Personally as somebody who is literally autistic, I honestly don’t give a flying fuck if somebody uses the word retarded. The words idiot, moron, imbecile were also clinical terms used for mentally disabled people like the word retarded was. Overtime they became so common for insults that they lost their original meaning, and I think if retarded got the same treatment that would eventually happen too. And honestly, I’d rather somebody use the word retarded (which means slow) than for them to say to me “That is so autistic” to describe someone being an idiot. Because with retard, not a single disability is singled out. It could be any of us motherfuckers.

But what’s strange about this clip is Rick is actually using the term clinically, not as an insult at all. The word “retarded” might be outdated but so are words like “mentally challenged” which has been turned into mentally disabled, mentally capable and “special”. People take words, use them as insults, and then a new term is created until that eventually becomes an insult too in which another term has to be created. It’s a cycle.