Do We Need Another Speech Taboo?

The social taboos we have against "politically incorrect" language are tedious enough. Like the ignorant reactions to "tar-baby" (no, the analogue would not be "white trash," it would be "vanilla"). Still, it's interesting to remember what Jesus had to say about hateful speech. He said that just feeling angry would be dangerous, and calling someone an openly insulting name could apparently get his first-century Jewish audience in trouble with their local religious/political "council," but calling someone a fool was what put people in danger of the Eternal Fire.

Obviously the use of "fool" has changed since King James's time; this is not the way many of us use "fool" in English. I propose that the analogue would be the way we talk about mental illness...not when we merely use "crazy" or "batty" or "wacko" in juvenile-level verbal abuse, but when we get pseudo-empathetic in serious, adult-to-adult verbal abuse.

Some of us may feel that judging someone's whole mind to be "sick" or defective is less "hurtful" than judging their behavior to be rude, stupid, antisocial, or whatever. I don't feel that way, and apparently neither did Jesus. When we label behavior, however harshly, we are at least leaving the person the option of changing to more acceptable behavior. When we label the person mentally ill, we're saying "Anything this person says or does can be regarded as a symptom; we don't have to relate to this person on equal terms."

AC article titles may be demanded by sponsors or changed without permission by editors, so the author is not necessarily to blame, but here's an example:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8090915/could_you_be_bipolar.html?cat=49

I propose that we make this an unacceptable question for anyone, ever, to ask. "Be bipolar" should be considered an acceptable phrase only when a patient goes to a doctor and asks, "Could I be bipolar?"