On 25-Sep-2000 David Honig enlightened me with: [...]
I think liberty should carry a pricetag of tolerance.
No, liberty is absolute, and probably not being exercised if *someone* isn't offended. Your suggestion to "play nice" is quaint but irrelevent when talking about sovereign adults.
Tolerance means tolerating intolerant groups. The latter-day euros (germans and french esp.) don't get it. When you burn nazi literature you have become them.
You got an interesting point there. Being a "latter-day euro" (from a country which has been accused of having a fascist government by most of Europe, but that's another story) I don't really get it that if I were a Jew (homosexual, guy with a non-german name, ... pick your favorite) I'd have to tolerate a group of loonies who don't grant me the right to live. Sure I can't force you to like me or be nice to me, but I think there are certain very basic rules, each of us has to obey, which make living in a society possible. Let's face it: Society isn't self-regulating and as soon as an ideology, philosophy or whatever severely restricts the way of life of a group it's not worth being tolerated, IMNSHO. The very least I expect from a fellow human being is that (s)he acknowledges my right to exist. Personally I think, burning their literature is going a step too far, but being a European, I understand why they (esp. the French) are so afraid of Nazism. But the Anti-Nazi Hysteria is the wrong way to go. Konrad ________________________________________________________________ .~. Konrad Podloucky GnuPG/PGP-key available by request /V\ "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has // \\ already earned my contempt. He has been given a large /( )\ brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would ^^-^^ fully suffice." -- A. Einstein