Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) gave a speech on the senate floor yesterday to push for “Rosa’s Law”. Rosa’s law is a piece of legislation that mandate the phrase “mentally disabled” be used in place of “mentally retarded” when referring to such citizens on health and education paperwork.

“In changing the language, we believe it will be the start of new attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities.”

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This madness must end. America is in the middle of two strenuous wars, and we have an economy on the brink of total collapse, yet we have a senator who seems preoccupied with the use of a certain descriptor used in government documentation. Yet again, another bleeding heart Democrat who is more concerned with feeling good, rather than doing good for the nation as a whole.

Now, before I get chastised for being heartless by those who would accuse me of standing in the way of a little girl’s supposed happiness, I would like to disclose the following:

I am physically disabled. I have Cerebral Palsy, which prevents me from walking without the assistance of an orthopedic device or another person. I have been called many things, such as “disabled”, “differently-abled”, “handicapped”, “handi-capable”, “crippled”, and a few other words along the way that can’t be shared here.

Guess what?

In spite of all the labels that have been assigned to me and others like me, one thing has remained constant:

My condition has never changed. People need to learn that while words do have meaning, which is important, context is also a key component in this equation. For instance, “retard” means to slow or hinder. It does not mean “stupid”, and the modifiers “mental” or “mentally” refers to the type of impediment. It is not, in and of itself, an attempt at ridicule or character assassination. Referring to someone as “mentally retarded” in official paperwork is not the same as yelling it in anger toward the person who cut you off at the intersection. It just isn’t. The words have a benign meaning. It’s the context in which they are used that can change them.

Quite frankly, when one looks at this objectively, this proposed law is nothing more than a time wasting exercise by those in our legislature, which will change nothing, except maybe making a few self-loathers feel better about themselves.

For the Record, the namesake of this legislation, Rosa Marcellino, has Down’s syndrome. She is, for all intents and purposes, mentally retarded. She is also 7 years old. With that in mind, one could probably say with a high degree of certainty that Rosa has no interest in official health and education paperwork at this point in her life. So, it stands to reason that this crusade was most likely started by a family member looking for attention, and Rosa is to be used as a face for it.

Honestly, that is just sad.

More than that, has anyone thought of the road this could lead us down? This is one step away from thought policing. How long will it be before legislation is introduced which will prevent us from saying certain words? It may very well be just around the corner. Such measures may never pass, but the mere possibility of such things being proposed should frighten any freedom-loving American.

We should be more concerned with today’s truly pressing matters. There are circumstances today which threaten our very way of life, yet some of our legislative officials seemed more concerned with how you feel, and more importantly, how they feel about themselves. The future of America is too important. We shouldn’t be wasting time on this drivel.

Words are just words. The only powers they have to offend are the ones that we decide to give them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 2:44 pm and is filed under Beauty, Children, Cowardice, Freedom of Speech, Nuts, Political Correctness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.