“What I run into is that tolerance trumps truth.”
Quite so. Our modern society has raised tolerance to be the highest of all virtues. If you can say someone is “intolerant” you are well on the way to winning any debate. Concepts like “truth”, “justice” and “common sense” get steamrolled by the tolerance shiboleth.
One of the problems with liberalism, particularly social liberalism, is that it must contradict itself to survive. For example, to attempt to bring about the equality liberals so desire, they must place themselves in a position of superiority to everyone else.
Arguments for moral relativism are also contradictory. How can someone be telling us the truth when he says “There are no truths”?
This is why liberal “tolerance” so quickly leads to intolerance. A society that’s tolerant of everything can’t exist as a society. So “tolerance” of homosexuality means that people who wish to only provide dating services to heterosexuals through their matchmaking business can’t be tolerated. Tolerating abortion means that the unborn child can’t be tolerated. And so on.
And then there are the famous double standards. Liberal tolerance means that it’s intolerant to have a male-only school, and that it’s intolerant to object to a female-only school. If you produce a work of art mocking Islam, you’re intolerant. If you produce one mocking Christianity, then it’s the Christians who object who are intolerant.
Then there are the paradoxes. If the Bible is God’s Word, should we not obey it? Liberals then chime in and say, “But not everyone believes the Bible is God’s Word!” Then does that mean they think it’s just the writings and opinions of men? “Yes”. Okay, then how is that different from any secular opinion?
Suppose that two people announce that owning a dog is wrong and such ownership should be banned. One says he thinks dog ownership is wrong because of a religious revelation from a deity. The other says he thinks dog ownership is wrong because, well....because he just came to that conclusion on his own. Would it be okay to ban dog ownership based on the latter opinion but not the former? Either way the practical effects are the same: Dog ownership is banned.
Liberals, of course, try to get around this by claiming that their opinions are somehow arrived at scientifically or objectively, while religiously-driven opinions are irrational and subjective. Thus, it’s okay for them to forcibly ram their opinions down the throats of others, but not for Christians to do so. Of course, this is just nonsense.
Ask a liberal if it’s wrong to discriminate against homosexuals. When he says “yes”, ask him to prove it in a laboratory. When he has time to get the “deer caught in the headlights” expression off his face, point out to him that he just has a different set of subjective, totally illogical and unscientific values than those he alleges to you.
The best test of how true something is is by observing how well it works. Liberals effectively concede this point when they call themselves “progressives”. Liberalism must present itself this way because it can never be traditional, and that’s because it doesn’t work. You can’t build a great civilization on “values” such as egalitarianism, wealth redistribution, pacifism, sexual license, or secularism.
Liberals must present their ideas as being new because they have no track record to run on. They then compound the dishonesty by asserting that conservatives wish to legislate their values while they (liberals) do not, which is simply untrue. But by presenting it that way, dullards and imbeciles are lured in, thinking they’ll be more free and more liberated in a liberal society. But in reality, liberals merely have a different list of things they are intolerant of and wish to ban. And as Harvard President Larry Summers found out, they’re ruthless when it comes to enforcement.
Next time, ask him/her if our society should tolerate intolerance.
Then walk away.