This is just retarded....

[TFOGGER]

Obviously introduced by persons with cognitive discontinuity...

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/27/congress-eliminates-the-r-word/

[ronaldrwl]

I'm having problems with the link

[kidicarus13]

I'm having problems with the change.

[Irving]

Me too.

[Irving]

Link just takes a while to load. Here is the article.



The word has rankled Sarah Palin. Using it landed Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, in hot water. And actress Jennifer Aniston got slammed by advocates for saying it in slang.
And now, it’s a step closer to elimination from the federal government language.
The House of Representatives approved a bill that eliminates the use of the words “retarded” and “retardation” in health, education and labor laws.
The bill changes the terms from “mental retardation” to “intellectual disability” and “mentally retarded individual” to “individual with an intellectual disability.” This shift would make it more consistent with the language already used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations, and the White House.
Rosa’s Law passed in the Senate in August, and now heads to President Barack Obama’s desk. The bill was proposed by Senator Barbara Mikulski, a Democrat from Maryland.
Rosa Marcellino is a girl from Edgewater, Maryland, who has Down syndrome. She had been labeled retarded by her school - a term that her mother does not permit her children to use, according to a news release from Mikulski’s office. (http://mikulski.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=327854&)
Read the bill here. (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.2781:)
“What you call people is how you treat them,” her older brother, Nick Marcellino had said. “What you call my sister is how you will treat her. If you believe she’s ‘retarded,’ it invites taunting, stigma. It invites bullying and it also invites the slammed doors of being treated with respect and dignity.”
Advocates consider the term a stinging label that is outdated and stigmatizing.
“We understand that language plays a crucial role in how people with intellectual disabilities are perceived and treated in society,” said Peter V. Berns, CEO of The Arc in a statement. “Changing how we talk about people with disabilities is a critical step in promoting and protecting their basic civil and human rights.”
The Arc, which promotes and protects rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, has been advocating the use of “intellectual disability."
“We strongly believe the only 'r-word' that should be used when referring to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities is ‘Respect,’” according to the website (http://www.thearc.org/page.aspx?pid=2344).
The Arc of the United States originated as the National Association for Retarded Children and adopted its current name in 1992, dropping the term as “pejorative, derogatory and demeaning in usage.”
The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (http://www.aaidd.org/), a professional association working with intellectual and developmental disabilities, also dropped the word “mental retardation” from its names and titles of two flagship journals.
“The language we use when talking about disabilities in general, and intellectual disabilities in particular, has changed over time,” said Margaret A. Nygren, executive director and CEO of AAIDD in a statement. “These changes reflect a cultural shift in understanding that people with developmental and intellectual disabilities are entitled to the same dignity and human rights as every other member of society. The passage of the Rosa’s Law legislation to use the term “intellectual disabilities” within federal education, health, and labor laws is likely to have a far reaching impact on the language used in our society.”
But not everyone is embracing the shift. Critics say that changing the word is an act of political correctness, rather than any substantive change.
Christopher M. Fairman is a professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and author of a book subtitled "Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties” wrote in a Washington Post column (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/11/AR2010021103896.html) earlier this year: “If interest groups want to pour resources into cleaning up unintentional insults, more power to them; we surely would benefit from greater kindness to one another. But we must not let "retard" go without a requiem. If the goal is to protect intellectually disabled individuals from put-downs and prejudice, it won't succeed. New words of insult will replace old ones.”

[ERNO]

I think that it is a good bill proposed by "Babs".

[Elhuero]

I'd love to say retard on national TV, then kick John McGinley in the nuts when he complains.

[Mtn.man]

So the retards in office want to be politically correct?

[jake]

I'm all for the change: language evolves over time words like retard and spastic are no longer appropriate, but does it really have to be enshrined in law? Just stop using it. Simple.

I think there should be a law that we stop naming laws after people, like Rosa's Law or Megan's Law. We could call it Jake's Law.

[hollohas]

Ok, so now we don't call people with "intellectual disabilities" mentally retarded anymore, so does that mean people will stop getting all butt hurt when you call someone retarded for doing something, I don't know...retarded like dropping a live grenade at his feet instead of throwing it?

Reference here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8whiGlcAaA)

I guess they stopped teaching the ol' "Sticks and Stones..." lesson to people.

[rockhound]

omfg,

in the last ten years the reach of our congress and senate has just overwhelmed me. nowhere in our constitution does it state that they need to regulate every aspect of our lives nor do they have the right to.

from crap like this to the senate hearings over which athlete took which steroid, it is just ridiculous.

friggin retards, morons, imbeciles, idiots, all clinical terms by the way determined by the extent of your retardation

[Ranger]

Holy crap, BARF. So sick of the political correctness from ALL retards who employ it, left or right!

[BigBear]

omfg,

in the last ten years the reach of our congress and senate has just overwhelmed me. nowhere in our constitution does it state that they need to regulate every aspect of our lives nor do they have the right to.

from crap like this to the senate hearings over which athlete took which steroid, it is just ridiculous.

friggin retards, morons, imbeciles, idiots, all clinical terms by the way determined by the extend of your retardation


eh, it's all gay.






C wut eye did there? [ROFL1]

[Mtn.man]

So now retard, faggot, ass clown, gay ass fucker, Obama, shit head, are all off the chart?



Gimme a Break.

[68Charger]

I was thinking this was too PC, but now I'm thinking it's gone full circle...

before, they were saying that we couldn't call someone retarded unless they were actually disabled... now that label has officially been removed from people with an "intellectual disability"... so we're now free to use retard in the derogatory sense once again!! [Coffee]

I have a friend at work who's son is Autistic... she chastised me for using retarded in that sense... so I'll have to ask her opinion on this now [Flower]

[arz]

as the father of a child with Down syndrome, I have to say this proposed law is retarded.



I'm all for the change: language evolves over time words like retard and spastic are no longer appropriate, but does it really have to be enshrined in law? Just stop using it. Simple.

I think there should be a law that we stop naming laws after people, like Rosa's Law or Megan's Law. We could call it Jake's Law.




and that Jake is fully awesome.

[TS12000]

I don't know, "You're an individual with an intellectual disability" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Mtn.man]

can't holler at the ref anymore with that saying, he won't get it.

[Bailey Guns]

http://i625.photobucket.com/albums/tt337/baileyguns/Obama%20BS/a8b3b367.jpg

[Graves]

What a buncha F'ing retards!!!