It’s really not hard not to use words that are hurtful. What, are some of you all pent up like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar?
ah yes “I’m just gonna say the R word even more now” ok somebody find me the “I feel bullied, really” cartoon
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Ironic!
Geez. You can use it if you want.
We are all going to pretend ChrisV is some bog standard right wing troll now? He gets not an ounce of good faith based on his history? Is it possible he is making a subtle point and not calling out for the ability to scream insults and disadvantaged people?
Internet discourse is so exhausting sometimes.
I don’t think he is trolling. I think he really thinks he is fighting the good fight
Extreme on one issue (nothing can stop Trump), subtle point on the next (language). I gotta get ready to add one to Bernies crowd but
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Exact same thing. Well played.
I know I’m a crazy person for hoping a group of people who have been posting together for a decade could offer one and other the tiniest bit of good faith and assumption of intellect and kindness in posts. 
I like you, man. I think you’re a smart guy. Generally knowledgeable. I’m not trying to be unkind. I just think you could be more aware of possible blind spots. More the Trump thing than the language one. Gotta go. Bernie’s waiting.
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I think he’s posting in good faith and I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know what the norms are like in Australia, I just disagree that the people who are saying “hey, let’s stop using this word” are being scolds. Until very recently, this word had largely been taken out of polite discourse and now there’s a very obvious effort by online trolls to bring it back. Again, maybe Australia is different.
And I get that people used this in casual speech in the 90s, I don’t think anyone is a monstrous person if they occasionally slip up and fall back on old patterns of speech
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A lot of people are so fragile that if the subject comes up and you offer your opinion that some word is offensive or rude they think you’re being a scold.
Australian here. It’s not different.
What percentage of people would have to be arguing in bad faith not to call someone a r******* c***** for it to be OK to keep calling people those names? Even the number of 9’s in the x part of 99.x% was the number of sticky-out bits on a person you would still be considered a dick if you insisted on using those words.
What are you talking about bro? I think people should avoid using words that others find offensive; it’s just basic manners.
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I stand corrected then. I apologize for misrepresenting your position.
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Is being a scold as bad as being woke?
Like, say stupid racist or offensive shit and get scolded. That’s how scolding works.
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Australia is the same now and has been for idk maybe 10-15 years, because the cultural cross-contamination has been successful. The first time I heard of this campaign though, my reaction was the same as yours would be if there was a campaign against “moron”, namely “what the hell are you talking about, obviously that doesn’t mean the mentally disabled, it hasn’t meant that since like 1930”. It was only subsequent to this that I learned that it was still in active usage in American law well into this century, which I can understand gave it a more ambiguous status over there. An example of a similar uncontroversial change which happened here more organically was with the word “spastic”, which was a common schoolyard insult when I was a kid, but has become much more clearly unacceptable over time. An even more parochial example is the schoolyard insult “minda” which literally referred to the South Australian institution of Minda, Inc, a mental disability support organisation. These words became unacceptable over time because people realised it wasn’t cool to refer to actual disabilities when insulting people. The change with “retard” happened purely because it was imported from the USA.
I’m confused. Was the was “retard” not used to insult people in Australia? If it wasn’t, I can see more of a reason you would scoff at attempts to ban the word. But then I would be further confused because this all started with RWNJs embracing the word as an insult.
My experience growing up in the US in the 90s is that the term “retarded” was used as an insult vastly more than as an actual description, at least by people my age.
The fact that the word was used so constantly as an insult caused it to fall out of favor both as an insult and as a descriptor, but it’s more uncouth (imo) to use it as an insult than as a descriptor.
there’s more interesting and nuanced discussion around the word “autistic” used as a slur, probably plenty of examples in this very thread. You won’t get this kind of vociferous discussion about that, though, even though the community has stated they prefer terms like ASD. I got called autistic retard last night for banning a one trick’s groot in marvel rivals.
Did you continue using the word in this case because of your assessments (Rosa’s Law, American origination, annoying people, etc)?