You're lying to yourself...

We are all liars. Every single one of us. We praise tolerance. We talk about how we want to spread love, hope and peace. We proclaim ourselves to be part of some new world order that will bring harmony to the world. And yet we say…

F*@% Trump!

Mike Pence can s#&^ my c@%&!

The GOP is going to destroy the world.

I hope they all fail.

We need to boycott everything!

The arrival of Trump as president, and his inauguration, shall be the saddest day in our country’s history.​

​Thus, ends any claim we can have to tolerance. Tolerance is the act of actually tolerating those for whom we disagree, not silencing them. Tolerance is a place in which we realize the sins of life are what bring me on par with the sins of the other. Tolerance is the exact opposite of anything our lives are capable of.

The more tolerant we claim to be is the point in which we become less tolerant. When we say we are tolerant, we actually make the point of comparing ourselves to someone else who is not, and there our tolerance goes to die.

I see and hear all these people, good friends of mine even, going around the twitter-sphere and other media announcing the death of America and loss of all things we consider to be good and right. They go off the cliff screaming in terror, assuring all people that tomorrow the sky will fall, knowing for certain that Trump will fire off nukes, enslave minorities, murder our GLBTQ+ brothers and sisters, and hold pregnant women at gunpoint until they give birth. They paint with broad strokes the entire electorate as racist, immoral, redneck, rapists, who will stop at nothing to force America back 200 years.

I can say “they” only because I know that I am not tolerant. I know that I will disagree with people and want to change their minds. I know that tolerance does not mean conformity. I know that both sides of the political spectrum are mirror images of each other. I know that not one politician can ever save us from ourselves. Can never be some focal point of virtue that speaks for the best of all people.

We complain about what the GOP wishes to regulate – bedrooms, a uterus, love, religion, schools, speech, morality, gender differences. But the DNC is no different – plastic bags, industry, evil corporations, education, speech, religion.

Think of all the things you say that you wish to regulate or control. Think of all the things in life you wish to say that must be changed, that cannot continue, that are bad for you, me, the environment, the world, and there your tolerance dies.

If we actually take the time to read the news stories, to ask the questions that need asking, we discover that the pushing for tolerance actually becomes the beginning of intolerance. If we read the stories and ask the questions, we begin to discover how completely absent of tolerance we really are. How contradictory we become.

Tolerance is realizing that your worst enemy is no different than you. That when you speak of how terrible Trump supporters are, or how horrid Hillary voters were, you are no different than the worst things you see in other people.

None of us have a monopoly on virtue. In fact, none of us are virtuous. For every virtuous act we think we do, it gets dislodged the moment we spew any hate for anyone whatsoever. If we can grasp that and realize it, then we can start to move on and rest from the idea that somehow our intolerance will lead to tolerance.

We need to stop lying to ourselves. Tolerance is a myth. The only true tolerance is realizing you are intolerant and can put up with another’s intolerance, with the hope of changing their mind - or not.
TW​