This is a thorough once-over giving the lie to the "conservatives'" self-serving bullshit squealing that "Butbutbutbutbut if you don't tolerate my intolerance you're a hypocrite!" The short version, as put forth in the article, is this: tolerance is a peace treaty, not a suicide pact.
Put another way, it's social technology, just like laws. It allows us, in an ever-more-connected global society, to exist and function. Like a treaty it covers those, and only those, who are party to it.
This means that if you're a genocidal fucking psychopath then no, Virginia, we do not have to "tolerate" your unhinged ramblings. You are cancer in the body politic. You have gleefully ripped your human card to shreds and dropped the pieces in an incinerator, cackling like a hyena on PCP at how you have "owned the libs." You have placed yourselves outside the treaty. We are not obligated to put up with your shit.
tl;dr: if you can't behave like a civilized human being, don't be surprised when you get treated like a rabid animal. Read and be better, or don't, it's your choice, but don't bitch when you get your find-outs.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @05:23AM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday April 29, @05:23AM (#1303856)
So that leads us to the 2nd generalization -- that there is an absolute virtue, we just can't define it.
That is a very Modern Western interpretation. In most schools of normative ethics, the entire idea of "absolute virtue" is self-contradictory. Virtue, by its nature, requires moderation because the state of being drives to excess. And this excess of anything is inherently a vice compared to the ideal we seek.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 29, @05:23AM
That is a very Modern Western interpretation. In most schools of normative ethics, the entire idea of "absolute virtue" is self-contradictory. Virtue, by its nature, requires moderation because the state of being drives to excess. And this excess of anything is inherently a vice compared to the ideal we seek.