A few examples.

I wouldn't say that old people are "chronologically advantaged", since they don't have as many years to live as young people do. Moreover, their alleged chronological "advantage" usually implies increased physical, or mental, or social, or economical, or other kinds of disadvantage.

White is a color, hence the expression "people of color" should include "white" people as well. Of course "white" people are not white at all, at least most of the time.

Saying that a mentally retarded person is "mentally challenged" is another nonsense: who did ever "challenge" that person? God? The devil? Other people? The same holds for other so-called "challenges".

Etc.

I think I was confused about what is potentially "offensive" and what is "politically incorrect". I would place things like Eskimo vs. Inuit or black vs. afro-american vs. coloured or retarded vs. intellectually challenged in the former category. I associated something like the issue of gun control under the heading of political correctness. I guess I was wrong. Sorry about that.
jdk

Personally, I think that some language ... like "people of color" ... in trying too-hard to be non-offensive, actually winds up doing the opposite. Since it is so obviously stilted language, it is (at the very least) "annoying."

These are people whose ancestors are African or Islanders, but they carry their gene-pool and their cultural heritage just as proudly as you do. I think that we should simply speak of people in a respectful way that also lends itself to ordinary conversation. "Negro" has become a demeaning term (although it was not always so), therefore it should not be used. "African American," on the other hand, seems to flow pretty well ... and feel free to omit the "African" part because they are people, just like you.

This Sunday's (yesterday's ...) installment of Doonesbury is both very disturbing and very enlightening. (He has a classroom student quote directly from the "Texas Declaration of Secession.") "Man's inhumanity to man," as well as his callous disregard of others whom he sees as being "beneath him," is never too-far away. So, we're always trying to counter what is a very-real issue, while at the same time trying to be reasonable about it. We are trying to chart a middle course.

I think that "speech police" represent "too far the other way." We need to find, and keep to, the middle. And to have reasonably thick skins about it.

i think the best way of being politically correct is to just not mention these things.

it rarely is of importance if someone is black/white, male/female, jewish/christian.

if someone says "He's pretty intelligent - for a person of colour" it is still offensive and politically incorrect.

just an example.
more day-to-day examples occur with someone (usually male) being compelled to mention a woman's outward qualities, although it has no bearing on the situation.

or, have you ever read this science fiction novel, and halfway through someone mentions that light-skinned people are considered inferior, so all the heroes are actually dark-skinned, only the reader was never told, but at that moment you realize that the author tricked your imagination in a really clever way?

I think what confused me was the juxtaposition of "political correctness" and FOSS. It's hard for me to imagine any statement about FOSS offending me. It's easy for me to imagine that many statements about FOSS are factually incorrect.
jdk

No it's an effort to make sure you don't verbalize beliefs that society views as outside the norm, not to change them. Right/wrong acceptable/unacceptable change with time and that's as it should be.

I'm not clear about what you mean. When you say "right/wrong" do you mean morally right or wrong, or do you mean factually right or wrong. Morally right or wrong do indeed change with time, at least in terms of percentage of people who agree with the classification. (Example: slavery is morally wrong). Factually right or wrong don't, at least not for non-time-sensitive propositions. (Examples: The atomic weight of Hydrogen is less than that of Oxygen --- David Cameron is the PM of the UK). Again, I still don't see what FOSS has to do with political correctness.
jdk

Morally.

FOSS really doesn't have anything to do with it but people tend to look in their sphere to find both assurance and offense. The whole thing is a tempest in a tea cup and there will be more of it on the American side as the elections get into full swing.

Agreed. So it would seem that the premiss of this thread is somewhat off the mark.
jdk