Here's the best way I've ever heard it explained.
Tolerance is not a moral precept, it is a peace treaty. When peace treaties are broken, no party has an obligation to honor them until peace is restored.
Tolerance is not a moral precept, it is a peace treaty. When peace treaties are broken, no party has an obligation to honor them until peace is restored.
In other words: we don't demand tolerance for tolerance's sake. We demand tolerance to keep the peace in a free and open society.
If tolerance of Idea X does not further that goal, we have no moral obligation to tolerate Idea X being spoken in public.
If tolerance of Idea X does not further that goal, we have no moral obligation to tolerate Idea X being spoken in public.
So for instance, no one is harmed by the idea "blue is the best color." So we have an obligation to tolerate it because kicking people who like the color blue out of restaurants would be a pointless disruption of the peace.
On the other hand, "black is the worst race," is an idea that is inherently dangerous to the peace of an open society.
It's fine to kick someone who says that out of restaurants, because letting them stay does worse harm to black people or anyone with black friends or family.
It's fine to kick someone who says that out of restaurants, because letting them stay does worse harm to black people or anyone with black friends or family.
Along the same lines, I believe anyone who wants to kick out someone who says, through words or actions, that migrant children deserve to be locked in cages as deportation ransom, should knock themselves the hell out. Plenty of people are grievously hurt by that idea.
