Who we are

I've held off writing on this blog in 2025 so far, mainly because I've been busy working on IO. Admittedly, it’s also because of the new US administration and how difficult I’ve found it to see the descent into fascism.

Since today is Trans day of visibility, I thought I should probably just write a post that I wanted to be the next post on the blog, and it was going to be called "Who we are".

I struggle with this question, because the Tito team is five cis white men and one cis white woman. We’re pretty similar. Most of us are married with kids and houses and mortgages.

Like many (I think), I struggle with labels like "left", "liberal", and "progressive" because if I step back and take a look at who I am, it looks fairly right-wing, from a traditional conservative perspective: business and home owning, wife and two kids, stable income, largely a beneficiary of family privilege.

That said, when it comes for example to local politics, I don’t vote conservative. I celebrate wins for left-leaning candidates. I believe we need fewer cars and safer streets. I believe compassion ought to be the primary driver of leadership. I love my local library. I would support regulating the provision of public spaces by private companies. I'm largely pro-EU, pro-freedom-of-movement, pro-immigrant, and anti-racist. In time, once we’re in a position to hire more folks, we want to be a more diverse team. We intentionally bring in external consulting and listen to feedback from people from different backgrounds.

I don't often talk about this stuff though, because based on the above, sometimes I worry that I'm not left enough.

I recently came across this viral passage from composer Frank Wilhoit, where he claims that liberalism and progressivism don't exist. You may have seen his definition of conservatism:

"There must be in-groups whom the law protectes[sic] but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

(often confusingly misattributed to a different Francis Wilhoit, who even more confusingly was a political scientist)

Elsewhere in the post, Wilhoit uses the above to define anti-conservatism:

"So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone."

I feel like that sums up my political position pretty well. It’s probably an over-simplification, but I like how it maps pretty well to John Rawls’s veil of ignorance, a theory of justice rooted in empathy and making the case for true equality before the law.

None of us in Tito live in the USA. For the time being, we’re governed by middle of the road administrations who mostly play things safe, and on the whole attempt to march slowly toward progress. There’s so much to legitimately criticise about our governments, but against what I'm reading about what's going in the US, we’re doing ok.

Against that context, I am proud of the progress that we‘ve seen in Ireland during my lifetime, from being one of the most punishingly conservative in areas like abortion, divorce, and LGBTQ+ rights to being amongst the most progressive. None of that progress has (yet) applied to my lived experience, but I’m proud of it and will continue to cheer and support this progress.

Speaking on my own behalf:

To my transgender friends: I see you. I respect you. I believe in your right to exist and be your true selves.

To my queer, bi, gay, and lesbian friends: I see you. I respect you. I believe in your right to exist and be your true selves.

To my friends with disabilities, seen or unseen: I see you. I respect you. I believe in your right to exist and be your true selves.

And to all of my friends who are not white, or who don't conform, or who don't fit in to some arbitrary grouping: I see you all. I respect you, and I believe in your right to exist and be your true selves.

So that’s my attempt to sum up who were are at Team Tito. I wish that it didn't need to be said, but inasmuch as it does, I believe I more or less represent the team in describing our perspective.