There’s a clear campaign against the mentally ill with the global rise of fascism. Lots of it shows up in anti homeless rhetoric, but you can see it in the MAHA and anti vaccination movements.
There’s no reason to use the word “r-tarded” to describe someone. As someone who’s worked with the intellectually challenged, it’s an insult to them to compare them with people who are willfully ignorant.
At no point has the suggestion been that saying slurs should be illegal. It’s that if you say slurs, you are a shitty person.
Also - this is probably the most sociopathic and scary take on this thread. People say slurs rather than do violence, so we shouldn’t be concerned with people saying slurs? My understanding is that slurs are more often then not preludes to violence.
Not trying to be a troll. I just genuinely don’t understand why sociopathic is acceptable as an adjective and retarded is not. Can you explain the difference?
“Sociopath” is not a diagnosis for a mental illness or disability. It is a word describing behavior hostile to others. There is no systemic discrimination against people labeled as “sociopaths.”
Using terms like sociopath to describe someone is worse than a slur. It pseudo-intellectual cowardice to use that rather than saying that you think someone is crazy or more directly retarded.
I think that if you remove pathways that are non-violent, like name-calling, then that makes a more direct path to violence. And NAZIs have shown that violence is inevitable in history.
And hate speech is a crime in many places.