Now that all the hoopla and protests over the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States has settled down a bit, I was just musing over the fact that the group that says they stand for “tolerance”, HATES those that disagree with their viewpoint.

One stupid blonde singer even went so far as to say she would like to “blow up the White House”. How tolerant. Another equally stupid “celebrity” said she wanted to understand the conservative viewpoint. When asked what she would say to President Trump if given the opportunity, her response was that she would tell him to “F*ck off!“. Great move on understanding and expressing tolerance.

That got me thinking. What is “tolerance”?

As a life long builder, I was taught that “tolerance” was how much error was acceptable. In a machined part one might specify plus zero, minus five ten thousandth’s of an inch as an acceptable “tolerance” for a finished part. For electronics it might be plus/minus one percent of the part’s listed value.  Closer to the desired norm is always better.  You always worked hard to eliminate variations to keep everything within “tolerance”.

Tolerance is how much variation from something’s desired value that would still be considered acceptable.  I guess President Trump is outside the “tolerance” limits for some folks.

BUT that begs the bigger question. Why is there an emphasis to “teach tolerance”? Doesn’t that imply you only need accept something outside of the “norm”, up to some limit?  How much skin color variation is acceptable? How much devotion someone has in their faith? How conservative someone’s views are?  And who on the left was ordained king or queen (I want to be tolerant) to define what are the “norms” and what are the limits?

Shouldn’t “acceptance” be emphasized rather than “tolerance”?

Maybe the lefties have it right (I know, bad pun).  Tolerance is better than acceptance.   “Tolerance” means you don’t need to have “acceptance” that there are opposing viewpoints outside of some unwritten limit.  “Blowing them up” is an acceptable action to take. Kill off all who don’t believe until everyone believes the same thing.

Hmm, isn’t that how ISIS thinks?