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Texas politics are very polarized these days and get ugly quick, so we've tried to get our community to leave that aspect of their lives at home. There's a strong tea party undercurrent to our membership though, and it is what it is. So far people have been respectful enough to let the provocative comments be, and we haven't had an issue. Yet.
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That said, I'm not sure how that question came out of what I posted, which was apolitical. I do get that societal issues CAN get political, but we've put a lot of effort into avoiding the polarizing aspects. Things like clean air and water aren't really political issues-- they're politicized by people with non-maker agendas. Restoring horned lizards cuts across all demographics here-- everyone wants them brought back. So in cases like these, it's easy to pull together people of diverse political leanings. We put our focus on the COMMON goals.
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Randy
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Tarrant Makers
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On July 3, 2014 at 12:32 PM Al Billings <albill@openbuddha.com> wrote:
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<br />Is your space welcoming to people, regardless of personal politics or do you have to be a specific kind of lefty/socialist/anarchist/hippy/whatever in order to be welcome?
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I say this as a socialist but I don’t want there to be a political litmus test on whether people are welcome in a space. My space has members who, quietly on occasion, bitch about Obama and his “agenda” with an eye roll from some other members. We have a communist or two and probably more than a few anarchists. Generally, I know someone for a year or more before I even realize their personal politics. Why? Because we’re there to hack, not to form a political party.
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There are definitely spaces where this isn’t the case. If you aren’t on board with the specific local politics (which are usually a certain specific form of left leaning anarchism), you are shunned pretty heavily and “don’t fit in.” I’d rather have a Republican that wants to build a project from salvaged computers than an anarchist that just wants to hang out in the kitchen “food hacking.”
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Al
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On Jul 3, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Randall G. Arnold <
<a href="mailto:randall.arnold@texrat.net">randall.arnold@texrat.net</a>> wrote:
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I disagree when you frame that as an absolute. Sure, there CAN be negative outcomes when a maker/hacker space or organization has fixing societal problems as a goal, but it ain't necessarily so. It all comes down to defining the goal(s), having people to support them and for members with different goals to be respectful of each other and not get in each other's way.
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If as a makerspace member I put together a special interest group that builds remote wildlife monitoring stations for helping horned lizard conservation, and I don't disrupt anyone else in the process, then I'm positively hacking the planet and no one gets hurt. Win-win.
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Al Billings
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<a href="mailto:albill@openbuddha.com">albill@openbuddha.com</a>
<br />http://makehacklearn.org
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Randall (Randy) Arnold
<br />Developer and Enthusiast Advocate
<br />http://texrat.net
<br />+18177396806
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