How are we to prevent retarded people from reaching positions of power where their retardation would harm others? Not talking about who is retarded and who isn't could cripple organizational decision making, causing entire organizations to behave in a retarded way.
Now I understand and respect your concern for the feelings of the retards, and we should of course try to hurt their feelings as little as possible. But discussing who can and cannot be trusted, and here level of intelligence is an important factor, is an instinctive human social behaviour that is at the core of a functioning society.
tl;dr The ideas you are advocating could destroy society... retard
If you still say things like "I was gypped" or "I got Jewed on that deal" then knock yourself out, keep using the word retard.
> How are we to prevent retarded people from reaching positions of power
I work with people who have various learning disabilities who are in positions of power. Not just token power -- controlling hundreds of thousands of £s of power; part of recruitment and selection power; elected representative power.
Those people with a learning disability suffer real harm when you misuse the word retard to insult people without a learning disability. Not using the word isn't about protecting their feelings although that is a nice side-effect. It's about changing a culture where people with a learning difficulty are not murdered by police or allowed to die by doctors or discriminated unfairly against at work.
But all those other people that you call retarded? The ones without a learning disability? There are a whole slew of other, better, words that you could use. Your vocabulary is too limited and so your invective suffers.
Language has appearently changed within your circle of friends. Now you are trying to impose your language on the rest of the world by decree. I think that is disrespectful.
But the meaning of retard is a bit of a side-track. Because as you say yourself
>They're just as insulted if you call them stupid or dumb.
What you are trying to achieve is not just to change language in superficial way by just banning a word. That in itself would not be so bad. You are trying to change language on a deeper level so that a particular thought is impossible to express. You don't want there to be insults based on level of intelligence. You don't want there to be insults applicable to poorly thought out ideas. That is the geniuenly terrible idea.
Now I understand and respect your concern for the feelings of the retards, and we should of course try to hurt their feelings as little as possible. But discussing who can and cannot be trusted, and here level of intelligence is an important factor, is an instinctive human social behaviour that is at the core of a functioning society.
tl;dr The ideas you are advocating could destroy society... retard