Good!

Tim Walz, the self-proclaimed knucklehead governor of woke-addled Minnesota, is complaining that mean people have been driving by his home and shouting “retard” out their windows. “This creates danger,” the censorship supporting governor said yesterday. “… I’ve never seen this before: people driving by my house and using the R-word in front of people. This is shameful, and I have yet to see an elected official — a Republican elected official — say you’re right, that’s shameful.”

“We know how these things go,” the hypocrite added. “It starts with taunts; they turn to violence.” Oh. You mean like you and your party calling Donald Trump Hitler, calling ICE agents Nazis, and Republican fascists? Funny, I don’t recall Walz making this argument after Trump had two assassination attempts against him and Charlie Kirk was shot dead during a speech.

Yes, I do not approve of President Trump using such gutter language as “retard” in public, just as I regard his use of “shit-hole,” “fuck” and other vulgarisms damaging to the culture and his high office. (See this oft linked post from 2015). But while sane and ethical Americans justly hold that public discourse should be civil and that derogatory terms should only be used appropriately, progressives and Democrats (as in “aspiring totalitarians”) advocate banning words in order to make certain thoughts impossible, a trick directly out of “1984.”

The very first post Ethics Alarms ever featured involved efforts on the Left to ban “retard,” a word popularly used when I was growing up in Greater Boston (and pronounced “retahd“) to deride someone who acted stupidly or who did something dumb, or as short-hand for someone who was clinically what we call today “mentally challenged,” but in those days described as “mentally-retarded,” no offense intended. Jesse Jackson, various Clintonistas like Rahm Emanuel, teachers’ unions, the Special Olympics and others declared that the evil word should be banned, declared taboo, and never uttered again. Ethics Alarms took the absolute position, which it still holds, that no word should be banned, because they all have valid communication uses.

I also know a slippery slope when I see one. I wrote in part,

“Word-banning is simply a micro-version of book-banning.   It is an effort to ban unpopular, unfashionable, politically incorrect thoughts by removing the words to express them, and this is sinister, dangerous, and unacceptable. Shockingly, news commentators all over TV and radio were describing Rahm’s crude rant against far-Left advocates by using the term “r-word” rather than the actual word he used, “retarded.” Irresponsible, incompetent, craven journalism. I can think of lots of other unsavory, mean words that begin with an “r.”  How about “raghead,” Ruskie,” “redneck,” and “redskin”? If “retarded” is banned (along with “retard”), can these be far behind? Then what…do we have to talk in terms of “r-word #1” and “r-word #2, 3, 4,and 5”? Do the Washington Redskins become the Washington R-word #5s? Does George C. Scott’s rant about the “Ruskies” in “Dr Stangelove” get bleeped out on television, or do we just ban the movie? What do we do about non-offensive uses of “retard” and “retarded,” as in “Brushing with Colgate retards plaque build-up”? Is that still using the “R-word”? Mark my words, the same word-bullies who embrace this Orwellian website will try to argue that using “retard” to describe what flame-retardant treatments do is still offensive.”

As the modern Left gained power and lost its respect for individual rights, this phenomenon has indeed progressed as I predicted. I haven’t checked on whether “retard” in non-derogatory references has declined, but we have seen law professors punished for speaking the word “nigger” in analyzing court opinions involving the word. We have seen words like “slave” be declared offensive, so now the proper description is “enslaved persons.” We have seen the Left’s linguistic tricks extending to making it impossible to describe illegal immigration, because “no person is illegal.” Nearer to the “retard” issue is the Left’s recent attempts to make “stupid” a taboo word, coinciding with its usefulness in describing various progressive positions, like open borders.

“Retard” means, literally, “moron.” Why is yelling “Retard!” at Walz’s house more dangerous than shouting any of the other words that describe this intellectually-challenged dufus, like “Idiot!” “Cretin!” Dumb-ass!” or for that matter “Knucklehead!” His critics are calling him that because it is increasingly clear that he sat back and allowed his state’s Somali population to cheat law-abiding Minnesotans out of of billions of tax dollars because he didn’t want to upset a key voting bloc. Oh. Brilliant. I never used the term “retahd” in my Boston days, but Tim Walz is a moron, and one that the Democratic Party tried to place “a heartbeat from the White House.”

I see no ethical reason why banning “retard” is any more desirable or justifiable than banning all of the derogatory and misleading terms the Left uses routinely to imply something that isn’t true: “racist,” “xenophobe,” “fascist,” “bigot,” “misogynist,” “homophobe.” “autocrat,” “liar,” “white supremacist” and more. Regarding “retard,” I am grateful for the unmasking that takes place when one uses the word to describe someone else who is brain-damaged or who lacks intellectual abilities through no fault of his or her own. That individual is cruel and crude: good to know.

Then I can call such individuals “assholes,” because they are.

Nonetheless, Governor Walz is a metaphorical moron, and we need the words to spread spread that fact. We learned the truth when he was running for Veep; we learned it when he expressed his support for censoring “hate speech,” and that conclusion has been reinforced by his embrace of his ilk’s “words=violence” mantra, even as his party deliberately endorses violence as legitimate political activism.

I may drive to Minnesota just to shout at his house myself…