Instead maybe we could let the words someone chooses reflect on who they should: the person who uses them.

I have a dream. Retards and Furries and Aspies walking arm in arm along the beach, while the surf gently laps at their toes. Somewhere in the distance, there is the faint but joyous sound of a baby cooing at it’s mother’s breast.

We, the people of the internet, have power no previous generation could have imagined — the power to bring this dream to fruition. Let’s work together, people. Let’s love eachother. For peace. And God. And the bible. And cooing babies everywhere.

Firstly, some ‘retarded’ people can read. People with IQs in the 50-70 range (normal is 70-130) will learn to read unless some other disability or poor education interferes. Some more severely disabled people can also read, because scattered skills are common.
Secondly, loved ones of retarded people generally have no difficulty reading, just like anyone else.
And even if you knew for a fact that no retarded people or any of their loved ones read your blog, you’re contributing to the idea that insults like that are okay, and that affects the whole community. People learn that retarded is a bad thing, partly from you, and then they meet someone they consider retarded and they are disgusted, scared, whatever, and the retarded person is affected by that (if you think ‘they don’t realize’, remember that a) there’s a wide range of ‘retarded people’, and b) even a 2 year old can tell if you don’t like them). They have to live in the community you help to make.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/braille.png

Amazing, and ignorant.

If an insult falls in the forest but no retards are there to hear it, does it offend?

my point was that no matter what word we DO use, if people say it in a hateful way and with a hateful intent, it WILL change the word into a hate-word. Language evolves - words acquire meanings according to their current usage.

If we simply avoided words that ‘became tainted’, we would soon run out of words. It would be much better to address the acceptability - the social tolerance - of people who think it fine to put people down for things beyond their control.

And, Robert,

you are right. It is very curious that ‘hate speech’ is being used to protect the ‘hate-speech-watchdog’… But then again, has not the latest tribunal evidence demonstrated that most of this ‘hate speech’ indeed originates within the HRCs??? Birds of a feather…

No concessions to the possibility that non-disabled folks simply don’t know how to deal with disabled folks because they so rarely encounter them. Same mentality in some women leads them to condemn men who would dare to open a door for them.

Next step in the victimhood protocol is to “celebrate” being disabled — elevating it to something to be proud of, a la Gay Pride or Deaf Pride — and trying to oblige others to participate in the celebration.

I can’t defend people who rudely stare for a prolonged period at a disabled person — OR AN ABLE-BODIED PERSON. But, …

Of course, the whole “spectrum people have no social skills & learn them slowly” thing is debatable at best. :-) Both groups have their own way of communicating, but since we’re less common, we’re assumed to be deficient, rather than that we work differently and would do fine with our own kind if both don’t emulate NT. It’s a well-tested theory at this point, since a lot of Autistics like me have family & close friends on the spectrum that they interact with naturally (no faking NT).

So perhaps the best option is simply to say your communicative skills are very different, rather than to further a stereotype. ;-)