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An Overheard Conversation Between Two Software Engineers
From a friend who’s working on a software startup in Manhattan:
Engineer 1 – “…I’ve got a buddy working at the State Department in technology. They won’t let him use any browser other than Firefox. It makes his life as a developer miserable. He needs Chrome and other tools that they won’t let him use.”
Engineer 2 – “Bummer. Why don’t they let him?”
Engineer 1 – “He hasn’t asked. He was just told it’s not allowed but he’s thinking about making a request. He might get an answer from the higher ups by Christmas.”
Engineer 2 – “That’s why you can’t get anything done in government.”
They came from modest middle class families (one from an immigrant family). They studied hard to go to good schools. They negotiate their own value in the labor market with great interest. They like working for profit making businesses and aspire to be entrepreneurs one day.
Both voted for Obama.
Who will win their votes in 2016?
We’ve got to give these guys a strong reason to go against their liberal friends. There are real social costs to voting conservative in liberal social circles. We need to give moderates, undecideds, and shaky Democratic voters the confidence to defy their cultural cliques.
Well, good people of Ricochet, what are we to make of that? How—how can the GOP give moderates and shaky Democrats “the confidence to defy” their own friends and families?
Published in General
Because Asian culture… especially East Asian culture… stresses loyalty to authority. Not just respect, but loyalty. “Big Government”, as we put it, is revered there. In China, Japan, and Korea, the perception is that big, strong government is the root of opportunity, not the enemy of prosperity. In Japan, government essentially directs the economy. In China, most of the middle class lives in government subsidized housing. Big Government and the big industries it controls is a source of pride to East Asians. To them, government is where prosperity comes from. They’re natural Democrats, even more so than Blacks and Hispanics. First generation Asian immigrants distrust the GOP’s “get the government out of my life” message. It’s alien to them. And then of course, their kids buy right into the racial grievance gospel of the Democrats.
True, but voter registration, political organization memberships and political donations are all public or can be made or leaked public. many companies are requiring social media searches in their background checks, while others require access to a potential or current employee’s social media accounts and search histories.
They have not shutdown your Thumb drives yet? Surprising. Somebody in security is not doing their job.
Remember how homosexual orgs found out who donated to Prop 8, and then used Google Maps to lay out where all of these people lived so that the troops could harass them? I can easily see a future where voting the wrong way will get you fired or worse.
Social conservatives are just the right’s version of the Left’s social liberals. They still want to put social issues under government control, just as the Left does. They just want “their guys” in charge.
That’s not pushing back. That’s doing the same thing.
“Yes, isn’t it rich that the GOP probably has Socons for free if they just don’t insult them. What’s the % of the GOP voters who are Socons? 30% at a minimum, eh? Yet, some of these geniuses here want to drop this large faction in the HOPE of getting more Asians or Latinos or moderates. Pathetic but typical line of libertarian “reasoning.””
Oh yeah? How did Rick Santorum’s presidential bit work out? Did we learn anything? Nope? Doubling down on trying to get a Pope for a president?
PS: So you think saying that social issues have no place in government, because that’s not what government…does…is “dropping the social conservatives”? Cant’ you be a social conservative in your own life, without having to force through government your views on other people?
As I said earlier, I agree 99% with the position of most “social conservatives”. Yet I have no trouble keeping that to my life choices, and not wanting to put government in charge of it.
This is “dropping you”? If that’s the case, I think the “conservative” part in your name doesn’t mean the same as it in other settings.
Of course, Rick Santorum’s run demonstrated quite clearly the damaging influence of “social conservatism” within the GOP. Not only did he make the party look like fools to the vast majority of Americans, but he was also a big government pro-union big spender. Yeah, swell guy. Just the type we would want to attract the majority of Americans: someone who does the opposite of what they want.
When a “socon” candidate appears, one can be sure they will distract all attention away from the issues that really matter.
This was my first thought also. We shut down thumb drives at the community hospital where I worked years ago. Only allowed one brand, an encrypted drive which we had to give them. Then we could monitor everything they did .
And they say IT people are control freaks . . . .
Ok, so you’ve explained 1 Socon — how about the millions of others?
Much of what a government is for is to handle the implementation of morally constructed ideals. You shouldn’t pretend that you aren’t among them. Religious beliefs are just like any other closely held belief — the idea that people who have closely held beliefs shouldn’t let these beliefs guide them is an absolute absurdity. It sounds like you just don’t like the beliefs in question and not that religious or other beliefs should influence people.
Don’t forget the main point: these people are a necessary part of the coalition. You simply cannot afford to get rid of them. It’s simple math. With them you can win — without them you cannot.
Nice. I guess Catholics need not apply for higher office.
Anyhoo — no, Romney didn’t learn anything from Santorum’s candidacy. He learned nothing about appealing to blue-collar Reagan Democrat voters and droned on and on about “small business owners” — the entrepreneurial class. Worked out great for President Romney.
An interesting perspective I hadn’t thought of – may also explain why Jewish voters are so stubbornly Democratic.
Yeah. The Social conservatives staid home and didn’t vote because he was a Mormon. Sure was his fault.
Which of course doesn’t translate into Rick Santorum or trying to use government to enforce moral issues which are not the domain of government.
This is my point precisely: government has a certain…role. This role does not include what the Left wants to do with government, nor does it include what the social conservatives want to do with government. Using your own morals to guide you in your DEFINED AND LIMITED role as a government authority, is a given. Doing so to expand government authority, is what I oppose.
In that regard there is no difference between how Liberals want to use government, and how social conservatives want to use it.
The millions of others who hailed Rick Santorum as “the true conservative” because he spend his hours on the campaign trail talking about condoms? The millions who had nothing to say about his big government, pro-union, big spending tendencies, but were more than excited about the fact that he was giving speeches on completely irrelevant, pointless, distracting and divisive issues which the vast majority of Americans absolutely do not care, and absolutely do not want government involved in?
Those millions?
Not at all. I just don’t think that one ought to run for a position as a…plumber…to fix the pipes in my house, on the bases of one’s views on sexual promiscuity.
A plumber has a particular job to do. So does a President, a governor, a senator, a congressman etc. I don’t hire a plumber to regulate my bedroom, nor do I hire a President to do so.
Socons, to a large extent, have shown that they will back any populist anti-capitalist anti-free market, big spending candidate, no matter how unqualified or absurd…as long as they have the correct “social” views, irrelevant of the fact that such views may have no bearing whatsoever on the position they are running for.
And it’s this sort of thing that drives “moderates” away from the GOP. Even if they agree with 80% of the platform on issues that MATTER, they can’t vote for someone who wants to be Pope, rather than President.
AIG, many of the real world problems that government has to face don’t fit neatly into your plumber analogy (which I like for its clarity). I don’t want Hitler to be my baker — it’s personal for me, not rational and heavily emotional. I bring that ethical or moral approach to the ballot box. So do you.
I wouldn’t know if Hitler was my baker. I don’t ask my baker about his opinions on Poland. I ask him how good he is at baking.
The broader point here is that the social conservatives want to use government in the same way the Left does: expand its powers to do whatever they think is “good” for the rest of us.
Neither side sees any limits to government power, or authority, or interference. They both see it as their instrument to impose their views of what is “good” for society.
The fact that social conservatives constitute such a big base in the GOP, that they strangle it and pull it in their direction, is all the more argument I would use why it is important for the GOP to appeal to another group. There’s little “conservatism” in social conservatism.
What other group is as large as the one you want to dump? This is the Libertarian Party disease you are spouting. Let’s make sure we lose, why don’t we? But, we’ll be so pure in our inconsequential way. Won’t that be great?
Politics is compromise with reality and with people — actual people not imagined people. As Don Rumsfeld is famous for saying: “You go to war with the army you have.”
A software engineer’s wife asks him to go the grocery to get a loaf of bread. As he is leaving she tells him, if they have eggs, get a dozen. When he came home, he had 12 loaves of bread.
They may well have an enterprise app(s) that rely on Firefox as its browser. We have the same issue with one key app and IE (though not IE6).
In my experience, engineers of all sorts need to have their PCs locked down the most. They’re the primary vector of infection into our network, largely via thumbdrives. It stems from arrogance about their own knowledge and ability to suss out such threats.
Of course, they’ve not bothered to port the process control and analytics apps we sell to customers to an OS beyond XP, so this arrogance isn’t exactly earned.
Oh, and I have knowledge of State’s technology. His friend should be grateful they’re not still on Wang.