Reply #15: You are "guessing" wrong, and you are making incorrect assumptions [View All]

[Atman]

I have directly dealt with family members who have experienced both "mental illness" and what in now officially impolite to refer to as "mental retardation." But sometimes, Piedmont, an article is just an article. Especially when one considers that this study was undertaken as a way to HELP the mentally ill with voting. And that made it a subject of interest to people on DU, imho. The newspaper I quoted used the term "nuts." I called the findings and the way they came about to be "a riot" and deserving of a few laughs, but that in no way lessens my compassion for anyone but the "nuts" over on the other "conservative" and "freeper" boards.

One of the things I am so tired of is the DU word police who find a way to take ANYTHING as offense to SOMEONE. Calling a person "wussy" here means you really wanted to say "pussy," and therefor you hate women (but curiously, calling someone a "dick" doesn't equate to hating men); calling someone anything other than "my good friend" or "that person with whom my opinion differs" is almost guaranteed to get you visit from the DU word police, who seem to forget that language is a colorful and ever-evolving thing.

Piedmont, I understand your concern, but please don't make assumptions about me or my family members just because you don't agree with the way I use the English language. I am very cognizant of the power of words, and I do not use terms like "freeptard" or "'tard" or even "retard" because they are genuinely offensive, imo. But now we can't say NUTS? Are you NUTS?

If we eliminate every word which might be offensive to someone with a special circumstance in their lives, we'll simply have no words left that will be appropriate outside of a Dick & Jane reader. You'll be relegating writers to a form of verbal t-ball, where no one is every out, and every game ends in a tie. Fuck that. I prefer to think that most people on this board are intelligent enough to understand when a genuine insult is being hurled.

.