocultures at work, too. Funny thing, they tend to implode because a political monoculture (either at the management level or the entire company) tends to show up as business monoculture. Not what you want if you want to survive. Even in churches, monoculture can be really dangerous. You want agreement on the big things, but let the little stuff slide.

  6. Now, rumor has it that A-Klo enjoys hot 20 something twaat as much as Al Franken, and that’s fine, as far as it goes.

    link please, for… research purposes

  7. Mitch;

    A friend of mine was also telling me about his frustrations with dating just yesterday.

    He met a woman, about his age (late 50s) through a colleague and they met for dinner. 2o minutes into appetizers, she announced that she couldn’t be involved with a conservative, to which he replied, “You do realize that with that view, you are eliminating at least 50% of your dating pool and that you may be missing out on meeting someone special”? She thought a moment and then asked him (laughing) “So you’re saying I’m stupid?” Well, the rest of the evening went well, but needless to say, there was no second date.

    Anyway, there is a dating website called ConservativesOnly.com. Their tag line is “Because liberals just don’t get it.” Said he met a woman that owns her own business and has her C&C. As Ross Perot used to say, “Eagles don’t flock. You have to find them one at a time.”

  8. bike;

    My liberal son lives in Colorado and is dating a Special Needs teacher. (I know…I failed) He was home a couple of weeks ago, to attend the opening day of the State Fair.

    During one our conversations, he stated that Colorado was being taken over by “f-ing Californicators.” I almost wet myself laughing at the irony of a transplanted Minnesota liberal complaining about transplanted California liberals.

  9. I can see refusing to date a liberal because it really dictates a lot of how they live life. Do you live in a sensible town, or one where they’re buying $50,000 water fountains? Do you deal with crime by arming yourself and getting a home security system, or by donating to the Brady Campaign?

    Since the ultimate goal of dating is to share your life with someone, which would mean sharing a home/bank account/time/etc.., you might as well make sure you’re sort of compatible, and that includes politically.

    And I can state with clarity that for all practical purposes, Colorado has been Californicated for a decade, especially the Front Range. What the young liberal is complaining about, though, is sensible Californians coming with lots of money to buy a big house, obscuring his view of the mountains and making it more difficult for him to drive to work.

  10. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 09.05.18 : The Other McCain

  11. There may well be some measure of bias against conservatives in some aspects of how the main social platforms work. But compared to other problems — the monopolistic power of the big tech groups, the divisive nature of social media, the social platforms’ role in subverting democracy and the inability of technology groups to prevent the distribution of illegal content (rape, torture etc) — the problem of conservatives allegedly being down-listed in the feed algorithms is vanishingly trivial.
    I guess you’re just not a true conspiracy theorist unless search algorithms are plotting against you.

    I say this as someone who is, if not a conservative, certainly not a progressive. This is just another distraction.

  12. POD, I’m guessing my oldest son is about your age. He is in a profession dominated by leftists, and up until about 2 years ago, he fit in pretty well.

    But to my surprise, he’s made a remarkable 180 turn, and is leaning quite right these days (I credit Steven Crowder). He’s also become a lot choosier about the women he dates. Yes, the quantity is lower, but the quality is much higher.

    You have to be able to respect the woman you choose to share tour life with, and that’s tough if she sees anything good among the left.

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