“What Is ‘Privilege’? Who Is Privileged?” That is the heading of my column today. This column consists of letters from readers, addressing just those questions. These letters give their personal testimony. Very interesting, and at times moving. To read all this, go here.
All right, let’s have some mail. Some more mail, that is. In a recent column, I related an interesting fact about Tibet: The most Googled question concerning that country is, “Is Tibet a country?” It is, yes — a country that has suffered brutal occupation by a monstrous dictatorship since 1950.
A reader sent me this news release from July:
A bill introduced in Congress today will take concrete action to resolve China’s decades-long illegal occupation of Tibet by fully recognizing Tibet’s unresolved status and faulting China for violating the Tibetan people’s right to self-determination.
In a different column, I discussed the general question of federal expenditures. What should they be for? A reader remembered James Madison, in 1794. That’s going back a ways.
Madison was a member of the House of Representatives. At issue was an expenditure — $13,000 — for French refugees. I will quote from a gazette of the period:
Mr. Madison wished to relieve the sufferers, but was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes, very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that article in the Federal constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. And if once they broke the line laid down before them, for the direction of their conduct, it was impossible to say, to what lengths they might go, or to what extremities this practice might be carried.
(For more, go here.)
“Another F-word” — that’s the heading of a post of mine concerning the word “Führer,” a word that made news at the Bayreuth Festival this year. (Bayreuth is a natural place for such a controversy, isn’t it?) In my post, I also discussed, as I have before, the name “Adolf” — which has been verboten since about 1940, for understandable reasons.
I heard from my friend Tim Saunders, who says,
Dear Jay,
Your comments about the near banishment of the male name Adolf certainly struck a chord with me, for I’m the grandson of Adolf H. My maternal grandfather’s name was Adolf Holtz. Similar to the notorious Adolf H., my grandfather was a soldier and served in World War I. My grandfather, though, served in the U.S. Army and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for valor at Chateau-Thierry in 1918. He died in 1924, long before Adolf Hitler became famous, so he never had the misfortune of being linked by first name to a mass murderer. Whenever I do mention that my grandfather’s name was Adolf, I always get the same reaction, which is one of disbelief and, to some degree, horror. It’s such a pity, as there have been so many fine Adolfs. If Britain can bring herself after 300+ years to have another King Charles, then perhaps some day the world can again accept men named Adolf.
Thank you to one and all readers, and writers.