Oh, I just KNEW someone would be offended by the mention of some word that can no longer be mentioned or tolerated in public discussion! Way to go, McGrath. You have risen to the classic defence of the downtrodden wretched of this Earth, without which we might all slide into some sort of hideous morass of blind prejudice, such as afflicted the Earth when Mark Twain wrote offensive books like "Huckleberry Finn". Dreadful stuff!

I say we ban all such words forever...and burn books containing them...until nobody remembers there even was such a word. Then we won't be able to be prejudiced because we won't even understand the concept anymore in the first place.

You understand, I hope, I'm being just a tad sarcastic...

The word "retard", beloved of mouthy teenagers everywhere, is almost always used in conversation to indicate not someone who is actually retarded but merely someone that the teenager wishes to portray as being stupid, uncool, etc.

Greedy people have often been referred to in the common vernacular as "pigs". I guarantee that if real pigs were able to read, write, and speak we would soon have a busy civil rights cause going in the media to discontinue the use of the offensive word "pig" and replace it with some other term...like "porcine individual" or something equally awkward and bloody stupid.

You know what it is, in my opinion? It's a form of fascism that poses as liberalism...and its primary weapon is fear. It is not a true impulse to liberate people, but an impulse to imprison them, regulate them, and establish blind conformity. Lenny Bruce took on all this kind of stuff years ago, and got crucified for being honest enough to do so.

The idea of forming a National Union of Idiots is an amusing satirical attack on the very nature of this sort of velvet fascism which calls itself "affirmative action" and enriches hordes of clever lawyers in the process, as they set out to enforce their modern form of the Inquisition on people.

And the basic principle involved? Never read the book...just look at the cover.

Ignore context, take no notice of intention, be blind to satire or parody, be ignorant of historical or cultural context...just fixate on a particular word in isolation...like "retard" or "n*gger" (the GREAT unmentionable word of the present era)...and then you can happily ban a book like "Huckleberry Finn" and throw it on the fire...or take offense at a post which is obviously intended in the first place to make fun of rather stupid people who habitually refer to other people as "retards"... The clear implication of such a post is: that it is not a good idea to refer to other people as "retards", and it indicates your own stupidity when you do.

- LH