Unless you're an autist or handicapped yourself, it isn't your place to be offended for them.
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I don't have to be mentally or physically handicapped to be offended by someone making idiotic comments about someone who is. Just like how I don't have to be a woman to be offended by sexism, a minority to be offended by racism, or Jewish to be offended by antisemitism. Any normal, thinking, sane person should be offended by someone belittling someone else over some personal trait beyond their control.
Heh.
I'm not. But I can take offence all by myself, just because I find something offensive.
But I suppose it's easier to judge people's right to be offended than to defend being offensive. So it's almost LIKE a defense, huh?
Oh, okay then. I'm autistic myself (asperger's to be precise) so I'll be more than happy to be offended for everybody else.
Seriously, what I especially hate is people using "autist" or "autistic screeching" as an insult to everybody they disagree with. I doubt people like that even know what autism actually is.
"Them."
"The Identity Fallacy (also Identity Politics; "Die away, ye old forms and logic!"): A corrupt postmodern argument from ethos, a variant on the Argumentum ad Hominem in which the validity of one's logic, evidence, experience or arguments depends not on their own strength but rather on whether the one arguing is a member of a given social class, generation, nationality, religious or ethnic group, color, gender or sexual orientation, profession, occupation or subgroup. In this fallacy, valid opposing evidence and arguments are brushed aside or "othered" without comment or consideration, as simply not worth arguing about solely because of the lack of proper background or ethos of the person making the argument, or because the one arguing does not self-identify as a member of the "in-group." E.g., "You'd understand me right away if you were Burmese but since you're not there's no way I can explain it to you," or "Nobody but another nurse can know what a nurse has to go through." Identity fallacies are reinforced by common ritual, language, and discourse. However, these fallacies are occasionally self-interested, driven by the egotistical ambitions of academics, politicians and would-be group leaders anxious to build their own careers by carving out a special identity group constituency to the exclusion of existing broader-based identities and leadership. An Identity Fallacy may lead to scorn or rejection of potentially useful allies, real or prospective, because they are not of one's own identity. The Identity Fallacy promotes an exclusivist, sometimes cultish "do for self" philosophy which in today's world virtually guarantees self-marginalization and ultimate defeat." - http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/ENGL1311/fallacies.htm
Actually, if someone outside of my demographic is offended at something discriminatory that happens to my demographic, I take that as a sign that they have a sense of empathy and can at least begin to understand the situation - perhaps pretty well. Sure, some people can misjudge, but surely it's better for them to do that than to refuse to empathise?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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