Answers to the "privilege" claims
Just wondering if anyone has some good, succinct (and if possible, snarky, sarcastic, and completely devastating) responses to charges of "privilege" as a reason for one's relative success. I'm in two different discussions on an enemy message board where the charge of "privilege" was leveled. In one, the only reason one isn't stuck in assembly-line work for their entire life is privilege. In another, it's the typical knee-jerk leftist charge that just being white equates to privilege.
I'm looking for an excellent response to this sort of thing, and it has to be something that can get through the thick skulls of leftist/socialist/Marxists.
Thanks!
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Answer by Dave Molinari
Yes, privilege, my whole family's life story. I am only successful because my great grandparents immigrated to the U.S. from Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire with barely a dime to their names. One fled debtors' prison and the other scratched a living on a farm in Portland before it was barely a city. They managed to find places to live in slums, learned the language, sent their kids to school to become Americans, followed the law, went to church, and kept their noses clean. Along the way, my grandfather got hit by a truck in 1919, barely survived, and lived with a deformed arm for the rest of his life. He still married my grandmother and raised a family... oh yeah, right in the middle of The Great Depression. They then encouraged their kids to get college degrees and become educated, honorable citizens. It was all a total crapshoot of course. 100 years of good luck in a row. Amazing, isn't it? How could I be so lucky? After all that, I went ahead and went to college myself, got a job, earned an MBA while working full time, and bingo! I got a better job and reasonable success. Dont' worry that I watched my dad die of cancer when I was a teenager. It's just a side story. I tell ya, this privilege thing is cool! We didn't have to do anything! It was all so predictable when my ancestors got on the boat and headed to Ellis Island. I don't know what the fuss was all about. All they had to do was show up and the privilege fairy would cast his wand upon them and grant us his blessing. In fact, our privilege was so complete, that nobody in our family in 100 years has ever accepted government handouts. I snub my noses at all of you.
Answer by J. D. Fitzpatrick
Here's another one: "Yes, simply having been born in America is perhaps the greatest privilege that a person can enjoy today. I and my family will continue to make the most of it."
Answer by Roberto
In another, it's the typical knee-jerk leftist charge that just being white equates to privilege.
Spoken like someone who has never been forced to smear Ultra Defense SPF 110 on in order to prevent themselves from spontaneously combusting upon venturing outdoors.
Natalie: SPF 110??? I think the SPF of polyester is like 65.
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Answer by Roberto
The only privilege any man in life needs to succeed is the privilege of knowing the Swanson Pyramid of Greatness
Answer by J. D. Fitzpatrick
You could always try quoting Nietzsche, if only to scare him away:
"What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness."
--The Antichrist
Mark Green: Privilege is a quality that is built through generations of discipline and hard work.
DrewInWisconsin: You know, I tried the "hard work" approach with one person, but I discovered that he was pretty much resigned to passively taking whatever life threw at him. He wouldn't even take credit for the few successes he could legitimately. I suspected he probably suffered from deep depression and I backed off.
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