Editor:

In response to Dan Thatcher’s Feb. 13 column,”A 21st Century Letter Concerning Toleration,” I must point out that Thatcher’s liberalism is guilty of precisely those things for which he criticizes the rightist Bible-thumpers. His toleration is weak; he proposes toleration to everyone regardless of race, creed, etc., because “[all] opponents of Buttars’ Bill are. . .God-loving, value-driven individuals, [who] understand that God has an infinite ability to love and be tolerant.”

Toleration is undermined by the members of these communities who refuse to be loved by his God and fit his neat picture of pious multiculturalism, whom he can never understand.

No matter how broadly you define the social center or shift its focus, individuals will always stand outside your model and pose a threat to the beliefs you establish.

Liberal toleration is but an extension of American moral imperialism; no longer must you make them believe in your God. Rather, you must only believe that they respect your God and your way of life, that, though we’re all different, at heart we’re all the same. But, no matter how long one studies the Qu’ran, no matter what conversations one has with the financially or sexually deviant, etc., there are always shreds of experience that one can never receive from someone else, small bits of being that can never be consumed by reductionism and pluralism.

The naive equity that spreads across our planet is fraught with defensive weaknesses and aggressive beliefs; one must not attempt to take into account unaccountable people who do not pretend to buy into love and tolerance.

Scott Ries

Sophomore, Film Studies