This 'toon is also about privilege, but speaks in terms of class rather than race :

http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/

I did this way back in 1998. Moved from Oklahoma to New Zealand. It's not too difficult to get a job here, and being American is a plus on that front. Downside is the cost of living (think Hawaii prices - everything costs more here than it does in the USA). The 'tyranny of distance' is the best and the worst thing at once. Upside is quality of life, and peace of mind. I've never regretted it.

I have two - Charlie Chaplin's 1940 speech from the film "The Great Dictator" :

And Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" :

Didn't. Moved from Oklahoma to NZ in 1998. Best decision evar. AMA.

Grendel : member for: 64 days

galen : member for: 372 days

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

If I'm a baker, should I be forced to make a wedding cake for a black couple? How about for a mixed-race couple?

Is this a different issue? If so, how exactly?

I know I'm asking, not answering - but I think it's worth making the comparison. It wasn't that long ago that these were relevant questions too.

In terms of this metaphor, I'd say that "drying the room" means creating an environment in which ignorance is not normal, or acceptable.

As per Asimov's observation :

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

Reminds me of the joke, job interviewer says "Tell me your biggest weakness."

Applicant says "Honesty, I guess"

"I don't think that's really a weakness"

"I don't give a fuck what you think"

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller, 1970

Similarly, "goodbye" was (I believe) originally a contraction of "God be with ye".

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough for Love"

No need to be a dick.

You said it wasn't an insult. I could have said "well if you think it, it must be true!", too.

I'm 50. Get off my lawn!

I always say, getting old sucks, but the alternative is worse.