There are times “retarded” is okay to use and times when it isn’t. To say that creating and passing on that chain letter which says your crush will call you at midnight if you send the letter to 143 people in 143 seconds is retarded.

But never ever try to get at somebody by insulting their family. Calling Palin’s kid retarded and saying it in such a perverted way as well is not funny, it’s idiotic “lulz” and says a lot more about the one who spewed that drivel than it does about Palin.

There’s name-calling on both sides, libtard, conservotard, and the libs have a particularly stupid perverted derogatory term they smear the center and right, and far-right with and that is ‘teabagger’ extremely vulgar and says more about the people using it than about the ones they’re foaming at the mouth against.
How about simply nixing words that are vulgar and racist from the vocabulary altogether? Seriously do we really need to see the “c” word, and the “N” word? Maybe there should be a special place apart from the main internet called the idionet where people who like to use that trashy language can spout it to their hearts’ content and leave the civilized people on the rest of the net alone. Yeah, that would cause a split where probably 50% would be marooned on the idionet, but that’s fine with me.

N-word, C-word, R-word. What happens when we exceed 26 words that must not be uttered?

Keith Olbermann is retarded, so enough said about that.

Rush Limbaugh is using this episode to make fun of political correctness, which is what he does best. So, as usual, he comes out in top.

excellent points. as I recall, Obama called for Imus to be fired, too.

The argument that in order to validly call for the firing of Emmanuel, Palen must personally take on all and sundry of people who have used the r-word, regardless of their point while using it (and Limbaugh has said that he was doing it intentionally to show how media interest would swing rapidly and more intensely to him) is specious.

You admit that Emmanuel is in a decidedly different position than Limbaugh but then call Palin an opportunist for treating him differently (Palin did respond to Limbaugh’s game in using that word, by saying that no one should use it). And you do that for even more specious reasons.

To make that case, you move on to your typical tactic of going nebulous…as in — Palin is a conservative/libertarian and those icky people have long eschewed polite and tolerant standards as being political correctness.

This is such a logical fallacy. LIMBAUGH may argue that the r-word is not a pejorative term, but the whole of conservatism has not. There has not been wide discussion in conservative ranks that terms like the c-word or any number of pejorative terms have been unfairly stigmatized.

To take what has been a public debate (political correctness) shared by people across the political spectrum– that certain words and thought have been stigmatized as a way of squelching speech and ideas, and hang that on Palin in order to put her in a category where she is essentially invalidated and muted, is the ESSENCE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS.

In the case of left vs right, is there any chance that your move in pointing out the fallacies of the left, will ever be more than just window dressing for equivocation and invalidation of anyone on the other side?

two points i think that are missed in all of this, is that Palin has a special needs baby, and Rahm is the Chief of Staff, the “The Second-Most Powerful Man in Washington”.

She was right to call him out. (not necessarily to be fired) but all the others jumping in and demanding she demand they be fired, etc. is out of line.

and you are right, we all do it… or have done it.

“instead of all this seething outrage, why not just take a quiet moment to reflect and say, “Yeah, that’s really not nice?”

I couldn’t agree more.

Nice job on article. Thanks for your quotation use of ‘retardgate’ in quoting phrase where others were trying to make hay out of it on this site included:

rgate

This line sums up well:

So, instead of all this seething outrage, why not just take a quiet moment to reflect and say, “Yeah, that’s really not nice?” I hope you extend that view to other words like say ‘teabagger’ among others?

I’m with you, well said.