Becoming a bad word

I am amazed and disturbed at the ubiquity of "libtard" as an insult.

On the one hand, as much as I know the right hates political correctness (i.e. speaking respectfully), I still know enough conservatives who have relatives with disabilities whom they love, where it should make that suffix unacceptable.

It's almost as if proximity to someone in danger of being marginalized does not automatically confer recognition of existing harmful structures.

There is kind of a separate issue here, where in our patterns of prejudice we can always make exceptions for the ones we like. This can be dangled as a reward: "You're not like those other women." "Of course we don't mean you."

It can also be used as a way of justifying one's alignment: "They're all nice to my child, so they can't be that bad."

But it is all connected.

Having totally bought into being respectful (political correctness), I have a hard time using this word and its variations, but I am going to make myself do it here to make a point.

Mentally retarded. MR. Various abbreviations of that last word. It referred to something intellectual - at least cognitive - but it wasn't used that way. There was a kid with ADHD who got called "Retarda" at my sisters' school, including by the gym teacher. I'm just saying, even if there were valid uses for the label, those were not the most common uses. I'm not sure the intended use was ever that helpful, making it for the best that it has fallen out of favor.

That pattern holds. A phrase will be used that is supposed to mean something, but it isn't being used accurately, and the use spreads as it becomes a tempting catch-all. I have heard "snowflake" justified as something specifically for today's young people, because they are raised with all the obstacles removed and are therefore weak (and apparently they think they are special).

There are problems with the logic of saying that kids that have to worry constantly about school shootings, cyber-bullying and and food insecurity have it too easy, but I can't help but notice that the slightest disagreement draws the term upon people my age and older.

If the point is being able to ignore people who say things that you don't want to hear, painting with a broad brush is perfectly logical.

It's wrong - not merely wrong but reveling in the wrongness and rolling around in it until it is completely absorbed. It's uncharitable, which is odd because a lot of people who think of themselves as religious and good do it. It's ignorant, so I guess it's blissful, but I think that's a false bliss.

And it is being used pretty hard on liberals.

I have to take that seriously. Most of what the president says has been pretty disturbing for anyone who has issues with fascism and authoritarianism anyway, but the comments lately about Democrats being ungovernable, that's a concern. It is more of a concern with government that has set up a process for re-examining citizenship.

History is my thing. I have... not exactly worried, but been aware... that in the direction we are going, academics always end up under attack. For all my reading, I am not really an academic; I have a BA from 22 years ago.

I am wholly liberal. That has not had anything remarkable about it for decades of a fairly normal political process, but that is changing. This is a change that looks similar to a lot of places that have ended in death and re-education camps.

If you don't have liberal values, that is your prerogative. However, if you have any value for democracy and representative government, you had better start respecting other voices.

One potential starting place is how you speak of those with whom you disagree.