GreenGoo wrote:
I like to be tolerant. I think I am. I try to tolerate and accept others are different than me. Don't laugh, I really do put in effort. I like to think I succeed, mostly.
Liberals are known for the all encompassing, tolerant, everyone's equal approach. Ignoring whether they actually believe it or whether it is actually true or not, what you often hear from the more conservative side is the opposite. Lack of tolerance. Homogeneity. Be like me otherwise we have a problem sort of thing. Paraphrase that any way you need to to make it understandable to you. I know I am wording it badly and lots of people will have a problem with it.
Some would argue that. Others would argue that "liberals" are responsible for "political correctness" and various forms of (sorry) Canadian-style speech-policing. They would also say that "conservatives" are, in the modern context, more likely to be supporters of free expression (boobies and criticizing the President during wartime not included, supplies limited, no liability, read your ticket).
That may or may not be. Or it may depend upon your definition of liberal or conservative. I'm skeptical that it can ever be a useful generalization.
Side 1) Everyone is valid as they are.
Side 2) No one is valid except for me. Be more like me.
Side 1 to side 2) No, that's wrong. Stop being like that. Be more like us.
Side 2) Aha! You're just what you preach against! You are intolerant of everyone who isn't like you!
This is like a riff on the classic "be tolerant of intolerance" conundrum, a centerpiece of discussion of free speech (particularly of hate speech laws) for the last 25 years or so. See, e.g.,
Lee Bollinger. It's sometimes called the paradox of intolerance.
I think it tends to be overstated, and ignore important distinctions:
1. The distinction between private and public action. Say that I announce that I favor freedom of speech and oppose content-based speech bans. A politician announces he wants to ban hate speech. I rally people to vote against him. Say someone says "Aha! You're a hypocrite! You are trying to inflict harm on him for speaking freely!" But (almost) everyone would immediately recognize that's bogus. I'm opposing official action proposed by the candidate. I'm not, for instance, proposing that the candidate be arrested for making his suggestion.
2. The distinction between speech and action. The prior example illustrates this. So does another: I state that I am opposed to hate speech laws. Some fuckstain who doesn't want a mosque near ground zero beats a Puerto Rican guy because the fuckstain thinks he looks Muslim. I advocate him going to jail. "Aha!" says our accuser. "You're a hypocrite! You support intolerance by opposing hate speech laws, but want to punish this man for acting from intolerance." Again, no one of consequence would buy that. Action (beating someone) is not the same as speech (saying hateful things about someone).
3. The distinction between non-judgmental and judgmental tolerance: Say I am against hate speech laws (and I am). But I routinely ridicule and criticize people who engage in hate speech (and I do.) "Aha!" says our critic. "You're a hypocrite! You're not tolerant at all!" Actually, I'm judgmentally tolerant. That means that I support people's right to do many sorts of things that I hate and feel free to criticize. Because only scary totalitarians think that if a thing is morally wrong it ought to be illegal.
There are a few other distinctions as well, but those are the big ones.
Fed recently pulled this. While potentially valid, I think it's kind of a cheap argument. This is not the first time he's directed this at me, which is probably why I finally took note of it. Or enough to write about it anyway.
Side 2) They are doing it wrong. I disapprove.
Side 1) Don't judge people.
Side 2) Aha! You're judging us! Hypocrite.
You're free to spin it that way.
It was a throwaway line, inspired by what I thought was your over-the-top defensiveness and anger that anyone would question whether it's good parenting to send a 16-year-old to sail alone under circumstances that many adult sailors seem to be saying are ridiculously dangerous. This kind of captured it for me:
Luckily Abby and her parents don't need any of your approval. And they will go on to do great things, or do great things and die, or just die attempting to do great things, none the wiser that some computer geeks disapprove.
It just struck me as odd, in this instance, to be so angry at other people's expressions of opinions under the umbrella of preaching tolerance for other people's choices.
It might be a little different if people expressed their criticisms in a rude, abusive, or obnoxious way that suggested bias rather than reasoned critique, like "those parents are fucking evil; they ought to be jailed," or "typical of religious people," or something. Then I might be throwing elbows right with you.
But you seem to go beyond that. You seem to want to pursue a style of non-judgmentalism that means that people's choices should not merely be protected from government interference, and not merely that decent people shouldn't be dicks about those choices, but that those choices should be immunized within our community from debate and (non-dickish) criticism.
(Well,
on some topics, at least. 
)
Whereas I'm not laying claim to being non-judgmental. I'm Judgey McJudge. I will judge the living shit out of you. Oh, I'll try not to do it in a first-stone-throwing professional Pharissee way, like Dr. Laura (for instance, you won't catch me going on rants about goddam sarcastic people). I don't judge a vast amount of conduct that I think doesn't hurt me or innocents. I don't tend to judge things that I find personally unappealling just because I find them unappealling. But there's all sorts of things that I will happily judge.
And don't even get me started on your abuse of "chill speech" theory.
It's a bit of Johnny Cochran "if the glove don't fit you must acquit" chicanery.
takes place and its often best to just drop the discussion.
