First of all, I blame John Stewart for the fact that I use the word “retard” way too much now. Many people, when you use that word, think of people with mental disabilities. You shouldn’t. While the word “retard”, interpreted literally, is probably accurate in many ways when applied to some people with mental disabilities, the word is not and cannot be used in that way. It is a harmful word that I would never, ever use in regards to people who have mental or learning disabilities.
I’m justifying, here, that I am not comparing people to people with disabilities. I’d define the word, in this slang context, to mean people with ridiculously faulty logic.
To use it in a sentence, when I say that Tony Snow, for example, is a complete fucking retard, what I mean is, his high-suction ass-kissing ability, his blatant mischaracterization of facts, his evasive and misleading statements and his inane word choices reveal a man with his head so far up his ass that it is actually probably a compliment to simply refer to his rather lagging development!
Yes, this is all very snide and condescending. My point is, as I felt myself slipping into using the word retard (thanks, again, to John Stewart) I thought about it in terms of whether it was PC or not, and I came to the conclusion that I’m OK. But I still worry about it, ’cause my goal is to offend only those whom I intend to offend.
Your thoughts?