Grizz:

My point was, and is, that Sarah is a huge hypocrite. Had nothing to do with kids/adults that are retarded. Yeah, I know we can't use that word. But I don't know why the hell not.
My wife’s brother has been in state care since a few weeks after birth. He was born retarded. He will never be able to live independently and that’s a tragedy. More the tragedy that with what we know now there were far better ways to care for him.
We do visit him, no doubt not as often as we should. We do provide for him to have the CD players and other luxuries the state can’t afford, because this state so dramatically underfunds the care for our most vulnerable. And perhaps because of my wife’s brother we do give generously to organizations that help the retarded. But changing the word we label them with will not help him. Retarded is what the doctors, and everyone else called him. Now somehow it’s an insult. I don’t think any label is an insult unless the one uttering the word thinks it is.
We can change the label and no doubt whatever new label we find will one day become a pejorative. At one time “colored" was considered a polite term. In Cuba a black person is often affectionately called Negrito, a term that has no negative connotations, and so it goes . . .
I do regret that this thread has denigrated into a crude slogans, but that seems to be a common thing here on the dark side.