3 December 2017
(Some very dear) Leftie friends of mine have been taking pains of late to school me on “White Privilege.” I still don’t buy it, but I guess I get it. You have to redefine it so that it no longer means “Private Law” (literally) or “Elite access” (generally) but rather “relative freedom from inconvenience or danger or suspicion.” Okeh, if that’s our metric, since the police rarely think that I resemble any suspects on their beats, then I’m “privileged.”
Who else is privileged? Well, everybody who still doesn’t require corrective lenses. I could go for some of that privilege. But I shouldn’t grouse, I still have both legs, arms, ears, eyes, kidneys, and testicles, so I guess I’m plenty privileged. Furthermore, if I make a lot of bad decisions for a couple of decades, I just might win me a Privileged Parking Pass, then I could park right up front at McGreasetrap’s™.
Such an inclusive definition of “Privilege” is so sophist and specious as to render it of little value in coherent discourse.
On the other hand, considering that some forty plus per cent (or more?) of Americans PAY NO INCOME TAX, the Lefties have given me a supportable argument (on THEIR alleged merits) to refer to them henceforth as The Privileged Poor.
update 171205: correspondent ML writes “No… you still don’t get it cause you don’t wanna get it. The fast and loose playing with statistics — like that forty per cent comment (why d’ya suppose they don’t pay income tax?) reveal a mind that is closed to new information and only being used for snarky debate tactics, so sad [bemoanji] — such a waste of a potentially first rate intelligence.”
I’ve addressed the personal insults on another forum (FascBuch). To the substantial portion of the response, and the only actual question: The Privileged Poor pay no income tax because the progressive income tax excludes the lowest echelons. The Privileged Poor DO pay taxes, as do we all — consumption, excise, and the corporate income tax component of just about every product that we buy. So of course, they definitely have cause not to FEEL particularly “privileged.“ Which is just what their civil masters want, as a large cadre of jealousy and resentment are the perfect clay to be molded into Gimmecrat voters. What keeps The Privileged Poor in those (income) tax brackets? Well, in addition to their own misbehavior (bears mentioning and dismissing, as bad choices are rife throughout the human spectrum) there is government action.
Minimum Wage legislation criminalizes apprenticeships and training wages. If a person can only bring fourteen bucks of value to an employer, a fifteen buck concrete barrier precludes many from taking that first step.
Licensing and regulation exist (contrary to their rhetoric) to protect entrenched contributors from competition, thereby denying The Privileged Poor their natural human right to pursue their own entrepreneurial aspirations.
update 171225: correspondent and creative reader ML discerns other than blank space between the lines: “So forty per cent of the population is poor enough not to pay taxes because of their own misbehavior??”
To repeat and amplify, let’s DO make it personal. The reason that I remain generally among The Privileged Poor probably IS due to my own misbehavior, beginning in school with my inability to “play well with others” and culminating in my refusal to submit to the requirements to receive a Certificate of Approval from Spartan High. Once into the job market, I still usually failed. In addition to my unwillingness to give 110%, kick it up a notch, or take it to the next level, I was also nowhere near as good as Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer at pretending to care about people nor as skillful as Charlie Manson or Jim Jones at inspiring subordinates. And, of course, I consistently failed to reach for the rectum during job interviews.
But that’s just me. I am hardly representative of The Privileged Poor. Nevertheless, that’s why it “bears mentioning”, because there ARE a few like me, and your adversaries WILL bring us up. And it is worth dismissing because we are anomalies. MOST of The Privileged Poor are blocked by minimum wages, licensing boards, arbitrary regulations designed to thwart would be competitors to your loving legislature’s corporate sponsors (Halliburton, Solyndra, et al) and a whole host of interfering bureaucrat buttinskies.
