There are examples in some cases where political correctness goes to extremes, but that's not as common as cases of people who oppose the concept exaggerating its effects. People who feel that their right to assholes is more important than other's rights to be respected.
A lot of non-PC terms are words that were intended to dehumanize people and caricturize them.

it's bullshit or should I say bovine scat?

Thanks for posting this, Silvereyes, I have so much to say about it, but since I'm hailing from the grand central station of PC where I've been adequately and proficiently PC trained, I'll just say a little.

While I think being kind and respectful is a cardinal rule of humanity, PC doesn't have much to do with it in my opinion. I can understand why PC is needed in some parts of the country but too much of it can be suffocating. When PC is overdone, you can't have a real conversation without offending somebody. There's micro-aggression, implicit bias...The list goes on and on. To be completely rid of these things, you let your daily conversations get dull and shallow because there aren't many safe things left to talk about, except for weather and food, hmmm, what else?

I like the following article "On Political Correctness" and agree with the author.

[theamericanscholar.org]

I found this article from the British periodical The Guardian that, in the context of the election of Trump, discusses the origins of the term "politically correct" and how the Right has hijacked the term in the last couple decades from Leftist self-irony of the 1960s and 1970s -- and, yes, it's true that the term is older than that and its non-ironic equivalent could be found among Communists on the Left and Fascists on the Right in the 1930s and 1940s. But for our purposes the way the term has been used in the US is most important. Here is where the article picks up:

"The phrase came into more widespread use in American leftist circles in the 1960s and 1970s – most likely as an ironic borrowing from Mao, who delivered a famous speech in 1957 that was translated into English with the title 'On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.'

"Until the late 1980s, 'political correctness' was used exclusively within the left, and almost always ironically. Ruth Perry, a literature professor at MIT who was active in the feminist and civil rights movements, says that many radicals were reading the Little Red Book in the late 1960s and 1970s, and surmises that her friends may have picked up the adjective “correct” there. But they didn’t use it in the way Mao did. “Politically correct” became a kind of in-joke among American leftists – something you called a fellow leftist when you thought he or she was being self-righteous. “The term was always used ironically,” Perry says, “always calling attention to possible dogmatism.” . . .

"Until the late 1980s, “political correctness” was used exclusively within the left, and almost always ironically as a critique of excessive orthodoxy. In fact, some of the first people to organise against “political correctness” were a group of feminists who called themselves the Lesbian Sex Mafia. In 1982, they held a “Speakout on Politically Incorrect Sex” at a theatre in New York’s East Village – a rally against fellow feminists who had condemned pornography and BDSM. Over 400 women attended, many of them wearing leather and collars, brandishing nipple clamps and dildos. The writer and activist Mirtha Quintanales summed up the mood when she told the audience, “We need to have dialogues about S&M issues, not about what is ‘politically correct, politically incorrect’.”

"By the end of the 1980s, Jeff Chang, the journalist and hip-hop critic, who has written extensively on race and social justice, recalls that the activists he knew then in the Bay Area used the phrase “in a jokey way – a way for one sectarian to dismiss another sectarian’s line”.

"But soon enough, the term was rebranded by the right, who turned its meaning inside out. All of a sudden, instead of being a phrase that leftists used to check dogmatic tendencies within their movement, “political correctness” became a talking point for neoconservatives. They said that PC constituted a leftwing political programme that was seizing control of American universities and cultural institutions – and they were determined to stop it."

As the article delineates in an earlier passage, the term "politically correct" is an exonym, a word nearly always applied to someone else, inherently critical or pejorative. Very few people would ever say of themselves, "I am politically correct." Why? Because there is a "but" built into any adverbial modifier of the word "correct." This tendency has become all the greater since the Right picked it up from the Left and started to use it as a bludgeon against liberals of all stripes, whereas the Leftists had used it among themselves in a gentler cautionary way against the temptations of dogmatism.

I believe that until maybe a decade ago there was no actual problem, i.e., that the Right's PC bludgeon was based entirely on a myth. Now I think the situation has grown more complicated as American politics have polarized. Emphasis upon ideological purity has become an issue on some college campuses, but the problem is less acute than the Right maintains in order to whip up its own base - and the rejection of respectful, compassionate values in American society as a whole is a far greater problem than the excessive zeal of maybe a few ten thousand young people.

Generally, when I hear people complaining about so-called "political correctness", what they're really unhappy about is feeling like they can no longer use insulting terms for other people.

In general, "being P.C." = "not being a dick". That is something worth doing. It's not "censorship". It's basic human consideration.

I think our speech where were are PC can bea firs step towards tryign to make a change for the better.

However, it has become evident from Trump supporters that we as a society have only superficially gone after our problems in terms of equality. We corrected the language and insults, but for the most part underlying attitude remained unchanged.

Still, just using PC we made huge strides in terms of equality versus earlier periods in oru history.

Hmm, somehow i seem to be in the majority whenever I answer a poll question here...

But anyway. Let's all remember that Political Correctness started as a Communist Party thing; whatever was happening was either in line with or not in line with party dogma. If you've read We the Living, you'll get the idea. When we say PC now we're really talking about civil or social correctness AS DECIDED BY PEOPLE WHO SET THEMSELVES UP to say what is or is not PC. We should take PC less seriously and politeness and empathy a little more seriously.

There is a difference between being polite and being pc. Some people take the latter too far. And most people confuse the two. I accept many adjectives, I reject even more.

Oh, wow @vertrauen, that was so spot-on that I could cry - thank you!

A couple of the examples in your question threw me, @silvereyes (Ho Ho Ho? Huh? And a juvenile is just a youth, yes?) but I think I get the gist of your question. Words evolve ... they always have. We discover things, we create things, we want to be more specific, we decide some people are worthy of more respect than we've been showing them with our words. I don't mind using different words to avoid hurting someone.

I do get tired of walking on eggs around serious issues. One wrong word and you're a racist. Really?

I found this difficult to answer. (and the "Ho Ho Ho" to "Ha Ha Ha" transition sounds to me more like someone making fun of PC than an actual PC talking point. To my ears, censoring Santa is going at the issue all half-ass backward; the words "whore" and "slut" should be tossed on the dustbin of linguistic history as misogynist - along with any etymological derivatives. If they actually were so disposed of, then Santa's cheery laugh would be innocent once again. Censoring Santa is stupid, but I've never heard anyone actually concerned with such values propose it.)

Too many people think that existing requests for recognition and respectful terminology are unreasonable; too many people feel that it's their right to be rude and cruel with their language. Well, constitutionally speaking, it is their right. Freedom of speech and all that. But if we're talking about common decency here, then, no, it isn't their right in that social sense -- rude and cruel is just that, rude and cruel. If we want to make any progress as a society, then folks should stop asserting their constitutional rights to be rude and cruel.

So obviously I don't think people are "taking PC too seriously," nor do I think that we have "just enough PC" because too many people take pleasure in defying the needs of others for recognition and respect. That tends to nudge me toward the choice "We need to be more PC." But that choice can also be misconstrued. How can I choose that when you put up "Ho Ho Ho" to "Ha Ha Ha"? That is just ridiculous.

It isn't as if I think that there are many more categories of people out there who haven't already asked for recognition and respect; it's more just that there are still too many groups whose reasonable requests for respect continue to be ignored. If we just gave everyone due recognition and respect, then being PC wouldn't be hard at all.

Being PC basically means don't be a dick to other people. Show respect. Care. Be kind. Be compassionate. What many people don't like is that such respect, kindness, and compassion sometimes means using language differently. Get over it, folks. This country was founded on imperialism, genocide, slavery, patriarchy, and Christian heterosexual hegemony. So, yeah, guess what. Our language patterns reflect that fact, and a bunch of it needs to change. Get used to it. Stop complaining. Stop making fun of it. Try to understand. Be kind. Be compassionate.

I'm always on the side of free speech (both in a legal sense and in terms of social allowance), and I love non-PC comedy, especially when it sarcastically lampoons racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other forms of bigotry (but I don't agree that comedy can only "punch up"; stupidity should be made fun of regardless of who perpetrates it). While I think it's terrible to intentionally hurt someone with words, I prefer to hear what people have to say — especially when it's something horrible, because I then know exactly what sort of person I'm dealing with. When it comes to these innocuous phrases that have become triggers because of vulgar misuse, I oppose such sanitation. I really can't be firm enough on this topic. I reject the notion that the decoupled origin and meaning of a word is somehow suddenly offensive, triggering, or a micro-aggression. Political correctness is, at its core, an attempt at censorship and thought control. We used to just call blatantly insensitive people "jerks." Now we force them into hiding, repressing their stupidity so it festers and grows, until it emerges as alt-right, neo-nazi, white supremacist, etc., bigotry. I'd like to just return to being able to have them use racial slurs or other small-minded insults and in response call them "assholes" and let the social consequence play out organically.

I see PC as treating members of a group as humans. I don't want to be referred to by anything other than what or who I am, an agnostic, freethinker, humanist. AND, I want those words to be used with respect. One of the pejorative terms leveled politically is LIBERAL! I can imagine religious probably have some other names for me. I want to be seen for who I truly am and not some monster or whatever someone else might WANT to call me because I don't believe what they do or see life as they. I've lived long enough to have heard a lot of derogatory names leveled at people belonging to this group or that. Expecting people to be PC doesn't solve anything. As the last election showed me, the bigots have come out from behind the curtains! I; ME; MYSELF prefers to be PC because that's one way I can show others that I see them as human.

Its not a crime to not be nice or to speak louder then others or to make promises that will never be completed. Look at our President... ouch! I try to stay away from people that demand that i pay attention to them because... i have a little gray area between the other 2 colors... i try to respect people that are loud and want to be heard. I look at their grievances and decide if its a culture problem. Thats out of my control. Just like the 15 century christian crusades. I can't go after christians because my ancestors where persecuted.

I think it's a pointless diversion. I think it's meant to keep the citizens fighting other citizens. There's always going to be us versus them and someone is defining them.

I literally go out of my way to be politically incorrect at times because I am so sick of the trend. Mind you, I don't do this in a rude way, although it is likely taken that way by hypersensitive people. Once people get to know me, they usually just accept as one of my idiosyncrasies.

Other.
I think a little is good. It helps to eliminate some of the rude and insulting names, phrases, or actions people make either inadvertently or purposely.