I had a look at the other thread through my fingers but couldn't bring myself to comment and certainly couldn't comment on NetMums without making my brain hurt.
Here are my credentials: one seriously disabled sibling, 15 years of volunteering on holiday projects for children with learning disabilities, several years working as an advocacy worker for a national disability charity, currently an academic working in disability law. I also have epilepsy and have encountered a fair few charming people in the street shouting abuse at me after I've had a seizure.
There are cunts who perpetrate violent and prolonged hate crimes against disabled people. Sometimes this hatred escalates and we have tragedies like that of Fiona and Francecca Pilkington.
There is a low level, little-acknowledged stream of anti-disability hatred probably fuelled by fear that disabled people encounter every fucking day. A good friend of mine with cerebral palsy was once pushed out of HMV by a security guard saying he hated 'fucking crips' - no reason, the guy just grabbed his wheelchair and shoved him out. Mencap surveyed adults with learning disabilities and found that 9 out of 10 them had been bullied and they sure as hell knew about it. Experiencing taunting and assaults by strangers seem to be pretty much universal amongst the adults with learning disabilities I have known.
This situation is analogous to the low-level insidious racism that many people from minority ethnic groups describe. It is also similar to the hate crime gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people encounter. Racism has crept up the political agenda a bit, disability hate crime is creeping a little more slowly. In the meantime all these types of cruelty persist.
In addition to actively hateful acts disabled people face discrimination in employment and in access to goods and services, and in access to rights to participate in civil society that most of us take for granted.
There are also tens of millions of people in this country who are completely clueless about this. They know little about racism or disablist hate crime because it doesn't affect them. They probably think they are bad when they think about them. They don't know much about disability discrimination, but many of them assume that of course people with learning disabilities can't hold down jobs, or they wouldn't want to employ someone with depression in case they took loads of time off sick. They have picked up the cultural message that you can't say Mong or Spaz but assume that has something to do with playground abuse or the terms being out of date. They feel comfortable describing someone who does something stupid as 'special' or 'retarded' and do not make the connection. These people don't think of themselves as disablist, racist or in anyway nasty, but their tolerance of low level nastiness makes it easier for the full-on bigots to get away with their behaviour.
This kind of cluelessness happens because people don't think. Not necessarily because they don't care. And of course we still need insults because some people need to be insulted (or at least we need the catharsis of insulting them).
So here is the deal:
Group one insults are offensive because they compare the insulted individual to a social group with presumed undesirable attributes. If you insult someone by calling them a spaz you are implying that having muscle spasticity is somehow an undesirable attribute. This is crass and indicates that you probably don't know much about cerebral palsy. Terms that fall in this category include spaz, mong, retard, special, crip, flid, taking the sunshine bus and no doubt a hundred more. We should all know better than to use these terms.
Group two insults are terms which have altered in their use over the years so although they are etymologically similar to the first category very few people are aware of this. Most people don't know that idiot was once a technical term used to describe people with severe learning disabilities. Lunacy was a legal term for mental health needs right up until 1959. If you are thoughtful you probably want to avoid saying words like idiot, dumb, loon and cretin and you might want to point out their origins to people who use them.
Group three insults are terms which were initially offensive because they fell into group one but which have been reclaimed by the disparaged social group they apply to. Queer is a good example of this. The way in which some feminists have embraced twat and cunt is also a powerful way of subverting expectations. Young black people feel comfortable saying nigger. Many of my disabled friends feel happy referring to themselves as crips. A good way to check if these terms are OK is to first work out if they could be applied to you. And then use them sparingly for impact. Personally I am never happier than when saying cunt loudly.
Group four insults are the wide range of hugely inventive analogies people have introduced to get round the problem of wanting to personally insult an individual without insulting a wider social group. Thick as mince, thick as slurry, mad as cheese, boil on the arse of humanity, furry headed twatbadger, slimy pusillanimous todger bucket etcetc. These flurries of invective are lovely and rich and showcase the expressive loveliness of the English language. Go forth and multiply these.
Group five insults are the ones I can't comfortably fit in to the categories above. I think on the whole women should feel OK saying something is a pile of cock even if this does seem to disparage penises. Mad, crazy and dumb have all been technical terms. Mad and crazy have both been adopted by the mad pride movement so could arguable fit in group three. But mad and crazy are also widely used simply to refer to things which are incomprehensible e.g. 'the photocopier has gone crazy again' by people who are not by any means implying that the photocopier has a recognised mental disorder or that it would be a bad thing if it did. I think mad and crazy could fit in group 2 as well, but I don't feel exercised when I hear them in the way I feel exercised by the term 'special'. I'm happy to be educated on this one, especially by men who don't want to have their penises disparaged.
It isn't simple. There is no one rule that makes some terms OK and others now. You have to be thoughtful and listen when people explain that some terms upset them.