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Thread: Definition of privilege

  1. #61
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gardenarian View Post
    Women in the fundamentalist Islam world do not choose wear burkas, they are forced to. ALL choices and rights are taken from them at birth.
    You have no respect for cultural differences! Religious freedom includes the right to oppress women!

  2. #62
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Note: My sarcasm.

  3. #63
    Senior Member JaneV2.0's Avatar
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    I guess I'm just a sickening feminist, because I think people should wear--or not wear--what they want to on the beach. Especially if, for whatever reason, they want to maintain their modesty. After all, a hundred years or so ago, women routinely wore "bathing dresses" and other seemingly bulky swimwear. I agree that Islam, as practiced in many parts of the world (not so much in the Syria, Lebanon, Jordan of the recent past), is oppressive of women. No doubt. But that doesn't obviate the fact that many Muslim women are not comfortable appearing on the beach half naked (nor would I be, at my age) to expose themselves to, as my grandmother would put it, "the gaze of the vulgar public." The French government badly overstepped its bounds here, as it's finding out.

  4. #64
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    Quote Originally Posted by UltraliteAngler View Post
    What about the gay men who have been told by Xianity and Islam that being gay is wrong? Are they not oppressed men?
    Disapproval of something isn't oppression. There are people who disapprove of Christianity, eating meat, private education, consuming alcohol, suburbs, capitalism, golf and unfettered free speech. I don't feel particularly oppressed by them, even though I'm quite fond of all those things. In fact, I confess to a fair bit of amusement from the sputtering outrage they sometimes summon up.

    I don't think "oppression" enters into it until someone takes action. Bombing an abortion clinic, for instance, or making a law forcing a hospital to perform abortions. But the self-righteousness of a religious fundamentalist or the "vindictive protectiveness" of a Political Correcter are simply part of the background noise of the American Project.

  5. #65
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    Definition of Privilege, The Country Club asking members for donations last weekend. I struggled with this and made so many remarks of donating so the old white well off could continue to live as always. Everything about it seemed so wrong to me. Now a week later I know many of these members and know the charities they pick to work on/donate too, perhaps I view the "donation asking" in a different light, though not for me to donate too. Example, I donated to a trail so I could hike on it. Guess there was not much difference really, the donation was not going to help the greater population or the needy.

  6. #66
    Senior Member SteveinMN's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BikingLady View Post
    the donation was not going to help the greater population or the needy.
    I think it's tough sometimes to draw a line between what serves "the greater population or the needy". I think most would agree that donations that support very basic needs like shelter and food help the greater population or the needy. But there are needs which are not quite so basic, like exercise, education, legal representation, ...

    If the trail does not restrict public access, a donation enables its availability for the greater population. I support a public radio station, the primary role of which is to offer and explain about music that is not present on commercial airwaves (or even on most of the other public radio stations) around here. I can/should be interested in how many people take advantage of the opportunity (i.e., are donations being used efficiently?) but I don't trouble myself over how closely playing jazz and roots music adheres to Maslow's hierarchy.
    Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome. - Booker T. Washington

  7. #67
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BikingLady View Post
    Definition of Privilege, The Country Club asking members for donations last weekend. I struggled with this and made so many remarks of donating so the old white well off could continue to live as always. Everything about it seemed so wrong to me. Now a week later I know many of these members and know the charities they pick to work on/donate too, perhaps I view the "donation asking" in a different light, though not for me to donate too. Example, I donated to a trail so I could hike on it. Guess there was not much difference really, the donation was not going to help the greater population or the needy.
    If I am interpretting this correctly, this is a situation that annoys me.

    I dont want organizations I belong o determinging my charitable contributions. I like nice, clean divisions: paying dues to the country club but write a donation check to bulldog rescue.

    Our Iris Society collected cans of food for a local food bank. I didn't participate, it cross my personal line. Why food bank? Why not bulldog rescue? Who decides where our collective charitable donation go? So, no group donation from me, I will make my own donation.

    yesterday was a bit different where I slipped $5 in a card for donations to go to Childhood Diabetes. This was associated with a death in the family of one of our club members and this was her suggested donation organizatin. So that is different in my view, it is a personal gesture to the loved one of the dead person.

  8. #68
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    I homeschooled my kids.

    i remember many of my fellow homeschoolers being angry that they had to pay property taxes but could not access resources (library, sports) of the school system.

    i had a different philosophy: take my money and use it to ensure that students in my community who have no choice other than public schools get the best possible education. Leave my kids alone, I am able to provide for them myself.

    that is privilege.

    my interpretation of the Alan system (lifting the bottom to the norm) would be to provide public education options in a way that leveled the resources and choices available to all children in the community. This would have required my property taxes to increase significantly while providing me with additional benefits only in the form of access to sports teams (which homeschooled students in my state recently acquired) to truly create a level playing field, the increased taxes would be high enough to cut into my ability to provide private educational options for my kids, however, there would be increased opportunities at the public school for all kids to balance this. (I can’t afford art or music, but private lessons in both are now a public option! - and property taxes are so high that we are all dressing at goodwill and shopping at the food bank!)

    i’m not sure Alan would actually approve of this.

  9. #69
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    I educate my kid privately in a Catholic school. I have no particular problem with our local public schools. They aren't the nasty, dangerous failure factories you see in some places. I just think we can do better. I don't especially resent the chunk of my property taxes going to the schools as long as it isn't spent idiotically. I assume at least part of the value of my house is related to the quality of the schools. In my state, we get a tax break on private school tuition, so I get at least some recognition of "paying twice". Our state also has a somewhat limited school choice program for people not in a financial position to pay private school tuition.

    I was once told by a teachers' union member that it was morally wrong for me to use my economic "privilege" to "withdraw" from the public schools system on the grounds that it somehow deprived the public schools of my family's involvement and support. I said at the time that I valued my kid's best interests over her theory of social justice, and that her argument would probably apply to anyone who moved to a better school district from a worse one.

    Whether a private organization like a country club funds it's activities either through dues or asking its members for voluntary donations doesn't strike so much as an exercise of privilege as a funding strategy.

  10. #70
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    LDAHL,

    i object to your tax break. I don’t see you “paying twice” I see you paying once for the education of all the children in the community - just like people who do not choose to have children. (You feel you benefit by increased property value. As someone who intends to die here I see “increased property value” as a bad thing, but “a well educated populous” as a good thing.) And then, separately, I see you exercising the privilege afforded you by your economic situation to opt out of public education and give your children something you think is better.

    your tax break allows you to contribute less to the community as a reward for a choice that benefits only your family. I think it is a mistake on the part of the community to give you that tax break.

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