Toleration And The Intolerant

At the best of times I’m fairly easy and tolerant but I cannot tolerate the intolerant. I don’t think they deserve to be tolerated if they cannot tolerate those who have different views or believes.

This include
• religious groups who believe they have the only key to heaven and that they can kill all those who differ from them,

• political groups who believe that they have the right to force their will on the people and the right to kill their opponents,

• pressure groups like eco-terrorist, who believe that they are on a crusade to save the world and that their goals justify their methods,

• and individuals who think that their opinions are paramount; opinions often based on garbage fed to them by sensation seeking news media while they think that those (often more knowledgeable) who differ from them are fools.

It is the last category that irritates me most. They often shoot their mouths off about something happening on the other side of the world while they seldom understand the real situation.

As an example let’s look at the death penalty. It is all too obvious that the people in Sweden will have different views on it than those in South Africa. After all, they have very few murders and it is not a big issue. However, when fifty people in your country are murdered every day and about the same number survives attempted murders, it is a different matter. And if you have lost a parent, sibling or a child to a murder, it becomes a sore point.

But that was just an example; I could just as easily have used an example like food production, illegal immigrants, hunting, racial issues, or terrorism. We all have different views on it and even when we do agree, it is to varying degrees. When the problem is far away you think about it differently than when it is close to home.

And it pisses me off even more when people shoot their mouths off about the history of another countries while their own histories are written with blood and the very things that they rant about still prevails around them every day. But they don’t notice that, do they? It is more convenient to rave about the sins of others in order to justify or ignore the shìt (and the buried skeletons) in their own backyard. And if you dare to say something about their countries, they are ready to start another crusade to the holy land.

What I’m trying to say is that we cannot condemn somebody for having a different view while we don’t understand why he has that view. Everybody have different views but the opinion that is based on hands-on experience is normally the more accurate. What you hear or read or see on the TV is usually what somebody else wants you to believe, not necessarily the whole truth and often exaggerated and/or spiced with lies for the sake of sensation.


Don't let this worry you; I'm just venting.