"Political correctness": To or not to?

As far as I can tell, "politically correct" is just a term invented by the Right to mock and dismiss anyone who has the gall to point out that some language is in fact hurtful to others, and that perhaps we should be compassionate enough to listen to those others and hear from them what language they would prefer to have used for them. It is a term that is used dismissively and derogatorily in order to avoid dealing with the underlying issues or taking any responsibility for ones own prejudices and hurtful language. In that regard I would suggest that it is those who throw around the term "political correctness" in this dismissive and derogatory way who are the true moral cowards. You can label all you want, but it's not really about "political correctness", it's about love and respect for those who are different from oneself. Deal with the real issues, don't just hide behind your disdain for a term.

Julie: "So are you saying that choosing to respect people's beliefs and being aware that we might be predisposed to discriminate should be done away with because in this one situation assuming all Muslims are evil extremists might have saved lives? I'm having a really hard time seeing how even the Hasan situation can make us question the need to respect others. If he showed no signs of unstability, can a desire to respect his religious beliefs really be blamed for this tragedy?"

Julie, you're unfairly stacking the deck. Whe here said that the Hasan situation makes them "question the need to respect others?" What has been said about the Hasan situation is that it appears he received kid-glove treatment because of people's fears of being seen as insensitive to muslims. What was needed wasn't an assumption that all Muslims are evil. What was needed was to treat him normally - to take his extremist views (not his muslim faith but his attitude about it, his inflexibility, anger, irrationality and extremity) the same way you would take the views of a white supremacist in the military who expressed similar inflexible attitudes and was being deployed to a place where the military was being called in to fight a bunch of neo-nazis - treat his attitude as a real threat, with the real potential to cause a real problem for real people. Don't let fear of insensitivity make you ignore REAL warning signs about someone's behavior. Not stereotyped, blanket assumptions about them but real warning signs.

Julie, the purpose of this discussion is to unpack what different people understand the term 'political correctness' to mean. To you, you see it as a code word to bash those who are mindful of language, terms etc that may come across as racist and sexist-- to others it might mean something completely different. In my experience the word has been used by both people on the left and right.
As far as I can tell, this has been a respectful discussion, and a discussion that needs to be had, to ensure that everyone is on the same page, even if they don't agree. I'm sorry, but I think you have missed the point of the discussion entirely- these are honest people asking honest questions, and for you to assume that this entire discussion is merely a way for people to shirk their responsibility to love others and be sensitive to the feelings of others is very unproductive.
Regarding the Fort Hood shootings, I think you are making a huge leap to think that the post about Hasan's superiors not going on their instinct that something was up because they didn't want to appear to discriminate against him on the basis of his faith, was a suggestion that they should have treated Muslims in the military with suspicion. It is an unfair statement and assumption, and not helping to help people balance the issues of national security and non-discrimination against the 99.999% good men and women in the military on the basis of their Muslim faith.