Why Political Correctness is stupid

the late, great jim henson had a wonderful rebutal to america's sudden concern over being PC. one of his 'monsters' did a public service announcement stating,
"we prefer to be called cosmetically challenged."

In most things I am liberal. However, PC is stupid. It was put forth by liberal groups, but it restricts free speech. That is the most important right there is IMHO. Restricting that in the name of being polite should be entirely internal. Granted, one should weight the external social cost of making statements that disagree with the general feeling of any group, but ideas should not have to be structured using only certain words. As far as I'm concerned, white guys are white, black guys are black, not Caucasian and African-American. Citing it is a cliche but in 1984, the government tried to force everyone to use the same words. This limits thought, and ideas.

I think its obvious that the press is liberal, but that's for another time. I think there are conservatives in Congress, but again, another time I may talk about that.

Restriction of speech and thought by anything, whether government, corporation, social trend, or taboo, is stupid. Therefore, PC is stupid.

Response to knifegirl

So you decided to use certain words because you didn't want to hurt someone, and thats a moral thing IMO. Yet, it was not forced on you. Notice what I said about social costs above.

And Yes I have been told not to call blacks black. Many times. I was given detention because I wouldn't call someone I'd been friends with for almost 5 years and who didn't care either way (I directly asked him) African-American instead of black. I threatened to go to private school, and they didn't want that because I am by public school's standards bright so it was let go. But I've had random people tell me the same thing, but none have ever been black. I don't consider calling someone black a slur.

Political correctness makes slurs bad not because they hurt people but because it goes against the accepted way of speaking. Again, thats why its stupid.

The purpose of civility and politeness is to make people comfortable and at ease. Part of civility is to not refer to people by names they (and, lets face it, you too!) find offensive. It has nothing to do with your political agenda, it is downright civilized behaviour. Any discourse, personal or public, that uses slander or offensive, diminutive and contemptuous phrases intentionally and repetatively is inciteful and non-democratic. One of the basic principles of democracy as I see it, is the ability to respect even your opponents.

Political Correctness is a way to avoid showing such disrespect even to your adversary.