"Politically Correct" was never a complimentary term in my opinion. Its origins are from totalitarian societies - Orwellian societies really - where having the "correct" political point of view is or was considered just as empirical as having the correct scientific point of view, as if a political point of view could be proven correct by application of political theory. Therefore the connotation of one person telling another thet the second person's viewpoint isn't "politcally correct" is that the first person is going to force some bit of politcal dogma on the second person until the second person begins to profess a different viewpoint - simply because the diffent viewpoint is that which is adhered to by the authorities. Politically correct is not the same as morally or ethically correct.

When I say, as I have in various postings in the past, that I hate political correctness, it does not mean that I like to use or do use pejorative terms for people of other ethnicity, sexuality, or ability. It means that I dislike the "absurd moral rigidity" that Peter T. so eloquently describes above, although I believe I would have said "absurd ammoral rigidity" as I see nothing moral whatsoever in people saying only what they have been carefully coached to say rather than thinking these things through for themselves and putting themselves in the other's position.

Up with true kindness and consideration of other's feelings and dignity, down with mindless political correctness.

Jon W.