A couple of words about tolerance

I'm convinced that it isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Or perhaps it has been co-opted to the point of paralysis in the public discourse.

Some things are intolerable. Just off the top of my head, I can come up with

Racism and sexism.

Religious extremism. (And I have a low bar here. I have no use for religious dogma, and the minute you start preaching to me, you are extreme in my narrow definition.)

Willful ignorance and stupidity.

Puffery and self-importance.

Cloying, pandering spinelessness.

I have zero tolerance for a whole hell of a lot of things. Including idiots who ride in on a high-horse and make pedantic assumptions. The "Coexist" banner at the top of this blog does not indicate religious tolerance on my part - it simply means people of all - or no - belief system should shut the fuck up and leave everyone else alone about it, and they sure as hell shouldn't be killing other people for believing differently(or not at all).

I still live in a (somewhat) free country. I do not have to tolerate that which offends. In fact, I am free to call a frothing, foam-flecked loon a frothing foam-flecked loon.

I can still mock, ridicule and scorn those things I find intolerable. I think it's a given that I would not have been a "good German" nor would I have made a model Soviet citizen.

I am not a member of my parents democratic party - I am a member of my Grandmother's Democratic Party.

I am dedicated to progress.

I am an unapologetic liberal.

And I have no qualms at all about swinging the Vorpal Blade.

If you can't tolerate that, maybe you should read someone else.