From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 16 Feb 2003 - 11:21:11 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> We are talking about tolerating intolerance itself, and that is something
> tolerant people cannot in all tolerance do. A religious ideology that
> treats woment like chattel and indulges in 'honor killings', that imposes
> the death sentence upon those who decide to leave it, and whos more
> radical members are hell-bent upon presenting a convert-or-die
> ultimatum to all the peoples of the world simply cannot be tolerated by
> people who truly care about freedom - theirs or others'. Period.
Hi Joe,
Yes, the starting point is that we don 't have to be tolerant towards
certain things, like intolerance itself.
But thus tolerance has a legitimate, lawful boundery attached to it.
What you did desribed above are some examples which are tres-
passing those bounderies.
" We are tolerant, but....", " we are not racistic, but .... "; " we are
tolerant but not at the cost of our own security ", and " I have
nothing against immigrants, but too much is too much... " are those
examples giving when the boundery is crossed.
This does exclude tolerance as such, it confines it to certain con-
ditions.
But the fact that a religious ideology is trying to get us all convert-
ted to it, peacefully or otherwise, is not, IMO, the thing you have
to cling onto if you talk about tolerance.
Tolerance is a common political/ social process made individualistic.
Both parties in the dispute made it very clear that the individual is
to blame.
We blame them not to have the dynamics to adapt, they blame us
not to have the insight that the world has to be converted_ and
that the latter has to be an individual virtue on their behalf.
Both fractions blame the other to be weak, both blame the other
not to think for themselves.
It is within both parties their convictions that the other must be
personal blamed_ it is our personal fault that we are now faced,
that they present us the convert- or- die ultimatum.
What I detect however is that the bias of the problematic is
somewhat moved from its individualistic bias to a certain
collective ground, in this case, religion against democracy.
Where did Islam because that is the religion you talk about here
moved away from its 'religious bias ' to become the major
opponent of democracy itself !?
The only things, sofar and at the present date I can come with
is the question of how the individual is treated, how the indi-
vidual is seen within both camps.
We can do almost everything within the bounderies of demo-
cracy and those are IMO very slim and almost not- existented.
They have to express themselves within the certain bounderies
which their religion provided for them.
We can add notions of freedom within the memepool of what
is democracy, they only can interpretate what is already written
down and they can only see themselves within a certain per-
spective bound to the time they live in now.
We move at a different rate along a different way of evolution.
Why are they than so eager to move up to our lane.....beats me !
Regards,
Kenneth
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