This post has been on the back burner a while (due to my preoccupation with electoral politics), so it's slightly dated. We are sorry for any inconvenience. Anyhoodles...
About the time that the film Tropic Thunder was released on August 13, protests broke out concerning a character's use of the word, "retard." It was a reflexive protest, divorced from any sense of context or appreciation of genre. Exactly the sort of thing that is associated in today's society with left-wing craziness.
But let me be absolutely clear: Nothing is more illiberal than political correctness. At its root, any attempt to control language is an attempt to control thought. In a free society, that is unacceptable.
To quote one of my favorite authors, Robert A. Heinlein:
"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."
In these times, there is much about the state of free speech that gives me pause. Just two examples: On one hand, hate-crime legislation that attempts to punish not one's actions, but one's purported thoughts as somehow divined by a jury; on the other, attempts to limit speech on private subscription services such as cable and satellite radio and TV, done in the name of decency.
Those on the far left and the far right seem to have only one thing in common: their desire to save me from myself.
And so, in honor of the Tropic Thunder protests, I have a new favorite word. That word is, "retard." As in, "Michael Phelps' latest interview makes me think he's a total retard."
Take that, thought police.
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