Too bad. They fit so well when used to describe certain people.
Posted on 05/09/2007 10:12:04 AM PDT by Graybeard58
Old-fashioned terms such as imbecile, lunatic and idiot were purged Tuesday from the Ohio law books, a harbinger of national momentum to once again revisit the words that most sensitively describe mental illness.
In the last century, idiotic and feeble-minded were accepted labels. Later, "mental deficiency" was deemed to be more respectful. More recently, "mental retardation" replaced that as less derisive. Today, the phrase is increasingly seen as unacceptable. It is a sentiment felt around the nation.
In March, hundreds of disabled adults, their advocates and caretakers in Alabama rallied at the Statehouse in Montgomery to urge legislators to remove the word retarded from state code.
In April, Connecticut's House of Representatives voted unanimously to scrap the name of the state Department of Mental Retardation, and replace it with the Department of Developmental Services. The state Senate has yet to act on the bill.
Amid the concern, the former American Association of Mental Retardation -- which changed its own name in January -- is making preparations to revise the definition of mental retardation for the 11th time since 1908.
"The self advocacy community really hates the word retarded, and they've been very vocal about that," said Doreen Crozer, executive director of what is now known as the American Association of Intellectual and Development Disabilities.
The Ohio bill, which Strickland was scheduled to sign later Tuesday, was prompted by a chance encounter with the old lingo by Ohio Advocates for Mental Health while they were doing legal research. The resulting legislation cleared both the House and Senate unanimously.
Removing the terms from the Ohio Revised Code won't completely resolve the problem, however. Both "idiots" and "insane persons" are banned from voting in the Ohio Constitution, first written in 1802, and changing that document would require a constitutional amendment.
To be used in the future, exclusively, at Free Republic, directed at people who disagree with your learned and wise opinion.
Idiots! Morons! Imbeciles! Democrats!..............
not even on C-Span?
Too bad. They fit so well when used to describe certain people.
Hear,hear.
Owl_Eagle
If what I just wrote made you sad or angry,
it was probably just a joke.
“State of Connecticut, Department of One Beer Short of a Sixpack”?
How about replacing them all with “Dee dee dee?
When speaking to Liberals, must we now address ourselves to the “sanity-challenged” or the “intellectually different”?
The terms imbecile, idiot, mental retardation, insanity and so on are good examples as these were initially introduced as neutral terminology intended to describe specific conditions.
“intellectually deficient”
Oh nuts...
He who controls the language rules the world, don’t cha’ know?
F
A few chocolate chips short of a cookie.
Barking moonbats at work.
People couldn't tell them apart.
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