I’m white and poor. If that makes me “privileged” then my anus is....

[cubby1223]

To cure poverty requires a revolution in consciousness and a total different system.

Why do you talk about poverty as if it is a disease needing to be cured?

To cure poverty, we need to either: (1) use genetic research to alter human instinctual behaviors (essentially turning the human race into programmable bots), or (2) eliminate humans.

Since neither is an attractive option, I'm going to stand to my belief that poverty is not a disease needing to be cured. Poverty is a part of a reward/punishment mechanism to keep humans in check, keep them a functioning member for society.

Dreaming of an entirely new system for humanity to eliminate poverty and properly rewarding people for hard work is quite likely the most unproductive approach you can take.

It's one of the common failings I see in many liberal thinkers. Liberals dream big and forget to take action, or their actions towards the people around them are the opposite of the plans they think of for the greater society. How do you possibly expect others to follow your thoughts when you yourself cannot even follow them? Conservatives do not dream big in this type of way, but they do take action. Personally reward the people in your life for the behaviors you want them to repeat. The rest is up to hope. Otherwise what exactly are you accomplishing?

 

[Zaap]

"I've known people." Is that like "I can't be racist because I have a black friend?"

Anecdotal evidence doesn't fly here.

LOL! In other words: libs present the ususal absurd sweeping generalizations such as "all white people are privlidged" and the predictable "all minorities are helpless and hopeless unless not on the liberal approved minority list like Asians and anyone wealthy" and then pretty much ALL human experience to the contrary is dismissed as anecdotal. (Even though of course the assertions of white privlidge being universal is the ulltimate anecdotal nonsense based on a complete lack of observation of the complexities of the world as it really exists, not just boiled down to some basement-dwelling gloom and doom leftist's fantasies.)

Yup, that's about typical. Now back to your bubble.

 

[Zaap]

"Privilege" is a concept that is currently in vogue. It's purpose: A new way to justify redistribution of wealth. What is new about this tool? It does not require immoral behavior on the part of the victim. You simply have to be born with more than someone else. That makes you fair game for the "unprivileged" to steal your stuff.

Of course the concept is evil and irrational, and should be discarded and ignored. For that to happen, we have to identify the purpose and motives of those who employ the concept. So what is that motive? Envy. Hatred of those that are better than you. Instead of becoming one of them by hard work and achievement, you lay waste by promoting irrational egalitarianism.

And that is what the concept "Privilege" is in this context. Irrational egalitarianism run amok.

Dead on, except I wouldn't say it really has anything to do with anyone being inherently better than anyone else or really even born with more. It boils down to a certain ugly reality of human nature that politicians have learned to exploit. One of the most base of human desires is to enslave someone else to do all the heavy lifting for you. The excuses that justify this desire are often amazingly shallow, ie: "those people have more than me, therefore they are greedy and evil, therefore they should be made to provide for me." And that's it. Someone else is supposed to accept being made an economic servant based on that flimsy bit of reasoning. They are required never to notice the illogic of "well if I have something I earned and that makes me greedy... why isn't it even greedier for someone else to take it from me so they can 'have' it... even though they will have done even less to actually earn it?" (Witness all the ususal haves vs have-nots shame and envy driven illogic.)

But basically you're right about this race-based automagic privlidge being just another tool of the redistribution crowd.

 

[Rakehellion]

White privilege = http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2407673

LOL.

What does that have to do with anything?

 

[Svnla]

What does that have to do with anything?

Did you watch the video? White cop mistreated white guy. So much for white privilege. From several posters in here, white cop should let white guy go and only mistreat blacks and hispanics.

 

[Zaap]

Did you watch the video? White cop mistreated white guy. So much for white privilege. From several posters in here, white cop should let white guy go and only mistreat blacks and hispanics.

Remember: if it in any way contradicts the sweeping generalization of the premise: it's anecdotal and therefore dismissed.

 

[jackstar7]

Remember: if it in any way contradicts the sweeping generalization of the premise: it's anecdotal and therefore dismissed.

Remember, if it's a single incident -- regardless of how it corresponds to the overall thesis -- it is anecdotal and will be dismissed.

 

[Moonbeam]

cubby1223: Why do you talk about poverty as if it is a disease needing to be cured?

M: There are two kinds of poverty, poverty of the spirit and poverty of opportunity. They are both the result of self hate. Self hate is an unnecessary disease. I want it cured because I can feel empathy for those who suffer from it.

c: To cure poverty, we need to either: (1) use genetic research to alter human instinctual behaviors (essentially turning the human race into programmable bots), or (2) eliminate humans.

M: Since you don't understand the disease you can't have any idea as to a proper cure.

c: Since neither is an attractive option, I'm going to stand to my belief that poverty is not a disease needing to be cured. Poverty is a part of a reward/punishment mechanism to keep humans in check, keep them a functioning member for society.

M: Neither are options at all.

c: Dreaming of an entirely new system for humanity to eliminate poverty and properly rewarding people for hard work is quite likely the most unproductive approach you can take.

M: I have suggested that poverty is systemic, the treatment of human beings as if they were barn animals to be treated to carrot and stick. I am saying that a sick system produces sick people. Sick people are sick because they have been trained to love being sick. You don't turn to the sick to cure disease. You look for somebody with medical knowledge.

c: It's one of the common failings I see in many liberal thinkers. Liberals dream big and forget to take action, or their actions towards the people around them are the opposite of the plans they think of for the greater society. How do you possibly expect others to follow your thoughts when you yourself cannot even follow them? Conservatives do not dream big in this type of way, but they do take action. Personally reward the people in your life for the behaviors you want them to repeat. The rest is up to hope. Otherwise what exactly are you accomplishing?

M: Neither the left nor the he right knows anything. The answers are always some third way, the resolution of opposites at a higher level of understanding.

 

[Zaap]

Remember, if it's a single incident -- regardless of how it corresponds to the overall thesis -- it is anecdotal and will be dismissed.

Of course, that's the point of a sweeping generalization.

 

[jackstar7]

Of course, that's the point of a sweeping generalization.

Based on a vast pool of evidence.

You keep "forgetting" that part.

 

[Zaap]

Based on a vast pool of evidence.

You keep "forgetting" that part.

In other words the single examples, anecdotal instances and holding-breath-stomping-feet-insisting-its-gospil-declarations that support your sweeping generalization is a "vast pool of evidence" but any single example or experience that goes against the foregone conclusion is to be dismissed.

Sounds about typical.

 

[werepossum]

What a wall of text... tl;dr

I grew up poor and pulled myself up by my bootstraps.

I have absolutely no doubt that it would have been much harder had I been black or latino.

I don't know I'd say much harder, but definitely harder. Virtually everything that makes it easier to earn success as a black or Latino is a government-provided, -mandated, or -encouraged benefit: set-asides, quotas, extra points on the SAT, special programs. On the flip side, if one is black or Latino one has a much lower chance of having parents (or other family members willing and able to contribute) who are well-off or well-educated, a much lower chance of being a legacy (which can get you into some damned good schools much more easily than can extra SAT points), and many more people unwilling to hire one on the basis of skin color. Perhaps most importantly, if one is black or Latino one has a much lower chance of coming up in a functional school system. Peer pressure is another huge difference; pressure on white kids to not be all acting Asian is pretty much non-existent.

Personally I'm not as concerned with balancing exactly how difficult it is to pull one's self up by one's bootstraps as with combating the notion that it's someone else's job. Dead weight is seldom lifted any further than absolutely necessary, and far too much of our nation today is little more than appetite and entitlement. The absolute worst seem to be the spoiled rich kids demanding that someone else somehow turn their lackluster liberal arts degree into a good living - after paying off that hundred grand in student loans.

Uno

+1

My viewpoint is so very limited. To the Universe and Reality. Perhaps you should reconsider smoking that next joint so that the fantasy birds will return to their nests. Because in my world, and yours, the real birds toil endlessly to stay alive, searching relentlessly for the slithering Earthworm or the flittering moth, or the the random blowing remnants of a forgotten slice of Wonder Bread. And the chirping bird, without the gift of Reason, is nevertheless smart enough to realize that failure to engage in the daily acts of toil necessary for survival will quickly relegate his carcass to the function of food to another animal who did not choose to relinquish his responsibility.

The beautiful flowers, with not even the microscopic intellectual talent of the chirping bird, are nevertheless sufficiently sentient to bend towards the sun and soak up the water that randomly rolls adjacent. Offering the fruits of their productivity to the buzzing bees, that they might dance among their stamens and assist them with reproduction.

Yes, even the bacteria themselves live in consonance with reality, and act for their "personal gain" to insure survival.

I submit that personal gain is the highest calling available to a human being, or any other living thing.

I pursue it daily, and include within its grasp the joys of physical consumerism and sharing the amazing world in which I live with those I love and who love me.

Life is meant to be lived for the art and science of personal gain. Repent, my rudderless young padawan, join Reality and get the eff to work.

lol Nice. Don't think I've ever seen anyone use Moonie's poetic language to refute him. It's a nice change over people just calling him crazy.

 

[jackstar7]

In other words the single examples, anecdotal instances and holding-breath-stomping-feet-insisting-its-gospil-declarations that support your sweeping generalization is a "vast pool of evidence" but any single example or experience that goes against the foregone conclusion is to be dismissed.

Sounds about typical.

Thank you for making an hilarious case for paranoia.

 

[zinfamous]

"white privilege" is a failed ploy and hoax used by liberal race pimps. A tool in their divide and conquer agenda for America. Today's liberals can't be good democrats unless they are race pimps.

the same applies to you and your people and that "white guilt" thing, yeah?

or it doesn't?

 

[Moonbeam]

lol Nice. Don't think I've ever seen anyone use Moonie's poetic language to refute him. It's a nice change over people just calling him crazy.

I have no poetic ability. I just changed a few words from the Bible. I found it amusing to be called a rudderless young padawan while basically quoting Christ. The real poet I think is he who can grasp the intention of a parable without getting bogged down in its literal details. The intention of the parable is to create a bridge between language and intuition. A lot of people seek the pleasures of the world because they have been shut off from the kingdom of heaven within. There would be no religion, after all, if there were no real place of bliss within.