You’ve hit the nail right on the head.

It’s so cringe-inducing when people go around citing the paradox of tolerance to argue for the criminalization of certain types of speech and other things that Karl Popper most certainly would have been opposed to.

> Believing that certain behaviors are sinful or immoral, likewise not intolerance. Nor is merely expressing such beliefs, however annoying, upsetting, or offensive they may be to those who hear them.

This is... not really applicable. Majority of hamartiology books would describe sin as something harmful among other things. As long as a state of being is touted as "harmful", persons of such state of being will be at risk of violence: it does more harm to tolerate it, than not to.

Moreover, if we were to necessitate tolerance of such bigotry by allowing it to be said, then we also have to tolerate the visceral anti-religious sentiment that such bigotry causes to begin with. It not only means, that in fact we logically could scorn bigotry with a bigoted attitude, but it creates an unending cycle of insults and tension, where it's difficult to avoid spiraling into violence. It may be the hallmark of a "free" society, but it's definitely not the characteristic of a stable one.

> tolerance is different from acceptance.

That’s the best way to put it.

It’s like the “☪️☮️🕉✡️🛐☯️✝️” sign. It doesn’t point to the magical unification of all religious ideologies pictured, into a single one. They just try not kill one another.

Good point. I do think the word violence needs to be interpreted potentially more broadly. Someone holding views that they then use to make biased decisions that impact other people materially should count. Example is bias in hiring, promotion, compensation, etc. These material actions I think are part of the concept that should be applied to the word violence. Or we need a broader word like maybe “harm”?

While double negatives hurt my brain, I'm hoping someone can tell me if my different explanation that kind of ends up with a similar conclusion holds up in any way.

The way I've been thinking about it is that advocating for tolerance was never about advocating for tolerance in every context. To me, it's more of a shorthand to say "tolerance toward those who have immutable traits that they can't control." There would thus be no contradiction to be intolerant toward discriminatory ideologies (in this case, having a discriminatory ideology isn't an immutable trait).

I disagree somewhat.

The problem with the article is its theoretical level.

>The freedom of the intolerant should only be limited if the people holding totalitarian beliefs can no longer be “kept in check”, in the words of Popper, or is a danger to the public order, in the words of Rawls.

This implies a world where we can objectively agree on a clear line, and if someone stepped over it, we can all agree that this specific person can now no longer be kept in check and can now be suppressed. But the world is not like this. Everyone assesses from their own point of view, and may come to different conclusions. Fascist abuse of freedom relies on this: it pushes the boundaries, and when the first ones cry foul, they get support from those who do not agree with that assessment, and create division. And because the minds of people and the rules of the society are changed with enough support, the fascists can gather enough support by operating on the vicinity of the line to push the line further and further.

You say that we should only be intolerant of violence, not merely non-acceptance of our views, but if we wait until the fascists get to violence, it is already too late. They gather support by being intolerant, and if we don't suppress that, they are allowed to gather enough support that we will be unable to stop the violence when it starts.

I recognize the problem that if there is no universal rule, it is impossible to objectively say when are we not actually preventing the rise of fascism but simply suppressing non-acceptance of our views. This is a real problem. But I argue there can be no universal rule, because such a rule needs to be careful enough to not go too far (like you advocated), but a rule that is that careful is a rule that will not stop fascists.

I believe that there comes a point where a minority can be out-voted, by public opinion, to the point where its possible to direct intolerance on them with little more than a protracted campaign of hate speech.

Put another way, when there aren't enough XXX to defend themselves, public opinion can be swayed with little more than 'freedom of speech'.

At that point, the public become willing to vote for INtolerance in that specific case. It's happened many times historically, and is a reason I can get behind both aspects of European hate-speech laws, and aspects of American sue culture.

JS Mill makes a similar argument in On Liberty. You're free to do something and I'm free to say you're a shithead for doing it (not exactly the terms he used).

Expressing the disdain for the perceived sinful/immoral whatever is intolerance, what are you talking about?

Expressing it is literally the line where it goes from being in your head to being intolerance.

But I’m not always against people expressing it. As it is a good tool to identify the intolerant individuals in society, and publicly shame/mock them. Which is essential for any society hoping to progress.

Depending on what the behavior is, believing it's evil or "sinful" can absolutely be intolerance. Murdering someone in cold blood? Not intolerance. Spreading the idea that gay sex is evil? Definitely intolerance.

Conservatives arguing for tolerance of their noxious views only increases my violent intolerance to their existence.