I Quit Meetup

I sent this to CivicAction@Meetup.com and to the Austin #Resist when I received a Meetup request from them.  I also sent it to the organizers of the groups that I belonged to, most of them for computer users.

I am cutting my access to all of my Meetup groups and to Meetup.com as of February 28, 2017, in response to a corporate decision by Meetup to support the Resist political action collectives. 

“We decided that we wanted to do more to support these efforts so we created a network of 1,000 #Resist Meetup groups with a few special characteristics.” --
https://www.meetup.com/help/article/2736376/

 While I am sympathetic to many of the social justice causes pursued by Resist, I must object to Meetup’s delivering a special value to them. My comrades on the right wing also have advanced the cause of freedom. Their methods and their successes do not grab headlines.  It is a matter of culture.

What are the politics of pasta?

As collectivists, my progressive comrades form strong groups, and groups are easy to see. They grab headlines when they grab other people’s property. But that property had to be created first. The exceptionally great wealth of America was the work of millions of individuals who mostly minded their own business, making their own lives as best they knew how by the standards they chose according to their personal values. That does not make the home pages of news media – unless it is to “doodle” in celebrating the historical birthday of a dead writer, musician, inventor, or scientist.

Meetup.com is a tool for those conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists who advance the ethics and politics of individualism.  By creating new, no-cost platforms for one political group, Meetup.com of necessity excludes those of other political beliefs – and those groups with no political agenda. It is also a platform for millions of individuals who share personal – sometimes peculiar – interests of their own, far removed from politics. And that speaks to a fundamental problem with progressive causes.

It is critical that this be understood. Dr. Martin Luther King looked forward to a future in which each person is judged by the content of their character.  But character is an attribute of a person, not of a group. 

The Pursuit of Happiness is selfish.

Choosing not to do business with someone because they are not from your ethnic, social, gender, class, or religious group is irrational.  But freedom of association is a fundamental political right. While my collectivist comrades try to eliminate discrimination by engaging the power of the state, my friends on the right go to the root of the problem: lack of character.

If the owners of Meetup.com want to end social injustice, they should empower their customers who meet to build character. But that would mean creating a 1000 special groups for some religions or some philosophies in preference to others.  And there is no way to parse that, because, after all, even karate builds character.

Therefore, I will delete my Meetup account and switch to some other service or set of services, such as Google Groups, which, in fact, evolved from the age-old Usenet maillists.  Ultimately, no one needs Meetup.com. That is something to keep in mind.

Michael E. Marotta

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS
The Science of Liberty
Liberty's Kids
Money as Press and Speech
Libraries of the Founders