Popper's Paradox: Does America Have a Duty to Tolerate That Which Threatens It

As someone who looks at culture and politics regularly, I often write about problems and, on occasion, proffer solutions. Sometimes the solutions are relatively straightforward and obvious, like suggesting to the GOP that if they don’t pass the SAVE Act and bring about something resembling honest elections, they’re going to get their asses handed to them in November. Others, I recognize, are far more complex than my 30,000-foot take on the issue. This is most certainly the case when I suggested the government should get out of the wealth redistribution business. Knowing that there are thousands of programs handing out trillions of dollars annually, just suggesting the government should get out of the business of taking money from Peter to give to Paul seems a bit trite. And it might be, but trying to explain a problem and proffer a detailed solution in under 1200 words is a bit challenging, at least it is for me.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop highlighting issues and making suggestions.

One of the most important and challenging issues from both a cultural and political perspective is tolerance. What should we tolerate? How much of it should we tolerate? And, perhaps most importantly, what should be not tolerated… and why.

For years, I’ve struggled with the idea of limits on tolerance, but I didn’t really have a definition for it. I do now. I recently saw a post that referred to Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance, something with which I was unfamiliar. I looked it up and immediately recognized it as the perfect distillation of exactly what had been running through my head, basically: Does society have a duty to be tolerant to that which seeks to destroy said society?

For a long time, America clearly understood the answer was no. The obvious example is Communism. America knew that Communism was a threat, and Congress did what it could to thwart the party and extinguish the idea itself. Under the Smith Act (Alien Registration Act of 1940), it became illegal to act “with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence…”

The party was outlawed, and leaders were thrown in jail, and while being a Communist wasn’t technically illegal, just being one could get you fired or blacklisted, both in Hollywood and beyond. Eventually, the Supreme Court, in Yates v. United States (1957), narrowed Smith, ruling that abstract advocacy of revolution or teaching doctrine was protected by the First Amendment. Only advocacy directed at inciting imminent illegal action could be punished.

Today, Communism is tolerated in America, and sadly, celebrated even. Indeed, it’s basically merged with the Democrat party and their love child has just been elected as mayor of New York. And the reality is, the Democrat party of 2026 is far more of a danger to the Republic than the Communists ever were.

The merger actually dovetails with the primary subject of this piece on tolerance: Islam.

Our 1^st Amendment guarantees Americans freedom of religion. Indeed, it’s literally the very first right protected in the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

There is no definition in the Constitution or anywhere else in government however, that states exactly what a religion is. In truth, religion in America encompasses everything from traditional Catholicism, reformed Judaism and thousands of Protestant sects to the late Heaven’s Gate cult and being a conscientious objector!

Perhaps nothing else demonstrates the reality that America is, in a word, tolerant.

I’d like to suggest that there should be, and yes, they should apply to Islam.

In a theoretical sense, no. The US does not have a duty to tolerate an armed insurrection (although the Dems think we have a duty to tolerate Antifa). But the devil is in the details of the definition of what “threatens” the US. The Dems are real quick to define a lot of groups as “threatening” the US. Parents attending PTA meetings. Traditional Catholics. Tea Party patriots who protest government spending. And, God Forbid, anyone who thinks homosexuality is a sin based on their religious beliefs. As “F”ed up as the 1970s were, I really long for the Free Speech mindset that we had back then. When the ACLU defended the right of Nazis to hold rallies even though they and everyone else opposed everything that the Nazis stood for. When cities were required to give the KKK permits to hold parades even though everyone viewed the KKK as a bunch of losers. When you could confront black militant philosophy without being called a racist. When Latinos had not been radicalized into an identity group yet.

It's amusing that the article mentions Karl Popper, author of The Open Society and its Enemies. Popper's critics said that the book should have been titled The Open Society By One Of Its Enemies, because Popper stated that the only way to preserve freedom was not to give license to the enemies of freedom. However, this gets twisted around to restrict freedom of speech of groups labeled as "extremist", often defined as any opposition to the consensus or status quo.

The best argument for keeping Muslims out of western society is not that they profess a religion or ideology that stands in opposition to liberty, but rather because Muslim culture and religion are utterly alien and unassimilable into Western cultures. Then there's not need to twist yourself into pretzels by saying the only way to protect the freedom of speech is to restrict it.

Simple answer: No.

Tolerance most certainly is lawfully ended when the threat is lethal, whether for an individual's life (Second Amendment) or that of the nation's polity under our Constitution.

Why should we as individuals or as a Union not defend ourselves with deadly force?

The "Warren Court" (sort of fluid in its term) became by far the most liberal ever, to date. Its misinterpretation and misapplication of the First Amendment's establishment clause has led to the final exclusion of any prayer or use of the Christian Bible in any public tax-supported school or other enterprise, thus removing the moral Christian foundations for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself, which our Founders intended the Federal governments to follow.

Essentially, was/is that not a blatant intolerance of God as the Supreme Authority over our nation, the source of reasoning on which the Declaration states in detail>; that is, that George III was persistently defiant to God's Law over his empire, against the standards which Oliver Cromwell's efforts had established a constitutional monarchy?

The result of Warren's over-liberal "tolerance" removing absolute truths, that were founded on God's Laws; and replacing ta=hat basis with relativism (Pilate: What is "truth"?), is why we are in a deep pool of variable indecisive decline, which I surmise Donald Trump's organization is trying to recognize and set aright.

At this point the outcome is yet undecided. Conquering Iran's autocrats (including any Shah or his get) and encouraging Abraham Lincoln's government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" may come to pass if American naturalized educated (Christian) Persians might massively relocate back to their home country to make it a free and powerful state.

Do not forget, that the Romanisn's catholicity is very intolerant of any other form of polity (a central command of clergy overpowering and dictating to its laity), with the root unmodified intent to establish globalization of their Catechism, and that after having gotten temporal superiority by deadly force, as it clearly has historically since its inception by Constantine.

It was the Protestants fleeing from that European system that smothered individual value and liberty that founded our country on this continent. I know my statements here tread hard on someone else's toes, byt consider Abraham's second SOTU speech^{(click here)}, in which we find (phrases bolded for emphasis):

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and God must forever bless."

This "last best hope" concept of America's God-bequeathed purpose has been multiply quoted by our leaders since, and is thus appropriate here. But does thus our Democrat-plagued Congress still know how to save, not drown, our hopes?

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