Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
it's also a small illustration of where it leads you if you accept that there are no limits to freedom and tolerance: you end up by tolerating what does not tolerate you, and giving freedom to what wants to take away freedom from you.
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Very true. The problem is that the opposite is also true: If you deny those freedoms to someone just because you are convinced they want to take away yours, you run the risk of becoming them. No one knows exactly where to draw that line, and to err on once side is just as bad as erring on the other.
I'm old enough to remember the McCarthy era and the "Godless Communists." Soviet Russia really did subjugate most of their neighbors, and that government was a threat, but the witchhunt for Communists in America destroyed the careers and lives of many good people.