Non Sequitur

"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil"

-Thomas Mann

In these times of tolerance (bolded for importance) and respect for ones lifestyles we appear to have faltered in one minor (major?) way. Tolerance to me is an inherently just principle and a necessity for any self-respecting democracy, but lets not fall on our swords over it.

In the United States, we have hate crime legislation. It is after all supposed to punish intolerance. We've seen this lately with the Jena Six fiasco in Louisiana. With Jesse Jackson down there yelling for justice the federal government was again pressured to charge locals with federal hate crimes. From the stand point of the majority, it was justice, whatever that is. Good news is it wasn't Duke Lacrosse Style justice (see Jesse Jackson style justice). This time, the local boys charged with federal hate crimes were most definitely guilty under those statutes. But, the point here isn't that hanging nooses from your truck and driving around is intolerant, but rather that this culture of tolerance has become a nationally recognized religion.

We've moved from rightfully outlawing discrimination in the workplace to outlawing the thoughts of a citizen. The murder of Matthew Shepard was a heinous crime. The crime was murder, not intolerance. But that has since changed. Today, if you were to murder a homosexual man simply because he was homosexual, you would be guilty of murder and being intolerant. Murder is murder is murder. There is no getting around that. Of course there are factors to any crime that must be taken into place, but since when does the personal beliefs of a citizen become a crime? Dare I say that we are seeing the first round of thought crimes?

I would feel better if one had to actually act upon their beliefs in order to be charged with a hate crime like Matthew Shepards murderers did, but we've moved beyond that. Now, hanging a noose on a tree is a crime. As disgusting an act as that is, did anyone get physically harmed? No, but Kleenex's stock sure as hell went up. But now we are charging people with hate crimes because they are expressing their intolerance. Since when is hurting someone's feelings a crime? We live in a democracy right? Where in that constitution that we occasionally use does it say that one has the right to not be offended?

and here is the best part. God, I love this. Its the ever ubiquitous slippery slope argument. Its great. Anyone can use it and its practically impossible to defeat. The left uses it when they're railing against the Patriot Act or NSA surveillance programs The right gets to use it when the left is trying to impede on the second amendment. So, I'm going to use it now. Its seriously like a religion or something. Use it a little bit and people think you rock. Use it alot and you're just a fool. So here we go....

If we start outlawing the free expression of thoughts, whats next? Are we going to start shutting down newspapers that print something that offends someone*?



*A member of a minority group.


But seriously. Tolerance rules. CAIR Bears all around.