This Thursday's GOP debate contained more than a few moments during which I felt compelled to yell pointlessly at the TV. One of those moments was when Fox's Megyn Kelly challenged Donald Trump on his sexist comments, reading out some frankly horrifying remarks of his that included calling women "fat pigs" and "disgusting animals," as well as telling a woman on the Celebrity Apprentice that "it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees." Worse than the damning quote was his response, which was to dismiss the question completely. After saying that he has "no time for political correctness," he went on to say that the comments were made in good fun.

Trump is not the first GOP candidate to bring up the dreaded concept of political correctness. When Ben Carson was asked his thoughts about the Black Lives Matter movement, he responded with blaming "all the divisive rhetoric and terminology and political correctness" for society's ills.

The definition Google generates for the phrase "political correctness" is "the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against." There have been a number of articles in the past few months about free speech on college campuses, trigger warnings, and the oversensitivity of Millennials, especially after the University of New Hampshire came out with a new Bias-Free Language Guide. Political correctness, critics say, is destructive to American intellectual life and freedom of thought.

However, in my experience, when people lambast political correctness, it is not often for the noble reason of encouraging free and open discourse. In these two examples, political correctness instead functions to protect the speaker from being labelled sexist or racist. We should be suspicious when a candidate's response to being told they are wrong is to blame everyone for being too sensitive; this reveals how little responsibility they take for their mistakes.

I'll return to Ben Carson's statement about "divisive rhetoric and terminology." That terminology is vitally important to the question he was asked. Supporting Black Lives Matter means acknowledging that America undervalues black lives, and that we need to do more to protect them. Responding that "All Lives Matter" is stating the obvious and ignoring the issue at hand: that black lives are not treated as though they matter. My point is that using precise language is not just something your English teacher used to berate you for; the correctness of language has political consequences.

As a writer, I find the insinuation that word choice doesn't matter to be insulting. Language has immense power, and politicians should know better.The legal foundation of the United States, after all, is built on the mere words of the Constitution. It should not be so easy to get away with disregarding the concerns of women and people of color by crying, "society has become too politically correct!" This use of the phrase acts as a shield, a distraction meant to turn questions of justice and bigotry into questions of "free speech."

We should stop falling for this smokescreen. If a politician cannot use words that accurately describe an issue, that describe the reality of citizens' lives, then they cannot be tasked with anything important. This doesn't necessarily mean using specific, inoffensive vocabulary; this means taking half a second to think.

Another time political correctness was raised in this election was

Ben Carson's claim that "there is no such thing as a politically correct war." Read carefully, his full statement is terrifying; he seems to advocate for zero military oversight, because in war, anything is justified. Does this make any government action permissible, since accountability is just evidence of more silly political correctness? Allowing politicians to get away with this argument, especially when peoples' lives are at stake, is downright dangerous.

When I hear presidential candidates saying that they have no time for political correctness, I hear that they have no time to consider nuance. These people hoping to lead the United States reveal a disregard for citizens' experiences, and a failure to take responsibility for their own words. Their use of political correctness as a defense shows that they have no idea what they are talking about.