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Comment by nrhk | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure why everyone is for tolerating the intolerant. To me, that just leads to a society where little cancerous spots can thrive and even grow.

Then when a catastrophe or a period of unrest hits these little spots of cancer get the opportunity to grow into the general populace by spreading their fear, uncertainty and blame first mentalities.

I get the slippery slope of censorship but when a group/ideology processes itself to be only intolerant and hateful then should we really encourage or even tolerant its existence?

As an aside, obviously when it comes to bigger groups (religious groups) then it's harder to generalize that every participant espouses every belief.

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> I'm not sure why everyone is for tolerating the intolerant. To me, that just leads to a society where little cancerous spots can thrive and even grow.

Living in a swing state puts me in front of quite a few Trump supporters and Clinton supporters. I haven't met any intolerant Trump or Clinton supporters yet, so I'm not sure it's fair to generalize either group as intolerant. They must exist in some capacity, but it's far from the norm, at least around here.

I don't really take internet forums as any indication of the norm, as they tend to draw extremists from both sides. Most people don't browse political forums all day or comment on news articles (I can't cite this, but I can research it if you doubt the claim), so I don't connect dots between them and the general voters. They certainly don't represent the people I know in person.

I actually have a friend in each camp that can be considered very intolerant of the other side. It's actually quite strange to be considered a leftist socialist and a conservative fascist at the same time by different people.

That's likely a sign that the propaganda those friends of you were subject to worked pretty well; whoever doesn't conform to their ideals is an enemy: divide et impera.

Good thing us rational people aren't like them eh.

touchè :)

> I'm not sure why everyone is for tolerating the intolerant.

If you accept intolerance towards intolerance then why bother caring about tolerance in the first place. Everyone's just intolerant. The "good" aren't the people who shout the loudest, they're the people who extend goodwill towards their enemies.

> Then when a catastrophe or a period of unrest hits these little spots of cancer get the opportunity to grow into the general populace by spreading their fear, uncertainty and blame first mentalities.

Same thing with fear. If people should fear fear what's the point of caring about fear in the first place? Everyone's already afraid.

> I get the slippery slope of censorship but when a group/ideology processes itself to be only intolerant and hateful then should we really encourage or even tolerant its existence?

As for censorship and speech, there is worldwide consensus that humans should be permitted to speak freely without fear [0]. In, at least the US, I believe (and sincerely hope) this human right continues to be recognized in the long term.

> As an aside, obviously when it comes to bigger groups (religious groups) then it's harder to generalize that every participant espouses every belief.

Debates are probably better focused on individual arguments than on groups anyway.

[0] "...the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people..." - https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

EDIT: a word

>> I'm not sure why everyone is for tolerating the intolerant.

> If you accept intolerance towards intolerance then why bother caring about tolerance in the first place.

I see a lot of my engineer friends struggling with this. Being logical & binary, they think as tolerant people, they need to tolerate intolerance. A lot of their arguments are for defending intolerant people like if bakery doesn't want to serve gay customers, then so be it. Some even go as far as to say that if laundromat doesn't want Black customers, then so be it.

I always point out tolerance is more than a simple word or definition; it is a philosophy and political idea. You tolerate your annoying in-laws; you stand up against discrimination because you believe in a tolerant society.

The real world is not binary nor logical. You have to fight evil in whatever way you can. Intolerance is evil. Turning blind-eye to it or hiding behind logic is essentially accepting intolerance.

The intolerant aren't enemies to be destroyed; they are the land to be conquered; it's the ideas that must be destroyed.

The beginning of every hateful ideology begins by seeing itself as the oppressed and removing its tolerance for perceived oppressors, from nazism, to communism, and others I shall not name.

"tolerance for intolerance" somehow makes it seem like intolerance is a good thing.

The phrase itself is oxymoronic and probably better termed "intolerance for tolerance"

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