[StaticRedux]

It's not privilege. It's a right the country has fought and died for for over 200 years. It's a principle the country was founded on.

"Privilege" has lost all meaning in today's world. It's just a word to throw around to slow how "woke" you are.

Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights.

You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but not Privileged

[azangru]

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights.

But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family?

> You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but not Privileged

It looks like the word "privileged", through all these fights on social media, has got a bad rep :-) How is being privileged different than being lucky?

[bryanrasmussen]

If I google privilege definition google tells me

'a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. "education is a right, not a privilege"'

Obviously whoever wrote that should be penalized because they mucked it up with their example, if privilege is a special right then how is education a right not a privilege?

But anyway, a privilege is something that is understood as something you have been given. The American Constitution holds that rights are something that one possesses innately, although a cynic might wonder what the difference is I think a close reading leads to the understanding that when a right is taken away it is by nature wicked that such a thing should be done, whereas the removal of a privilege would not be automatically unjust.

Thus by the American conception of things every human has the right to free speech, that China takes that away from it's citizens thus not make American's privileged - it makes China bad and its citizens oppressed for having their rights removed.

on edit: sorry about the many typos, not going to fix though as I am dealing with pneumonia and near bed time.

[AnthonyMouse]

> But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family?

The reason this framing is despicable is that rights and privileges are not the same.

Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege. Not everyone has it and that's OK.

Having access to clean water is a right. Not everyone has it and that's not OK.

Free speech is a right. Everyone should have it even if some people currently don't.

[IllogicalLogic]

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights.

Next South Park should do an episode that shows how greedy western leaders running opium/heroin for the better part of now two centuries, turned the most populous country into a paranoid dictatorial hellhole for the Chinese people.

US introspection would be too on the nose?

You ever ask yourself what percentage of the heroin/opium supply would be pulled off the market if China could extradite people from HK? More than 50%... and who gets hurt by that?

[grievances]

Many brave people have fought and died for their countries and rights. Its easy to forget that minorities and “unlucky” people fight too; knowing that you’re safe expressing your points of view is something that many have earned, not all have received. That very much sounds like privilege to me.

[joelx]

We need to avoid getting lost in minor internal debates. I agree some classes of people in America have had more difficulty exercising their rights, but they always had those rights and the courts enforced them usually. What we are talking about with China and Russia is totalitarian dictatorships that come and take you from your home and beat you and murder you for making a comment on the internet they didn't like or even sharing a Winnie the Poo meme.

We need to all band together to fight this or we will lose all of our privileges and rights.

[gonational]

We fight to make this country what it is so that we can all stand together as one people, not so we can whine like little babies about who’s more privileged or marginalized than everyone else.

[jeffdavis]

There is more to be done to protect, secure, and expand the rights of everyone. But they are still rights.

Privileges are things granted to you, often conditionally, by someone else. Using the word often sounds quasi-religious to me: "Thank Privilege for this meal we are about to eat, and our safe home, ...".

[dekhn]

I understand where you're coming from and I thought twice about using that word. I certainly appreciate the work done to give me freedoms, and I agree luck had a big part of it.

But the reality is that as a white middle class male in the US, I do have the privilege to say things and do things in public that people who aren't white or middle class can't. The freedoms we have aren't equally distributed due to systemic racism and sexism.

I'm pretty anti-woke, actually, I hate the term.

[klagermkii]

I think the main issue is that the choice of the words "privilege" or "right", when used by enough people, has the power to set societal expectations. Why should a privilege ever be extended to more people, the people who have them should just consider themselves lucky they aren't taken away.

And I think there are plenty of things that are "privileges", but it's based on the idea that it is impossible to extend it to everyone. Being admitted to a top school is impossible to extend to everyone by the definition of a top school. Being believed in a court of law when it's just your word over someone else's, but being more trusted because you belong to a particular group is a privilege. Being let off with a warning at a traffic stop because you have the right face is a privilege. Living in the "good" part of town is a privilege.

Surviving a traffic stop without being shot by the cop should not be called a privilege. Being able to receive a competent education should not be called a privilege. These are things that can be extended to everyone and the words should reflect it, so that it's clear which things we should be fighting for, vs the things that are impossible for everyone to have.

[merpnderp]

We're definitely in the crazy years. A conversation about a Chinese crackdown on freedom, a country that literally throws minorities in jail for being minorities, devolves into a squabble over people in the US not feeling entitled to express their opinions, even though the letter of the law, every single politician, billions in private funding amongst corporations, banks and non-profits, does everything possible to ensure people feel entitled to express their opinion.

[Konnstann]

Can you give me an example of something a non-white, non-middle class person can't say or do in public? Maybe it's my limited world-view, but I can't think of anything specific.

[eli_gottlieb]

Yes, but there's still a pretty hard distinction between material privileges and actual constitutional rights. For instance, we don't criticize racialized police brutality because it's some maldistribution of police attention, but because it violates rights that are supposed to be inviolate.

[davidw]

> "Privilege" has lost all meaning in today's world. It's just a word to throw around to slow how "woke" you are.

It gets thrown around a lot, but it absolutely has a meaning.

Ever know anyone who says that "they ignore politics"? In many cases, those people come from a place that they can do that because it doesn't affect them that much, and certainly not as much as other people.

For instance: today the supreme court in the US is deciding whether it's ok to fire people for merely being gay.

To not have to worry about that is 'privilege'.