Intolerance is the Soul of Tyranny

It is inconceivable that a tyrannical government could exist without suppressing dissent.  After all, the presence of opposition is not only a potential threat to the survival of the regime, but it is an abomination, an evil which deserves extermination.  Toleration is not possible for those who deny the truth of the tyrannical ideology.  There’s only one way to think and those who are defiant in word or practice do not deserve to survive.

This realization has played out in history many times with horrible consequences for those disfavored.

There was Catholic tyranny in Spain in the fifteenth century which used the Inquisition to ferret out infidels.

The twentieth century saw the mass murders perpetrated by the ideologues of Communism and Nazism.

The twenty-first century has radical Islam in the form of Al Qaeda and ISIS which, in the name of Allah, slay and terrorize apostates and non-believers.

For tyrannical governments, intolerance of their perceived enemies justifies all manner of hostility, including extreme violence.

America, fortunately, has long been immune from such movements.  Our Constitution insures freedom of speech and association and, still today, the respect for differing opinions remains a definite American virtue.

But is that cultural commitment weakening? 

There can be no doubt that free speech is under attack on and off college campuses, rioting at the University of California at Berkeley aimed at right of center speakers being a prominent example. 

Of course, intellectual intolerance on the left is commonplace.  That is why conservative academicians, for instance, are relatively rare. 

But the resort to violence is new.  Is intolerance generating the responses commonly associated with tyrannical impulses?

 

That is not to say that the left has become tyrannical in an historical sense with all that portends. 

But should trends developing be a cause for concern for all of us?  If not interrupted, where are we headed?

Bluntly put, as a matter of self-defense, intolerance of this sort cannot be permitted.  It must be beaten back with force if necessary.

One wonders the results if the tyrannical forces of the twentieth century could have been thwarted - what if the original revolutionaries of 1917 had recognized the dangers posed by the Bolsheviks which came to pass in 1918?  Or what would have happened if the Weimar Republic had taken action against Adolph Hitler before his ascendancy to the German chancellorship in 1933?

It’s comforting to think that given our history, we are immune to such worries.  That is vanity and national arrogance.  What has set us apart from such developments has been a commitment to civil society and respect for our fellow citizens, the law and our constitutional foundation.  Without them, we will be as vulnerable to tyranny as any other people on the earth.

After all, America’s exceptional role in the world is not due to the water we drink.  It’s the values we practice and project.