[zaroth]

> Only as long as it's intolerance of real, non-contrived intolerance...

And this is where it all falls down. Any belief system which conflicts with your own is a system which is expressing “intolerance” to your belief system.

The whole idea is a crock in my opinion, as a way for one person to scream down another because they are the one who is being intolerant.

There is a lot of hate in the world, and fighting words should be shut down clearly. But this “intolerance” argument is extremely weak the way I see it, as is used as a way to hate and threaten harm against people with a different belief system, a belief system which may not have anything to do with hating or physically harming people.

[DonHopkins]

>And this is where it all falls down. Any belief system which conflicts with your own is a system which is expressing “intolerance” to your belief system.

Not true. Belief systems can conflict without calling for each other's destruction, or discrimination and cruelty against each other's followers.

But the ones that do call for that kind of behavior, like religion calls for discrimination against gays and cruelty towards women, don't have the right to complain about people who they discriminate against (and other non-bigoted allies) not tolerating their discrimination.

[zaroth]

> ... discrimination and cruelty against each other's followers.

A belief system is--by definition--discrimination against contrary beliefs, and therefore, followers of those contrary beliefs. And one definition of "cruelty" (e.g. to women - by denying full and free access to abortions) might be the inverse of someone else's definition of "cruelty" (e.g. to unborn children - by aborting them).

Someone can presume that they hold the absolute claim to the "truth" of which side is cruel, and which side is intolerant, but as human beings we simply do not and cannot know the truth of the matter.

So the problem I have is, when faced with such a dilemma, calling for violence against someone in the name of being "intolerant to intolerance".