Further to my post the other day on the exquisitely precise — though, of
course, ever-changing! — terminology for referring to human groups that is
demanded by the overseers of Political Correctness, I note the following.
Last Friday George Pataki, the Governor of my state, vetoed a bill passed by
the state legislature that would have forbidden state functionaries to use
terms like “disabled person” or “the mentally ill.” The bill, which my
state lawmakers apparently debated in all solemnity, would have insisted on
the more correct terms “people with disabilities” and “people with mental
illness.”
Having lived in this corrupt and dysfunctional state for several years now,
I am not very surprised to learn that my elected state representatives can
find nothing better to do with their time (= my money) than juggle
prepositions. The truly amazing thing is that there really is a
constituency for this mind pap. This morning’s New York Post (America’s
Newspaper of Record) has a letter from a reader denouncing Pataki’s veto
in the most vituperative terms, more or less arguing that Pataki is a
twisted bigot who wants to snatch away crutches and wheelchairs and make a
bonfire of them. Boy, the world is full of stupid people.
Or “people with stupidity.”