Tolerance - Today's Buzz Word

Howdy, everybody;

There's this idea going around the US nowadays that it is wrong to be 'against' most anything. They call it lack of tolerance. The 'politically correct' idea is that being 'intolerant' is a bad thing.

Let's examine that idea.

Tolerance is the idea that if somebody believes or acts differently than you do, you put up with it rather than outright rejecting it. For instance, someone I know smokes. In public, I tolerate it, but I stand upwind.

However, I draw the line if that person were to come to my home and want to smoke indoors. I do not want my house to smell like cigarette smoke; I won't 'tolerate' it. So I ask that person to please not smoke indoors. If they persist, I ask them to leave. If they don't want to leave, I will kick them out.

If your tolerance was unlimited, you would have no say whatever in anything that happens, even in your home. Your dog pees in the floor - what, where's your tolerance?

So, obviously, 'tolerance' has limits. And everybody has a line somewhere in their head that has 'tolerance' on one side of it and 'intolerance' on the other side - and that is true of every conceivable point of contention. This is a life-style choice, and we all make them.

So we're all intolerant about some things. All of us. Get over it.

Is such lack of 'tolerance' wrong? I don't think so.

I think 'intolerance' is evil only if it turns into hate. At that point, it has become prejudice or bigotry.

This idea (that intolerance of any sort is bad) is promoted mainly by liberals. The intent is to paint conservatives in a bad light, because conservatives have standards of acceptable conduct that make it easy to call them intolerant. They ignore the fact that each of us should be allowed to decide what we will and won't tolerate. If we can't do that, then this is no longer a free country. If we can't think what we want, then we are not free.

Next time a liberal complains to me about my lack of tolerance, I'm going to ask him where his tolerance is of me and my belief system. It seems to me the liberals want 'tolerance' only as long as it's everybody else being tolerant of them and their agenda. They have no 'tolerance' at all in the other direction. The really funny thing is that they apparently don't see the built-in contradiction in their thinking.

As for me, I'll be tolerant or intolerant as I see fit. If you don't like it - you are an intolerant hypocrite!

- Pop