Jun 15, 2017 -- 6:52PM, DStyle wrote:

Ironically it was the so called liberal left who claim to be the most tolerant showing themselves up as completely intolerant to someone with a different viewpoint.It's called the paradox of tolerance and Karl Popper dealt with it over 60 years ago, the question being: should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance?The answer is no, it should not. A tolerant society should be intolerant of intolerance, as to tolerate intolerance merely leads to intolerance.I am sure that many who defend christian values do not extend tolerance to the conflicting doctrines of other religions which they consider intolerant; you should not expect a rational and secular society to grant your belief system some sort of special privilege.

May I suggest you have been misquoted Popper and have not considered the context of his work which was in post world war europe

The act of refusing to be tolerant is what destroys tolerance, nothing else, and throwing in the word 'unlimited' is merely Popper's way of trying to justify 'limited' intolerance as morally acceptable.
Popper is saying that we have to deal with people we dont like first, and once we've done that then we can be tolerant. This is illogical, there are always more people we dont like if we want to go looking for them.

Popper conflates tolerance with appeasement, as though the only way to be tolerant of irritating people/ideas is to give in to them. But appeasement isn't tolerance. Appeasement is a kind of fearful retreat, an avoidance of confrontation with the misguided belief that it might settle the issue. It is perfectly possible to be tolerant and still say 'no.'

You can hate something/someone, wish they didn't exist, wished you could eliminate them from society - but as long as you leave them in peace, you are practicing tolerance.

If you truly care about maintaining a free, liberal society, you have to practice a lot of tolerance, if only as a kind of formal truce with other elements of society you might otherwise be in natural conflict with.

Of course, with freedom comes responsibility.