Agents of Intolerant Tolerance

quote, "I recognize and celebrate that our country is founded upon Judeo- Christian values, and I have pledged my life to defend America and all her values, the values that have made us the noblest experiment in history. But public -- but political intolerance by any political party is neither a Judeo-Christian nor an American value. The political... (APPLAUSE)

The political tactics of division and slander are not our values, they are...

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They are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country.

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Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left, or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell on the right."

John McCain presidential campaign speech 2000

I am an agent of intolerance according to many including Presidential hopeful, John McCain. It used to be that I didn't think of myself that way. Now that I am taking bolder and broader stands for conservative values based on evidence of results, I get charged with being an agent of intolerance often. The most striking thing about this is that it requires a large measure of intolerance to make the charge in the first place. Nothing new here. In the same way judgments are made against me for judging, intolerance is expressed toward my intolerance in the name of tolerance. The first time I heard it, I was a little taken aback. But a two second reflection upon whatever issue I was debating and the words I'd chosen, and the way I'd presented them..... Yep, intolerant.

So what? Everybody is intolerant by necessity. Tolerance and intolerance requires judgment. Judgment is meaningless without intolerance. We don't tolerate stealing, cruelty, endangering others, slander,,,, you name an area of life and I'll demonstrate intolerance. These are called laws. More personally, we have intolerance for relatively minor things called infringements. A sociologically healthy person sets up boundaries and require others to respect them. This too, is a form of intolerance. For instance, I don't allow anybody I'm not intimate with to stand within a foot of me unless circumstances null my personal space. Something like riding a crowded bus or commuter train. If I observe someone acting aggressively or threateningly my personal space is extended until I feel I can react in a timely manner to counteract any threatening move made by that individual. In effect, I grow more intolerant the more insecure I feel.

I'm an individualist, I'm self reliant, I've finally grown up enough to take responsibility for my decisions, and stick to my commitments,,, and I expect others to do the same. I've come to understand that even though I am an individualist and self reliant, I don't live in a vacuum. What I do affects those around me and what others do, affects me. Since this is the case I have, and expect others to have, some common courtesy, some guidelines for behavior both public and private that benefit the whole society. These are healthy boundaries. I'm intolerant of gays getting equivalent benefits and legitimacy as a 'family' and of illegal immigrants getting equivalent benefits as citizens because, even though they may be nice people, their equivalence negates the sacrifices of those who live by the set boundaries of healthy societies. I'm intolerant of many social programs that hurt the very people they are intended to help. I'm intolerant of mob mentality which often undermines social structure. I'm intolerant of repeating failed attempts to fix self destructive people with big government programs that only support the self destructive behaviors we want fixed. I'm intolerant of government sponsored fixes for nonexistent threats like global warming while so many advocate ignoring real threats like global jihad. I'm intolerant of abusing language to the point that set definitions and expressions are muddled to near complete obfuscation. (Fascist)

Now that I've owned my intolerance and I believe most all conservatives would own their intolerance with me, let's see if any of the agents of intolerant tolerance (liberals and Democrats) will own their intolerance by recognizing their hypocrisy in labeling the rest of us intolerant. After all, how tolerant is it to attack conservatives for supporting established principals that are time proven while they insist on pouring ever increasing tax dollars into proven failure programs. More likely they will continue to obfuscate the term the same as they have fascism, xenophobe and a host of other labels used to dismiss any opponents' input not inline with their own.