Kali

What does that have to do with the question of should he be allowed to Speak?

WiseOne please tell me exactly what Should someone that is a "retard" be "allowed" to do?

Lightdemon

Bolded above is opinion.

As living counter evidence, Kali takes offense to the word "retard" no matter what the context. Intention or no intention.

__________________
"My trade is to say what I think" - Voltaire

scourge99

This is undeniable. The issue at hand is whether he/she SHOULD take offense to it.

Ideally, there are lots of things that people impulsively do that they should NOT do. However, we do not live in an ideal perfect world where everyone thinks through their emotions and situation and comes to the most logical conclusion. Nonetheless, we should not cater to poor decisions and conclusions stemming from knee-jerk reactions. The belief that certain words are "bad" caters to irrationality and misguidedly condemns others.

Panache

In the context of the thread it is a matter of whether he is able to make informed political decisions with regard to selecting representatives that will legislate on behalf of his interests.

Mach

Who claimed this?
It is evidenced that the people you are speaking to are offended. There is no "erring on the side of caution. There is accepting it, or rejecting it. You reject it, that's your willfull, inerrant choice.

As to picking your words appropriately in the general sense, yes, culture plays a role in determining what is or is not offensive. If you aren't in tune with that, no big deal, you may just willingly offend people. Claiming they "should not be offended" is irrelevant. I mean, we don't all think it's OK to say F'you to 5 year olds do we? How do we possibly err on the side of caution here, it takes too much brain bandwidth? Nonsnese, it's typical and normal.


Why the "but"? OK without it.

You go on to then claim anyone who takes offensive from what you pereceive to be inoffensive, is then illogical too. That's offensive too. And if you admit you need to use caution in potentially offensive words, you're then implyin that your personal subjective opinion on that matter of which words are or not offensive to which people, is the logical truth. That's insane.

Other people cannot verify with any certainity what you intend when you say things. They should not have to, and for you to imply they should is the absurdity here. What is worse is that once you offend, their trust in you drops, and if you then give this long elaborate logical structure behind why they "should not be offended because they were illogical", it looks like you're just trying to cover your arse. So, there is still no reason to beleive you at that point.

That's just the way humans communicate. I'm not writing that you need to change or its "wrong", I'm simply pointing out how it works.

-Mach

__________________
Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content.- Conan

Mach

If they are licensed for dentistry and flying, and those institutions have some credibility. Yes, one could argue it's precisely as bad.

Yes, if a child with downs syndrome is bagging your groceries and you refuse them, that's probably going to be considered unethical by our culture.
It's not objectively wrong, I mean, you may hate DS people or you may have a peeve about how your groceries are bagged and had a few bad experiences with DS people. But it doesnt' mean it's ethical in the cultural context.

-Mach

Panache

Licensed huh? Why should people be licensed? All licenses do are discriminate against people based on their ability. Thats ableism.

Isn't it ableism to deny disable people pilots licenses just because they aren't able to fly an airplane?

Captain America

Should retards be allowed to speak?

Absolutely not. They should be limited to expressing their opinions here, in print.

__________________
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggy" until you can find a gun.

Huckabee for prez in 2012!

scourge99

So if I know someone is offended by a word should I not use that word even if they are being irrational? If I say the word that offends them and I know it offends them then I should accept the fact that I willingly offended them, however, should I cater to their irrationality and consider myself a "bad person" for this?

The best choice would be to not say the word to that person IF YOU KNOW it offends them. Perhaps it would be optimal to understand WHY it offends them.

Words are not offensive in and of themselves. Only the context in which words are used can be offensive, logically. This is a key point that needs to be understood.

As previously stated people can be offended by anything. If I don't know someone is offended by a word but may be offended by the word there is no way I can be "in tune" with what offends someone until I have said the word and judged their response or discover that it offends them in some other manner.

The simple fact is that people who are offended by a word in and of itself are being irrational. Its almost like a mental disorder. For some reason we cater to people for having this disorder and condemn people who don't respect such a disorder.

Think of it like this: if there is a man who continuously gets drunk and starts fights should we cater to his behavior? Should we condemn people who fight back against him because he chooses to become drunk and aggressive? Alcoholism can be an addiction. Being offended by words is not. Being offended by words can be easily overcome with a little rational thought.

I can't possibly know the subjective opinion of others without communicating with them. If they are offended by something I don't find offensive then theres no way I can know that unless they indicate that it offends them in some way that I understand. A speaker cannot be responsible for offense he unwittingly commits. You argument implies that he can be.

By the responses given my position is unintuitive to most. Does that mean we should abandon it if it is correct? Shall we just abandon reason and logic because its just to hard for people poor whittle bwains?

If you choose to look down on someone because you don't understand whether they are trying to be offensive or not then you are jumping to conclusions and "judging a book by its cover". This is your choice, though. Just like I can't force you to help old ladies across the street or to hold the door open for people who are carrying heavy bags. I can only tell you WHY things should or should not be done with a logical progression of reasoning.

Lightdemon

But it isn't you who decide that. You can only decide for yourself.

This I agree with. Some people do have knee-jerk reactions toward many things. But this isn't the case here.

The problem is you are failing to see from the other persons view. That is not irrational, it's just you being stubborn. Irrational would be Kali saying 1+1=1. You would be right to say that the answer is 2. But that's not the case. All you have is opinion. Kali has his own opinion. And that's that.

There's no irrationality here, just difference in perception.