bogleech:

bogleech:

four citizens with the bravery to stand up to the kind of fucker who not only wears a swastika in public but continues attempting to heil hitler even while getting a righteous beatdown

 
You know, a lot of people are saying “racists have to be exempt from tolerance,” and I know what they mean, but, people should probably stop wording it that way, because that NEVER WAS what “tolerance” meant.

As a social concept, “tolerance” only ever referred to mutual (MUTUAL!!!!!!) respect between different races, sexual orientations and religious faiths so long as they didn’t harm each other. It was the idea that if someone’s identity or beliefs don’t affect you, you need to live and let live.

It never extended to political ideologies or personal opinions in the first place, so every time the radical right starts with this “OH, how TOLERANT of you” crap, they’re trying to redefine tolerance in such a way that they can then accuse their opponents of somehow betraying it or being hypocritical.

And it’s really a shame that I see a lot of liberals give credit to that redefinition by actually writing articles like “here’s why tolerance shouldn’t extend to racists!”

It never did, at all, and never could have, so we really don’t need to be debating it that way. There is no conundrum!