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Law, Tolerance and Society

In Defense of Intolerance

Matthew Pianalto isn’t going to take it any more.

Thanks to extremists like Scott Roeder, the anti-abortionist who murdered Dr George Tiller, and James von Brunn, the white supremacist who opened fire in the U.S. Holocaust Museum, as well as the various groups around the world who resort to terror bombings, we are likely to see renewed and continuing discussions about the importance of tolerance. “Can’t we all just get along?” Indeed, intolerance gets a bad rap because the most salient examples of intolerance are these same hate-mongering fanatics. This is unfortunate, for while tolerance is often necessary for us to all get along and better understand each other, no one who defends tolerance could consistently hold that it can be unlimited.

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