OT: tolerance (was Re: Attachment test.)

[Jean-Pierre A. Radley]

Kenneth Brody propounded (on Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 10:41:08AM -0400):
| On 3/22/2010 11:46 PM, Fairlight wrote:
| [...]
| > The case for arguing against zero tolerance is amusing to me in general.
| 
| I'm not sure what that means.

Nor I

| > I find it amusing when people argue for tolerance in general,
| > really.  People -love- to spout off about tolerance this, tolerance
| > that...until they run into someone who's intolerant.  Then these
| > tolerance preaching folk show their true colours when they're
| > demonstrably entirely intolerant of the intolerant.  Which point
| > makes them instant hypocrites and tanks their credibility.  I find
| > myself incredibly suspicious of people that actively preach any kind
| > of tolerance, since most brands of tolerance are tantamount to,
| > "Tolerate everyone--as long as they're doing things in a way we find
| > acceptable."
|
| What's wrong with "you have a right to be
| stupid/ignorant/racist/whatever, and to think and say your
| stupid/ignorant/racist/whatever things, but I have a right to
| call you out on it, and point out in excruciating detail just how
| stupid/ignorant/racist/whatever you really are"?
|
| > I avoid the hypocrisy and just speak my mind on any given point.  I
| > can be flat-out -intolerant-, and while it might be unpopular and
| > unpolitic, I can't be called a hypocrite when I need to express my
| > displeasure with something.  Up-front intolerance is a far more
| > honest approach, IMNSHO.  It's also probably healthier, as you don't
| > have to hide anything or bottle things up--you speak your mind and
| > move on.
|
| I don't think you need to worry about anyone on this list calling you
| "politically correct".

When I was a lad, I would carry about in my wallet a tattered piece of
foolscap upon which I had copied:

        Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance but the counterfeit
	of it.  Both are despotisms: the one assumes to itself the right
	of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.
		-- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man

-- 
JP