The New "Tolerance"

[mrnoodle]

"Tolerance" in its current P.C. incarnation is a disease. It's a blanket term that essentially means "you have to like everything religious people are against, because religious people are evil and want to take away your fun." It has nothing to do with the dictionary definition of the word.

By the dictionary definition of "tolerance," I'm the epitome of the word. I don't try to force anything on anyone. However, because I hold certain beliefs, I am branded "intolerant", regardless of what I actually do.

It's okay, the pendulum will swing back again. I will be an old man when it happens though. I wish I had paid more attention when I was a kid. I didn't realize I was witnessing the end of common sense in the world. Maybe my grandkids' generation will revitalize it. We have to wait for the current middle-aged vapor-brains to die off though. Maybe the stress of trying to organize antiwar rallies, topple the tobacco industry, stuff envelopes for the Rainbow Coalition, and get all the Kwaanza shopping on time done will speed things along.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

By the dictionary definition of "tolerance," I'm the epitome of the word. I don't try to force anything on anyone. However, because I hold certain beliefs, I am branded "intolerant", regardless of what I actually do.

Unfortunately, you are getting blowback from the people who actually do do things. Take gay marriage, for example. The only people it could possibly affect are the people it will help, but huge swaths of people rise up and scream that it should be illegal. It was part of the Republican campaign strategy to get people to think that gay marriage would somehow affect them. My view of tolerance would be: If you don't believe in gay marriage, don't get gay married. People who complain that they are being persecuted because gays can marry in Massachusetts are being extremely disingenuous.

[PizzaMonkey]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

It was part of the Republican campaign strategy to get people to think that gay marriage would somehow affect them. My view of tolerance would be: If you don't believe in gay marriage, don't get gay married. People who complain that they are being persecuted because gays can marry in Massachusetts are being extremely disingenuous.

Republican-bashing... Can't this go any other way? That's a cheap shot. Personally, I don't think gay marraige has any immediate effect on me. But allowing it would definitely make legislators more ... bold. You know, something like:

"We managed to get gay marraige legalized, now we can do anything we want."

Something that was once taboo is now strongly argued for. How long till someone who believes in killing everyone over 60 gets a strong backing and goes on a campaign? Okay that's a little ridiculous, but you get my point, i think.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by PizzaMonkey

"We managed to get gay marraige legalized, now we can do anything we want."

My 16 year-old son thinks legalizing gay marriage will pave the way for people to marry their cars.



He's a Republican.

Originally Posted by PizzaMonkey

Republican-bashing... Can't this go any other way? That's a cheap shot. Personally, I don't think gay marraige has any immediate effect on me. But allowing it would definitely make legislators more ... bold. You know, something like:

"We managed to get gay marraige legalized, now we can do anything we want."

Something that was once taboo is now strongly argued for. How long till someone who believes in killing everyone over 60 gets a strong backing and goes on a campaign? Okay that's a little ridiculous, but you get my point, i think.

No, I did not get your point.
Gay marriage is about two people who are in love, not about anyone else or anything else. Fighting it was just selfish and mean spirited, nothing else, at all.
It had nothing to do with partisan politics, it had to do with bigotry.

[PizzaMonkey]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

No, I did not get your point.
Gay marriage is about two people who are in love, not about anyone else or anything else. Fighting it was just selfish and mean spirited, nothing else, at all.
It had nothing to do with partisan politics, it had to do with bigotry.

I may sound biased. Hell, I probably am. But the USA was based in Christian values. I think that if you try to take them away, everything else falls apart. Like I said before, I'm not Christian. But it was a foundation that worked, and I think that if you try to rip it out and replace it, we're going down.

If you live together for seven years (at least in Pennsylvania) you're married. You can just live together if you're gay. I don't know anything about what it's like to be in a gay relationship, and I don't pretend to. But I think that that's enough. We can't please everyone, after all.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by PizzaMonkey

Something that was once taboo is now strongly argued for. How long till someone who believes in killing everyone over 60 gets a strong backing and goes on a campaign? Okay that's a little ridiculous, but you get my point, i think.

No. When you're making a slippery slope argument, the different items should be on the same slope. Do you seriously think that religious tradition is the only reason we don't kill off old people? Things that were once taboo should be legalized if the taboo isn't based on something real.

I may sound biased. Hell, I probably am. But the USA was based in Christian values. I think that if you try to take them away, everything else falls apart.

Please tell me how many of the Ten Commandments have equivalent US laws. Please tell me how many Levitican laws have equivalent US laws. Please tell me how many of Jesus' outright orders are enforced by US law. And then please tell me what precisely you mean by "the USA was based in Christian values".

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by PizzaMonkey

Republican-bashing... Can't this go any other way? That's a cheap shot. Personally, I don't think gay marraige has any immediate effect on me. But allowing it would definitely make legislators more ... bold. You know, something like:

"We managed to get gay marraige legalized, now we can do anything we want."

Something that was once taboo is now strongly argued for. How long till someone who believes in killing everyone over 60 gets a strong backing and goes on a campaign? Okay that's a little ridiculous, but you get my point, i think.

And on the converse, there were people who thought the world would come to an end when they had to sit at the same lunch counter with people who had different color skin.

Was this a symbol of liberalism? Yes. Was it wrong? No.

You also seem to confuse the giving of rights with the taking of rights (in this case the right of someone over 60 to live).

I grew up studying WWII Germany, and the one thing I believe I have come to understand is that noone loses by giving people more freedom. It is only when we try to carve out exceptions for one group or another and say that they are not entitled to the same rights and freedoms that we risk the rights that have been given to us. We are all minorities, subject to the tyranny of the majority. Only there is no true majority, only a host of minorities who can be banded together in fear or hatred to deny other groups their rights.

We can call it security, tradition, God's will, or just the 'right way', but in the end we really cannot come up with any reason beyond that it makes us 'uncomfortable'.


Sorry about the rant. "My Own Native Land" and "I Wanna Love You Forever" were playing on my MP3 player, and there is nothing more dangerous than listening to emotional ballads when writing about politics. I am, however, serious about the point. The Bible teaches us to 'cast our bread upon the waters'. The same holds true of our freedoms.

UG thinks I disagree with the idea of America sharing it's concept of democracy with the world. In reality, I only believe that America cannot force it's concept of democracy on people who are unwilling to reach for it themselves or share it with their fellow citizens.

We have a group of people who want to realize the dream of having their union recognized and be treated with the same dignity as other citizens.

We have other groups who feel that by granting this, what they have will somehow be diluted, as if freedom is a zero sum game where ones freedom can only be measured by what someone else doesn't have.

I have seen some people on this board (UG) measure the strength of an argument by taking the most extreme people who believe in a position and hold them up as an example. So I will now perform the amazing first-time-on-the-Cellar double straw man manuever.

If you had to choose between Fred Phelps and Rosie O'Donnell, whose hand would you rather walk up and shake?

[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by richlevy

If you had to choose between Fred Phelps and Rosie O'Donnell, whose hand would you rather walk up and shake?

Rosie's a gun-grabber. But Phelps is an asshole. Rosie wouldn't let me keep my guns to defend myself from Phelps...it's a no-win.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by richlevy

I have come to understand is that noone loses by giving people more freedom. It is only when we try to carve out exceptions for one group or another and say that they are not entitled to the same rights and freedoms that we risk the rights that have been given to us. We are all minorities, subject to the tyranny of the majority. Only there is no true majority, only a host of minorities who can be banded together in fear or hatred to deny other groups their rights.

This is some good stuff.

Incorrect... the US is based on the separation of Chuch and state.

Amendment 1 (1st for a reason)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

In Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, an agreement signed between the United States and the Muslim region of North Africa in 1797 after negotiations concluded by George Washington (the document, which was approved by the Senate in accordance with Constitutional law, and then signed by John Adams), it states flatly, "The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." signed by John Adams
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" John Adams

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; -Benjamin Franklin

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law" -Thomas Jefferson

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.
From: Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion"
John Adams April 27,1797

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries"
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." -James Madison fourth president and father of the Constitution

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." -James Madison

The words "one nation under God" were not added to the Pledge of allegiance until 1953

None of the 85 Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution reference God, the Bible, religion or Christianity.

The words "in God we trust were not consistently added to all money until the 1950s after the McCarthy Era

James Madison, Jefferson's close friend and political ally, was just as vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs as Jefferson was. In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill "establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" in which he presented fifteen reasons why government should not be come involved in the support of any religion.
The views of Madison and Jefferson prevailed in the Virginia Assembly

Jesus even said it:
Mark 12:17
And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

Matthew 22:21
They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

Luke 20:25
And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's.

"The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion." -Thomas Paine

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Incorrect... the US is based on the separation of Chuch and state.

Not really, the Constitution was written with that idea in mind and you can call it the "basis" of the US.

In reality, though, from the 1776 kick off until a third of the way through the 20th century the federal government wasn't running the show.

Politics was local and the state politicians and even those sent to Washington, answered to the power base back home. Today the power and the money, or because of the money, flow down from the federal level.

Anyway, back in the day, the local politicians were predominately Christian, as were their constituents is most areas. Their thinking, their actions and their rules were based on Christian precepts. Helps keep the locals comfortable .....and in line.

I'm not saying these people in power were good Christians, only that they used it to rally support and control the population. If you question their power they'd beat you down as a heretic.

So you see, this country actually was, built on Christian principles, although they were often distorted beyond recognition.

Also, in the Middle Ages the Church performed same sex marriage.
No where in the bible is homosexuality a sin. So, what is the issue. If it is no worse than wearing a cotton/poly shirt (which I am sure many wear on their wedding day), another abomination, what is the problem?

[Happy Monkey]

If you had to choose?

[mrnoodle]

That was beautiful. *snif*