Check Your Privilege

[Farm Boy]

But those would be morally wrong, immigration is not a moral issue. Leoreth is too busy grandstanding and committing self fellatio to explain he why believes its a moral issue or to even address me as person and not a caricature.
Edit: which is what I said earlier they don't like their own underclass getting uppity

Well yes. It's a moral issue. How we treat people is always an issue of morality. There is a prerogative to treat people decently no matter where they're from. There is also an economic self-interest at play. And those who are being ungenerous in their willingness to accommodate more people in need are not entirely off the mark when they claim it's pretty easy for the middle class to be generous with what is mostly sombody else's economic interests. We can actually get bonus irony points if the lower economic classes can be branded as retrograde savages in need of enlightenment by their economic superiors. Enlightenment that also, just coincidentally, generally economically benefits those already advantaged enough to usually be enlightened.

For all your emphasis on the lower class you seem to be awfully eager to direct your resentment against people who are in the same situation as you are.

That's because the system sets their self-interest in competition with each other. In order to cooperate they'd need to find common cause in burning parts of what is now, down.

 

[Rashiminos]

Well yes. It's a moral issue. How we treat people is always an issue of morality. There is a prerogative to treat people decently no matter where they're from.

There does seem to be another (sorting hat style) prerogative suggested by the thread title, but where people are from wouldn't be the only consideration in either case.

Enlightenment that also, just coincidentally, generally economically benefits those already advantaged enough to usually be enlightened.

People in the same boat of ignorance are still less enlightened than the would-be teachers with dubious intents.

That's because the system sets their self-interest in competition with each other. In order to cooperate they'd need to find common cause in burning parts of what is now, down.

Burning would probably imply everyone becoming poorer instead of spoils being passed around.

 

[Farm Boy]

Burning would probably imply everyone becoming poorer instead of spoils being passed around.

Wealth can be measured in absolute terms. Do I have more toasters and phones than 5 years ago? Do my gizmos do more things? Do I have enough to eat whereas I did not before? Am I safer from violence? Affluence is more relative, and affluence deals more with the "justice" of the system. We'd be lying to ourselves if we think relative affluence doesn't actually mean more than absolute wealth once the basics(food/clothing/shelter/safety) are mostly covered. The affluence decides who can walk where. Who owes who service. Who owes who 8 hours a day. Who mates with who. Etc etc etc and on down the long windy path. Sometimes you do need to burn the prairie to sustain it.

Edit: We can switch around the definition of Wealth/Affluence if that fits better. Or use different words. I'm just trying to cover a concept, if you have suggestions on different words, I'd find that interesting.

 

[Rashiminos]

Wealth can be measured in absolute terms. Do I have more toasters and phones than 5 years ago? Do my gizmos do more things? Do I have enough to eat whereas I did not before? Am I safer from violence? Affluence is more relative, and affluence deals more with the "justice" of the system. We'd be lying to ourselves if we think relative affluence doesn't actually mean more than absolute wealth once the basics(food/clothing/shelter/safety) are mostly covered. The affluence decides who can walk where. Who owes who service. Who owes who 8 hours a day. Who mates with who. Etc etc etc and on down the long windy path. Sometimes you do need to burn the prairie to sustain it.

Edit: We can switch around the definition of Wealth/Affluence if that fits better. Or use different words. I'm just trying to cover a concept, if you have suggestions on different words, I'd find that interesting.

I wasn't so much focused on the wealth/affluence aspect (it seems good enough as it is in the present moment) and more on the burning/cooking/consuming/fertilizing aspect of the process: which prairies, for whom, why?

 

[Farm Boy]

Somebody else for us, of course.

 

[Rashiminos]

Somebody else for us, of course.

Who isn't using that plan, then?

 

[Farm Boy]

The tallest blades of grass seem to have been relatively effective recently at preventing the burn. They might keep it rolling for a long time. The problem is that fires delayed burn hotter when they do catch wind.

 

[Rashiminos]

The tallest blades of grass seem to have been relatively effective recently at preventing the burn. They might keep it rolling for a long time. The problem is that fires delayed burn hotter when they do catch wind.

They would have to catch fire while consuming as much water(/mass) as possible, whilst the other prairies are dried and set afire early and often. If someone wanted to win that competition in that manner, they'd have to learn how to consume and inflame just as effectively (one could describe this set of knowledge as morals, if they so chose). Add in some dirt-slinging if it pleases you.

 

[Leoreth]

There does seem to be another (sorting hat style) prerogative suggested by the thread title, but where people are from wouldn't be the only consideration in either case.

You know the sorting hat gave you free choice about the outcome if you really wanted to? So not only is your argument wrong, so is the analogy you used to try and illustrate it.

 

[Rashiminos]

You know the sorting hat gave you free choice about the outcome if you really wanted to? So not only is your argument wrong, so is the analogy you used to try and illustrate it.

Is everyone exercising that will? to the same extent?

 

[Farm Boy]

They would have to catch fire while consuming as much water(/mass) as possible, whilst the other prairies are dried and set afire early and often. If someone wanted to win that competition in that manner, they'd have to learn how to consume and inflame just as effectively (one could describe this set of knowledge as morals, if they so chose). Add in some dirt-slinging if it pleases you.

I'm getting lost. Not uncommon for me.

 

[Oruc]

What do you even mean "address you"? This is not a personal issue, and unlike you I have no interest in turning it into one.

What do you think I mean? You weren't even talking to me at all you were grandstanding and addressing this idea you had conjured in your mind of this horrible .

You just posited that acting selfishly is the only possible stance to take with regard to immigration. I simply pointed out that other people might take a different moral stance (i.e. a moral stance to begin with), and for instance think that a foreigner has just as much right to pursue a happy and successful life in a given country as someone who is born here. I can't speak for useless here of course.

And by the way, the way I see it, if anything resentment against minorities such as immigrants is a convenient tool by the wealthy to distract you from the actual reasons behind economic inequality. For all your emphasis on the lower class you seem to be awfully eager to direct your resentment against people who are in the same situation as you are.

Immigration is for the wealthy though, it benefits them (for obvious reasons) and you because you think you're helping and you're such a good person. But you're not and that's a fact. IF your for immigration your in bed with the wealthy merchant class.
You would be singing a different tune if they were bringing the swarm (I know you like those words) of immigrants and they were middle class with degrees competing for your jobs or your kids jobs. Your kids get all that debt going through college and university and they come out and their ain't nothing for them, you'd change your damn tune then.

But I'd do the damn same thing your type do to people like me, laugh and say if you can't compete with someone fresh off the boat you deserve to fail.
You don't have an ounce of solidarity at all as long as your alright screw the rest.

If what I think I read is true and useless doesn't have a job I feel sorry for him being taken in by your congame, hopefully he's satisfied with the pat on the head your kind will give him.

 

[useless]

Nah man, i have a job.

 

[Rashiminos]

I'm getting lost. Not uncommon for me.

Some people are better at burning somebody else's prairies than others, which is perhaps why their prairies seem to be greener.

 

[Farm Boy]

Possibly, yes! I was more worried about the other half though: a fire delayed long enough will burn so hot it kills rather than invigorates.

 

[Oruc]

I wasn't born into a wealthy family, i was born into a family which had to make ends meet, frequently, so frequently infact that there were multiple times we were at the verge of being made homeless. I didn't go to a prestigious highschool, i don't have any sort of connections that would help me even get into a job. In that regard (purely from a financial perspective) i was not and am not, priviledged.

Nah man, i have a job.

Well I read that part as you still not having a job, sorry man.

 

[useless]

See, i had work my ass off, often for free, to even get a paid job.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I'd be interested to hear Cheezy or Useless give their take on this.

Not really. The "lived experience" thing we got sucked into debating is certainly a related concept, but it's not privilege-checking by itself. I summarized what that is ten pages ago with my first post in the thread [responding to the OP], but people love to take things and run with them, and apparently the idea that patriarchy exists is too much for some men in here to let slide.

The purpose of privilege-checking is, in interpersonal relations, to abrograte or otherwise correct for power relations in the conversation. If a man and woman are talking, then power relations are in favor of the man; cis and trans, straight and LGB, abled and not...there is a tendency for people in positions of power to try and dominate people who aren't, and the social structures that those relations create cause this behavior to play out even on a sub-conscious level. The purpose of privilege-checking is to recognize these relations and correct for them so that the conversation is more equal.

So as you can see, it's really just asking people to be socially-conscious in their interactions with people of disadvantaged groups, particularly in the sense that groups whose privilege extends from oppressive social structures (white supremacy, heteronormativity, cisnormativity, patriarchy, etc) have often had the power to talk over the voices of the oppressed and re-write their experiences and history.

 

[Rashiminos]

Possibly, yes! I was more worried about the other half though: a fire delayed long enough will burn so hot it kills rather than invigorates.

It can be delayed indefinitely (water/mass).

 

[Leoreth]

Is everyone exercising that will? to the same extent?

Nobody is exercising free will over what race, gender or orientation they are. That was my point.

But I'd do the damn same thing your type do to people like me, laugh and say if you can't compete with someone fresh off the boat you deserve to fail.
You don't have an ounce of solidarity at all as long as your alright screw the rest.

Okay, let's say the picture you paint of this dog-eat-dog world is true, let's further assume that your characterization of my person as someone who would endorse such a world at your expense is also correct. (Also for simplicity we are natives of the same country.)

All of this is of course only projection on your part, which is extra hypocritical considering your complaints about me, but it makes for a nice hypothetical.

So, under these circumstances, why should I side with you over an immigrant? You both seem to be basically the same to this hypothetical version of myself.

If what I think I read is true and useless doesn't have a job I feel sorry for him being taken in by your congame, hopefully he's satisfied with the pat on the head your kind will give him.

Now you're trying this shtick even on other people's behalf? It's getting old. Other people can speak for themselves, and don't need being instrumentalized in your arguments.