The Limits of Toleration

On the post below, I mentioned the idea that "toleration" has its limits. The forbearance of ideas can only extend as far as it doesn't poison society. John Daniel Davidson at The Federalist has an article entitled Hamas Apologists Are Exposing The Limits Of Tolerance. Gentle readers are also encouraged to this piece.

These were larger versions of the aggressive demonstrations we saw on college campuses across the U.S. immediately following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Coming so soon after the mass slaughter of Israeli civilians — even before Israel was able to respond — it was clear that such demonstrations had nothing to do with concerns for the safety of civilians in Gaza and everything to do with a virulent antisemitic and anti-Western ideology that has taken root in our schools and cities.

The important thing to grasp about this ideology is that it’s incompatible with Western civilization and an open society. If it’s allowed to grow and fester as it has been for the past three decades (at least), it will destroy the societies that once tolerated it. That should have been obvious a long time ago, but it’s now an undeniable reality. The Hamas sympathizers taking over the streets of Western cities do not want to join the West, they want to conquer it. They belong to the global left, and like all leftists, they take advantage of uniquely Western principles like tolerance and free speech to work toward the creation of a society that will retain neither.

...snip...

The second aspect of the dilemma is that the West now has a great many people in it who reject the bedrock principles of Western civilization. These people are not interested in freedom of speech, individual liberty, religious freedom, and so on. Indeed they are actively trying to supplant Western civilization, either with a particular strain of global Marxism or with some version of Islam. Those might be distinct ideologies on their own terms, but in the context of the crisis facing the West, they are nearly indistinguishable forces — a Red-Green alliance, you might call it. And for now, at least, they are allied against Israel and the United States in particular and Western civilization in general.

Under these circumstances, the West will have to come to terms with the limits of tolerance if it’s going to survive. The animating ideology behind these pro-Hamas demonstrations is incompatible with a free society. So how much of it can a free society tolerate? Must Western countries simply allow the unchecked proliferation of terrorist or Marxist ideologies? Must they allow foreign nationals who espouse these ideologies into the country indefinitely?

Both the Left and the Muslims have not only reached, but breached the limits of toleration. In the name of "tolerance" we have been silent too long. We need to make it clear that we will not be tolerant any longer. In fact, what Hamas has done is beyond intolerable, and they must be hunted down. Anyone who supports Hamas must be viewed as enemies of America.

Put another way, America can tolerate a few commie professors scattered among its universities, but it won’t survive the communist capture of every school. At some point, you have to limit the number of commies you let through the door, just as you have to limit the number of Islamic fascists you let into the country.

No one in the West wants to hear this. Liberals and libertarians will smear you as an authoritarian for saying it, but their open-ended tolerance for hostile ideologies and worldviews is what brought us to this point. The quaint slogan that “I hate what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” only works when most people in a society agree that decapitating babies and dismembering children is evil and that those who commit such crimes must be hunted down and killed.