Friday, August 11, 2017

This is an unofficial Federalist site

As a co-founder of the Federalist Party, it’s apparently assumed that what I post here is an official representative of the party. It is not. The only official party posts go on the party’s website itself. What I post here as well as what I post via social media through the Soshable accounts have no direct affiliation with the party.

One might wonder why I even post here at all if that’s the case. Why allow for confusion? The answer is something that applies to many people. To explain this, I’ll start with a quick story about an old boss. For months, I had a hard time convincing him that we could have remote employees at our company. I explained to him that since we were a technology company, we could broaden our talent pool by not forcing people to live in southern California. He disagreed.

After some prodding and using myself as an example of someone who could work just fine from a home office, I learned his reasoning. He couldn’t do it himself. In fact, he found that he was much less productive at home than he ever could be in the office. I told him he was the anomaly.

I was wrong. After we finally started hiring remote employees, I found that a little over half of them were not as productive as they should be. The gap was made up by those who were very productive; those who handled working remotely were even more productive than the in-office employees, but those who could not handle it were far less productive.

The moral of that particular story, for me, was that some people can separate work from life even if both happened in the same places and some people simply cannot. There’s really no way to tell which way a person will go based upon interview questions. I’ve experienced great and terrible remote employees for the last eight years and there doesn’t seem to be a universal signal. Some can. Some cannot.

All of this brings me to my point. Whether it’s in separating work from home life, professional from personal demeanor, or “thoughtful” writing versus “heart-felt” writing, people often need barriers. For me, the barrier divides how I write for Soshable from how I write for the party. Since pretty much all of my writing is either political or religious, it makes sense to keep both sites around. Sometimes I need to post direction or thoughts pertaining directly to the party or to a Federalist philosophy. Other times, I simply need to rant or express my personal perspectives as they pertain to federalism. Both are necessary for me as it’s what I’ve been immersed in for months. However, the things I post here are from “JD the Christian Federalist and conservative.” What I post on the party’s website comes from “JD the co-founder of the Federalist Party.”

I know I’ll be judged on both, but here I can denote personal perspectives that are not necessarily part of party doctrine. Personally, I’m against California attempting to install single-payer health care. Why? Because I live in California. As a party, we have to be willing to allow states to succeed… or fail. States are the laboratories from which other states can learn. If after repealing Obamacare (if that ever happens), California decides they want single-payer, they have that right. The people can vote out those who helped bankrupt the state if that is indeed what happens or they can vote with their feet. JD the father of four living in California would hate it, but JD the co-founder of a party bent on restoring states’ rights would accept it.

We all need barriers to partition different aspects of our lives. For me, Soshable is safe haven where I can let my heart do the writing.



via Soshable http://ift.tt/2wQMrb4

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