Tolerant: To be or Not to Be, That is the Question

The word tolerant is a simple and a harmless appearing word, at one time. Not so any more, it has become the rallying cry of the liberal mind and its ideology. It started slowly and has gathered much steam.

Funk & Wagnalls Desk Standard dictionary renders the word tolerant as follows, Tolerant, of longsuffering disposition; indulgent; liberal.

Now a longsuffering disposition is something I really strive for, it has the benefits of loving one’s family with unconditional love. It allows for mistakes and keeps loving anyway. It is one of the building blocks of a strong family. It also strengthens neighborhoods. Longsuffering disposition makes love thy neighbor realistic.

Indulgent, means, compliant: showing favor. Now I am indulgent when it comes to my grandkids and a few others. But it ends at the boundaries of the family. When congress raises my taxes, it is hard to be indulgent. When I have to pay four dollars a gallon for gas when we have plenty of oil under ground here in America, it’s hard to be indulgent. Or when a logger can’t cut down trees and loses his job so that a spotted owl can masturbate on top of a tall tree, well it’s hard for any of us to be indulgent.

Then there is liberal, which brings us back to tolerant. If I am tolerant does that end all debate? If I am tolerant does that mean my point of view has to be liberal? If I am tolerant am I a socialist? If I am tolerant do I have to quit thinking? Or if I chose to debate or have a different point of view am I intolerant?

The dictionary renders intolerant simply, bigoted.

Now if my opinion of a subject causes someone to call me intolerant, isn’t the caller also intolerant, if I call him on it, am I again intolerant, maybe I am intolerant once removed or something like that. If I chose not to agree with the influx of illegal aliens in our country I am advanced to the realm of a bigot.

The point of this little exercise is to illustrate that all debate has become one sided. And the liberals have established the debate and eliminated the opposing side with the word intolerant. If you persist to debate you become a bigot.

If I chose to take a stand against abortion, I am intolerant of women’s rights. If I do not accept homosexuality, I am intolerant, a bigot and a homophobe. It falls on deaf ears to tell them that I can respect and care for the individual but not accept their actions. It is far too easy to label someone intolerant and not listen to their point of view. Being tolerant does not make you right all the time, get real.

If your desire is to be a member of “the brothers of advanced toleration cause I am a liberal”. Then you must chose your words carefully and your thoughts must be inline with tolerance. If you make a mistake you will just have to sweat it out.

I guess this is what happens when the absolutes are abandoned. When there was absolute truth then you could debate it but truth always won in the end. Tolerance has eliminated the need for truth. If you are tolerant, then all things are acceptable and you are in agreement with them. Or maybe you accept them but disagree with them and have to be silent. No one knows if a tolerant individual is intolerant of not.

The word tolerant has stymied debate and that is not healthy for a nation. It has tied our hands and bound our tongues so that we can not search for truth and right. Let us be intolerant of tolerance and respect all people and hold fast to individual’s right to state their opinion whether we agree or not.

The Old Farmer