This came from The Daily Beast. It is a clear and, I think, a sensible attitude to take about human cultural difference. The reason being that nuclear armaments in the hands of people who 1) deny the holocaust and 2) don’t think Israel should exist, seems a bit like giving a known serial killer a free pass amongst his favourite prey. Such things should not be tolerated. When deciding these kinds of things, you are being asked to make a decision between the killer and his intended victims as well as between different possibilities for your own future. I mean if deniers start waging war based on their own delusions, you might just get caught in the deluge. Whether or not to tolerate something is a decision that has long-term consequences; it is a decision that has to me made over and over.

All questions of tolerance are decided with these kinds of repeated choices. In Maine the U.S. is now zero for 31 in being able to tolerate human rights being given to a minority group. Does this group carry bombs? Does it deny the Holocaust? Does it want to deny the existence of a nation full of people? No. You know what they want? What they are being denied? The right to marry.

Deeply threatening, I’m sure.

It’s almost as if the group of citizens in the US that just denied some Maine citizens the right to marry wants to deny the fact that, although these particular minority persons walk and talk like people, it’s as if this group of voters who just defeated Maine’s Gay Marriage Initiative wants to deny, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that, in fact, these particular minority persons are in fact people. I mean who else would be silly enough to want something like marriage or to have your state and fellow citizens formally recognize you as people? Only human beings like us are that silly. Maybe the US could stop denying the reality?

Tolerance must be limited, but it might be best to limit it with attention to what is in fact the case.