Words: people casually use them every day. Best be careful what you say, though, you just might offend somebody. Political correctness has become a social disease, and the medication is a bitter pill.

George Carlin taught me a very valuable lesson. There is nothing inherently bad about a word; it is the connotation attached to it that makes a word good or bad.

A few weeks ago, Rhaason Mitchell used the word “nigger” in one of his columns. A letter was published a few days later saying the writer was offended by his use of the word.

The use of the word had no bad intentions; it was not trying to start something. All he was doing was making his point. If it had been said by a member of the Ku Klux Klan, I would understand any outrage.

Every person has his or her opinions. Not everyone is going to agree with everyone else. If this is confusing you, then you are part of the problem. You are transmitting the disease.

Too many people have a thin skin. Words seem to pierce them like daggers, even when the words are only butter knives.

No one wants to compromise or recognize that someone else might have a worthy opinion. We will place our demands, and we will give our ultimatums. Then, when we don’t get our way, we throw a tantrum like a three-year-old in a candy store.

If we allow political correctness to overrun our lives, the hole we dig for ourselves keeps getting bigger while it infects everything.

In a happy, little politically correct world, no building would be named for a person. Classes would be held in Math 1 or Engineering 3, and you would live in Tower 4 or RCA 5.

Groups become angered by actions and words from a different time in our history, a time when political correctness did not exist.

I’m sure we could find something wrong with every building named for a person.

If you investigate enough, every person has done something that may be considered offensive, and we could never name a building after anyone.

Political correctness has infected the media as well.

Television, radio and newspapers are dumbed down so everyone can understand them.

Information is controlled and manipulated to an outrageous extent.

A student writer at Stanford was fired for writing about Chelsea Clinton, and refusing to rewrite his column. If they want to treat Chelsea like any other student, then her name should appear in the newspaper.

Any student who has influence at a school tends to be mentioned in the paper. The Stanford columnist was keeping Clinton equal with every other student, but he paid for his mistake.

Sadly, it was not the politically correct thing to do.

Political correctness, like numerous other ideas of the last thirty-some years, is good in theory. Everyone needs to think before they speak — choosing their words carefully. However, there is no need to be afraid to speak.

If I want my opinion heard, someone is going to hear it. If they agree with me, great. If they think I am a putz, that is fine, too. At least I was able to let my opinions be known.

As with any disease, ignorance seems to have become an excuse. Immediate reactions are the only reactions. Who has time to think about something, especially when they may have just been offended?

For some reason, people abuse whatever they can, using it to their advantage when they can.

Then people are ignorant it when it is inconvenient.

When did racism become strictly a white thing?

When did we become separate individuals who must conform to the whole? Political correctness, in its numerous forms throughout this century, has done it.

We are all human beings; we all have independent thoughts. Our sex, religion, skin color or sexual preference make us all different and unique.

But we are all part of the human race.

We are never going to agree on everything. It is never going to happen. Thicken up your skin; do not be so easily offended. Remember it is not the words, but the actions behind them that matter.

The thought police is not a pleasant idea. If the censorship of independent thoughts and opinions occurs too often, we have a bleak future ahead of us.

The ignorance of political correctness needs to be replaced by intelligent thought.

You can put the butter knife down now.

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Andrew Seitz is junior in drawing, painting and printmaking from Dyersville.