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Yeah, people made the same arguments about 'gay' and 'fag'.
Retarded was the word of choice medically in the 60's - 80's for people with developmental disabilities. It derives from the Latin word Tardus which means slow or late.
Languages evolve, but the euphemistic treadmill is ongoing. The word 'cretin' derived from the word 'Christian', the person who coined it intended it to mean that people with cognitive impairments were still people worthy of respect. And now it's just a straight up insult. Similar with 'idiot' and 'moron'.
And these days you can look at wojaks which use physical differences like drooling or missing half a head or being physically unattractive in unconventional ways to indicate ignorance or stupidity.
Every word that people use to try to describe people with disabilities respectfully becomes a slur. That's because of ableism. It's just not talked about much.
More on this topic for anyone interested in the euphemism treadmill: https://humanparts.medium.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-mentally-retarded-e3b9eea23018
Would you then advocate that no one should ever use the words "idiot", "moron", or "cretin" ever again? What about "dumb", or "stupid"?
(edit) - People are fun. They actually believe that no human should ever want to throw insults at another human ever again. Fascinating.
I think they have more historical distance from their original intent, but I still try not to use them. I favour more targetted and creative insults, or at least more accurate descriptions of the problem.
What others do is not up to me. But I do encourage thinking about the context of the words we use and how our world view is shaped by the development of language. There are a lot of cultural eccentricities buried in etymology, and many of them are no complimentary.
I try not to use any of those words, but it is hard as they are so prevalent in society, even in my progressive and inclusive circle.
I decided a while ago to substitute all those with the word "Turnip" - as in the vegetable. I doubt anyone could be genuinely offended by that and it sounds good when said - Don't be a Turnip! try it out, its a fun word to use and people seem to be tickled by it.
I mean it really comes down to context and just not being a dick to those around you, seems like a pretty easy ask to just be decent to people as best as you can idk