“I’m smiling and I’m happy… I’m elated, it’s a day of courage, it’s a day of pride, it’s a day of victory. This is the day we’ve been waiting for.” Sheikh Ibrahim Dadoun
The idea that Western civilization has weakened due to “excess tolerance” is a significant and widely debated issue in modern society.
Critics argue that unrestricted tolerance can lead to several destabilizing effects.
Formulated by philosopher Karl Popper, this concept suggests that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized upon or destroyed by the intolerant.
Absolute pluralism can also result in a society lacking a unifying cultural or moral framework. Without a shared national identity or core set of values, social cohesion may erode.
Some scholars contend that over-tolerance leads to a state where all values, traditions, and behaviours are viewed as equally valid thus preventing a society from confidently defending its own foundational principles, such as free speech and the rule of law.
The institutional vulnerability viewpoint suggests that democratic institutions, out of a desire to be inclusive, can become vulnerable to subversion by groups that do not respect democratic norms.
Karl Popper introduced the “Paradox of Tolerance” in his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies.
His central argument is that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Therefore, to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.
However, Popper did not advocate for immediately banning or suppressing intolerant ideas. Instead, he laid out a specific sequence of guidelines and conditions for when a society has the right to limit tolerance.
According to him, society should only claim the right to suppress the intolerant when the latter move beyond the realm of rational debate and choose instead to respond to arguments with the use of fists, weapons, and unnecessary force.
Popper argued that society should treat incitement to intolerance in the same way it treats incitement to murder or other violent crimes.
If a group’s explicit goal is the destruction of the very institutions that protect tolerance, society has a right to self-defence.
Popper’s guidelines are highly restrictive: society should not suppress people simply for holding intolerant beliefs; it should only suppress them when they refuse to engage in rational debate and instead turn to violence or force to impose their views.
We have clearly reached that level here in Australia as well as in many other western democracies.
The pro-Palestine/anti-Israel lobbyists are a prime example of that. They not only refuse to engage in rational debate; they also openly lie by claiming that Israel is an apartheid state and is also committing genocide in Gaza when the facts show the exact opposite.
Israel is a democratic multicultural country and the Israeli defence forces have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect innocent Palestinians.
And this is despite the fact that Hamas terrorists hide amongst the Gazan population and refuse to shelter them in the huge underground tunnels that were built with taxpayers’ money donated by naïve western governments – including our own.
Our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, even still sends taxpayers’ money to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) even though some of their employees have been supporting Hamas terrorists.
Israel’s former Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel berated left-wing activists as “useful idiots of extreme Islam” and said women and the LGBTQI+ community who joined the demonstrations would most likely be imprisoned or even killed if they set foot in Iran.
The images of the mass protests in Australia, which even shut down Australia’s most iconic landmark, the Sydney Harbour Bridge (SHB), made headlines around the world and demonstrated to everyone the sheer magnitude of antisemitism in our nation.
Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who illegally spent 804 days in Iranian prisons, said it was “profoundly disturbing” to see the portrait of the “mass-murdering” Iranian dictator “holding a rifle no less,” positioned directly behind the group of prominent Australians leading the march.
Tolerance of this abhorrent behaviour must come to an end at all levels in our society, especially amongst our political leaders, police, judges and magistrates.
It’s time for us all to push back against the ignorance and violent behaviour shown by terrorist supporters in our country before it becomes endemic.
Federal Minister Ed Husic, former Premier Bob Carr and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore (appropriately wearing a witch’s hat) lead the march across the SHB
