Why is it okay to be intolerant of intolerant people?

Question

Seems a little hypocritical to me.

Answer 1

I think it is completely hypocritical. If you think about who is not accepted in our society, who does not have any one standing up for them, or who is it OK to hate, you end up with people like the KKK or the neo-nazis. I do not agree with these people at all but they have a right to voice their opinions. It is intolerant to try to suppress their rights to free speech and to peaceably assemble.

Answer 2

In a general sense, one could say they are not being intolerant of the person, but of their behavior.
If this question is a reference to the Imus situation, I would say that when we deal with the court of public opinion, the way we frame another's behavior can be arbitrary to say the least.

Answer 3

It's not. It's NOT OK to be intolerant of fundamentalist muslims, for instance, no matter how anti-semitic or sexist they might be.

It IS OK to be intolerant towards straight, white, male, christian, conservative, Americans. (Brits and Aussies can be fair game, too). Who are, by liberal definition, all intollerant. But not all those who are demonsterably intollerant fit that defintion, so not all those who are intollerant are fair targets.

It's a squares and rectangles thing. Not all rectangles are squares, but all squares are rectangles.

I suppose you could look at it as de-humanizing the enemy. Intollerance is the greates sin in the liberal bible, so that sin must be projected upon all conservatives, as they are the liberals' rivals to power.

Note the way cons percieve libs: as 'weak,' America-hating, commies or 'dhimmis'. Also a case of projecting the worst qualities you can concieve of in your limitted world view.

Answer 4

If you're intolerant of intolerant people, guess what. You're just like them.

Answer 5

I don't think its hypocrtical- its like never saying never

if we tolerant inteolerance it will never go away

Answer 6

Who wants to hang around with an a**hole?