The trouble with tolerance

President Clinton lectured Americans over the weekend again on the
subject of tolerance.

It’s time, he said, for all of us to deal with “the fear of the
other” that motivates irrational acts of hatred.

Of course, Clinton was talking to his friends — not his enemies. His
message of tolerance was delivered to homosexual activists expected to
raise $850,000 for more friends of his in the Democratic Party.

It’s pretty easy to be tolerant of those paying your freight.

In fact, this group, ANGLE, or Access Now for Gay and Lesbian
Equality, was the first homosexual activist organization to endorse
Clinton’s candidacy for president. They stuck with him even when he
disappointed members with his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for
homosexuals in the military and his 1996 decision to sign a law denying
federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

“Here you are out here, all you think about is the new millennium,”
Clinton said. “Isn’t it ironic that the thing that’s holding us back
most … is our inability to form a community around our common humanity
because of our vulnerability to mankind’s most ancient fear, the fear of
the other? I think we need to deal with that,” he continued. “I believe
my party is on the right side of all those issues.”

Clinton said he has devoted much of his time in office to dealing
with “the emotional and practical and national security demands” of
international conflicts spurred by hatreds.

“I see people in this so-called modern world, where we’re celebrating
all of your modern ideas and your modern achievements, and what is the
biggest problem in the world in America? We are dragged down by the most
primitive of hatreds,” Clinton said. “It’s bizarre.”

I’ll tell you what’s bizarre — that Clinton can make such comments
with a straight face and be taken seriously by any educated audience in
the world.

It’s easy to be tolerant of friends and political allies. That’s the
ONLY kind of tolerance Clinton and his crowd have ever demonstrated.
What’s not so easy is accepting the fact that other people disagree with
you — sometimes passionately — and tolerating that, even when you have
the power to make them pay.

Clinton has demonstrated over and over again that he is intolerant of
dissent. That’s why he began making enemies lists in the White House by
1994 at the latest. That’s why he has pursued his political enemies
“like a cancer,” as he put it, attempting to “cut them out” of American
life. He has used all the power of the federal government to enforce his
will against his enemies, to punish them, to intimidate them, to coerce
them, to silence them.

What Clinton is indeed tolerant of, however, is evil.

He tolerates it in China. He tolerates it from Puerto Rican
terrorists. He tolerates it from trigger-happy federal arsonists in
Waco. He even excuses it, condones it and practices it personally — as
in the case of Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, et al.

Tolerance of evil is no virtue. And intolerance of evil is certainly
no vice. But, you see, President Clinton doesn’t like to talk about
right and wrong. He would prefer to redefine it on his terms. Tolerance
sounds nice. And he can sound nice talking about how tolerant he is and
how nasty other Americans are for being intolerant. The trouble is that
it’s all meaningless drivel.

Imagine Bill Clinton lecturing others about the importance of
tolerance on the international stage! The mad bomber of Iraq, Serbia,
Afghanistan, Sudan, etc. dares to moralize about the way he has dealt so
effectively with ancient hatreds? What he has consistently demonstrated
is his ability and willingness to drag America and all its military
resources into taking sides in those kinds of squabbles.

The day Bill Clinton demonstrates the slightest bit of tolerance for
those he doesn’t like and for those who don’t like him is the day he may
have the moral authority to lecture the nation — but I doubt it. I
doubt we’ll ever see it. And I doubt the word “moral” will ever be
associated with him in any event.

If you ask me, America has demonstrated its extremely high level of
tolerance by permitting this criminal to remain free and in power.