Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Tolerance has a proper time and place, but this time and place isn’t all the time nor is it everywhere. Nor does everything have to be tolerated. Even the most tolerant person won’t tolerate everything.
I was always a fairly tolerant person. I was never too interested in making someone conform to what I thought they “should” do. As long as they didn’t try to force their ways on me or on my friends, I didn’t try to stop them from doing whatever they were doing even if I thought it was “icky.”
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown even more tolerant. “You do you”... as long as you give others the same respect.
And this is where I draw the line: “as long as you give others the same respect.” Those who won’t respect others won’t consider me very tolerant.
There are certain things that shouldn’t be tolerated; things that are wrong to tolerate. Violations of life, liberty, and property are behaviors I am unwilling to tolerate no matter who is committing them.
As I’ve aged. I’ve grown more tolerant of most things but less tolerant of some others. With each passing year, I grow less and less tolerant of those who bully others with any form of violence or threats of violence, including threatening others with government and its legislation. I simply have no use for such people. Trying to control the peaceful, mutually consensual behavior of others is a disgusting habit.
This bullying includes censorship, whether committed by government, corporations, or an individual. To me, freedom of speech is non-negotiable. The freedom to learn from unpopular speech is why speech must be free. The censors can spout all the justifications they want, but limiting what people are allowed to read or hear isn’t a noble thing to do.
The strangest thing I see about tolerance these days is how those who push for tolerance the loudest are the most intolerant. Not intolerant of things that actually harm others -- things no one should tolerate -- but intolerant of mere opinions they don’t like. They commonly use threats and censorship to prevent anyone from hearing opinions or facts they don’t like. This is how you know they know they are wrong. They can’t allow the other side to be heard or their narrative collapses. Censorship exposes the weakness of their position and they seem to believe you won’t notice. But you will now.
Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at: