The self-defeating nature of using "Privilege (Theory)" (in societal discourse)

[Ryika]

I lived here almost my whole life. I spent the better part of five years living on a submarine in the Pacific. Does serving in the military make me a less than citizen?

Well... sort of?

Until you come here and find America is much more than the government that runs parts.

Most people who speak like Lex did are saying they studied abroad in college.

That may be true statistically, but it's not really what comes to my mind when I hear that phrase as an ignorant foreigner. Without further information or context, my base assumption would be that the person is saying that phrase is an immigrant, as that's what seems most fitting thematically.

 

[Hygro]

 

[Manfred Belheim]

@Manfred Belheim


One more time...if you want to tell us what you think, get to it. If all you are going to do is spout off about "well, Tim thinks this, so he's wrong, and Lex thinks this, so he's wrong, etc etc etc" then you are contributing nothing and the forum would be better off without you.

I mean I just gave you an itemised list of three things that I think, which you seemed to be categorising as "weird beliefs"

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It always matters how you treat other people. It always matters if you say mean words to people. The meaner the words, the more likely they are to hurt someone. Some words, because of the historical context in which they were in common use, can still be used to dehumanize others. Particularly since many institutions and people here struggle to even recognize the humanity of people of color.

I agree. I wasn't the one saying these things didn't matter though.

 

[JMA2286]

I'll take Thomas Aquinas' definition of nationality over the legal fiction of American citizenship every day

Trump is a third-generation immigrant on his father's side, and a second-generation immigrant on his mother's side.

You mistake me for being a Trump cultist.

If people like me were in charge after the American Revolution, there would only be descendants of that group of people who made up the original population composing the United States of America. No immigration, no refugees, just the Posterity of the Founders.

You will find no inconsistency in my viewpoints

 

[Senethro]

What an oddly pointless thing to tell us.

 

[Traitorfish]

If people like me were in charge after the American Revolution, there would only be descendants of that group of people who made up the original population composing the United States of America.

So, like, Indians?

 

[JMA2286]

So, like, Indians?

If anything, the tribes would still exist. No matter how bloodthirsty and violent they were, their land would be treated as theirs, and we would live on the East Coast.

And no, not like Indians that would be the point. We'd be Americans, in a far more authentic way than any current or even former generation could ever claim to be

 

[bernie14]

I'll take Thomas Aquinas' definition of nationality over the legal fiction of American citizenship every day


You mistake me for being a Trump cultist.

If people like me were in charge after the American Revolution, there would only be descendants of that group of people who made up the original population composing the United States of America. No immigration, no refugees, just the Posterity of the Founders.

You will find no inconsistency in my viewpoints

if you were responding to my response to you earlier, i would appreciate a quote, otherwise, would have likely miss it..... as for the rest, oh well, another extremist....

 

[Traitorfish]

If anything, the tribes would still exist. No matter how bloodthirsty and violent they were, their land would be treated as theirs, and we would live on the East Coast.

What? One of the major sources of tension between the Crown and the colonial governments leading up to the Revolutionary War was British attempts to restrict white settlement west of the Appalachians. The legal limits of white settlement had already been pushed from the Appalachians to the Ohio River by 1768, and white settlements had been established in what is now Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia by 1774, not to mention around Pittsburgh.

The idea that a country who's first president was a major investor in Western land speculation would just stop at the Blue Ridge Mountains is simply not realistic.

And no, not like Indians that would be the point. We'd be Americans, in a far more authentic way than any current or even former generation could ever claim to be

What gives you the impression that Americans in 1775 were a culturally or ethnically homogeneous group? A lot of them didn't even speak English as a first language, and nobody West of the Mississippi spoke English.

 

[aelf]

What brand of weirdo has CFC OT attracted now?

 

[sophie]

Also claiming only this group of white settlers who came over and stole land from the natives, but no other group of white settlers who came over afterwards and stole land from the natives will be acknowledged as true Americans seems a rather logically indefensible position, right?

Why are my German ancestors that homesteaded in the Upper Midwest not acceptable as true Americans, but my English ancestors that homesteaded in Western Massachusetts are?

 

[JMA2286]

What? One of the major sources of tension between the Crown and the colonial governments leading up to the Revolutionary War was British attempts to restrict white settlement west of the Appalachians. The legal limits of white settlement had already been pushed from the Appalachians to the Ohio River by 1768, and white settlements had been established in what is now Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia by 1774, not to mention around Pittsburgh.

The idea that a country who's first president was a major investor in Western land speculation would just stop at the Blue Ridge Mountains is simply not realistic.


What gives you the impression that Americans in 1775 were a culturally or ethnically homogeneous group? A lot of them didn't even speak English as a first language, and nobody West of the Mississippi spoke English.

It wasn't the Crown's place to say. Their colony had grown into a nation, and it was inevitable that they would desire autonomy.

I'm fully aware that they weren't, but the majority would have been prioritized, leaving those who did not understand the national language, nor desire to, either on their own or removed from the country.

 

[Traitorfish]

Also claiming only this group of white settlers who came over and stole land from the natives, but no other group of white settlers who came over afterwards and stole land from the natives will be acknowledged as true Americans seems a rather logically indefensible position, right?

broke = swedes in minnesota
woke = swedes in delaware

It wasn't the Crown's place to say. Their colony had grown into a nation, and it was inevitable that they would desire autonomy.

...And one of the most immediate expressions of that autonomy was settlement West of the Appalachian Mountains, with an often pretty bloody-handed contempt for whatever the Indians had to say about it. The idea that a century-long push towards the West was going to stop because you, personally, don't like racial mapgore is pretty ridiculous.

I'm fully aware that they weren't, but the majority would have been prioritized, leaving those who did not understand the national language, nor desire to, either on their own or removed from the country.

Who, in 1776, constitutes the majority? Yankees in New England? Tuckahoes in New England? Scots-Irish in the Appalachians? Heck, there were a few mining settlements in Virginia which were predominantly Cornish, of all things, if you want to cut it that fine. There was no coherent "national" culture in 1776.

 

[JMA2286]

Also, yall act as if 2018's standards of "there are 0.5% Swedes here, we're Diverse" would have made any difference whatsoever in the definition of nationality that existed at the time. If anything, the mostly Anglo-Saxon people of the colonies would cheer at the news of Germans, Dutch, etc. being removed from American territory

 

[sophie]

I'm really confused by your national essentialism here. Are there any European Nations which you think should actually exist in their current forms? Did the Dutch living along the Hudson Valley become American in 1776?

What about, say, Mexico? There are families still living in California which are direct descendants of the rancheros, whether of the colonial period or of the Mexican period. Are they Spaniards? Mexicans? Are they the only true Californians? Should the nation of California be liberated for their benefit?

 

[Senethro]

This is a weird lost cause to still be carrying a torch for....

 

[JMA2286]

I'm really confused by your national essentialism here. Are there any European Nations which you think should actually exist in their current forms? Did the Dutch living along the Hudson Valley become American in 1776?

What about, say, Mexico? There are families still living in California which are direct descendants of the rancheros, whether of the colonial period or of the Mexican period. Are they Spaniards? Mexicans? Are they the only true Californians? Should the nation of California be liberated for their benefit?

That's the point. The USA was never a nation-state, it has always been an empire. Which is to our discredit, and I would like to change that.

California would have been whatever the Spanish screwed it up as, except it wouldn't have been our problem lol

 

[metalhead]

Well I think we narrowed it down. We really are just after a definition of "American" that excludes California. Can't imagine there's an ulterior motive there beyond expressing the Aquinian ideal of nationality as it pertains to the land that currently exists as the United States of America.

 

[Hygro]

Wait why not back to the Iroquois then?