The Intolerant Tolerant

Or, The Tolerance of Intolerance

Earlier this week I got into a brief discussion with a friend about tolerance and intolerance. Neither of us had the time to get too involved in meaningful dialogue, but as we went our separate ways, my mind started racing with thoughts of how tolerance and intolerance has changed in the minds of younger Americans today. It reminded me of the age-old question, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” “Tolerance or Intolerance?” 

For my generation, singer and song writer Bob Dylan said it best in 1963 when he penned,  "The Times They Are a-Changin.'" Dylan never mentioned tolerance or intolerance per-say, but that’s really what this song was about. If you haven’t heard it in a while, look it up and listen. 

Tolerance today is preached by the political and social left, to the point it has become intolerant of those who disagree with their point of view. 

For as long as I can remember, we’ve associated the word “liberal” with open-mindedness. Liberals were people who were supposedly tolerant and fair, and wanted everyone to share their own point of view. They appeared to care about everyone, not just those who shared their like views.

By contrast today, liberals are exceedingly hardheaded in their opinions and judgmental about others’ behaviors. They often want to control what other people think and say, and cut off debate with absolute intolerance. Now, the use of violence is, to them, appropriate to maintain or gain political power and exclude their adversaries from having a say in their government, or express their social views.

Sadly, the kind of liberalism we used to know is fast disappearing from America. While intolerance of the far right gets all the attention, its manifestations on the far left are fully acceptable by the media, and often not even acknowledged.

All too often, people who call themselves progressive liberals are at the forefront of movements to shut down debates on college campuses and to restrict freedom of speech. They are eager to cut corners, bend the Constitution, make up laws through questionable court rulings, and generally abuse the rules and the Constitution in order to get their way.

They establish “zero tolerance” regimes in schools where young boys are suspended for nibbling breakfast pastries into the shape of a gun. They are supposedly great haters of bigotry but often speak of Christians in the most bigoted manner imaginable, as if Christians were no better than fascists, and often refer to them as fascists.

The American liberal is, in short, becoming increasingly intolerant. They have surrendered to the compulsions of the closed minded and are intolerant of recognizing the free speech and Constitutional Rights they now reserve only for themselves.

A new generation of Democratic representatives in congress openly refer to themselves as Democratic Socialists, and the term is becoming widely used within the party today. The outspoken senator Bernie Sanders introduced us to the term during his failed presidential bid of 2016. Some in congress are now wearing the term as a badge of honor. 

We, as patriotic Americans who cherish our constitution, must without reservation, constantly remind our neighbors and fellow Americans that socialism, regardless of the variety, is nothing less than a gateway to communism.

For well over two hundred years, Americans have held dear to our principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But in our tolerance and compassion for freedom for all, we’ve allowed intolerance to creep into our society under the guise of tolerance. And now, under the guise and tolerance of socialism, we must beware, communism follows, as was written by Marx, socialism is the transitional stage between capitalism and communism.

Story by Gil Potts