The Age of Intolerance (Mark Steyn)

National Review Online ^ | December 20, 2013 | Mark Steyn

[neverdem]

The forces of “tolerance” are intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.

Last week, following the public apology of an English comedian and the arrest of a fellow British subject both for making somewhat feeble Mandela gags, I noted that supposedly free societies were increasingly perilous places for those who make an infelicitous remark. So let’s pick up where we left off:

Here are two jokes one can no longer tell on American television. But you can still find them in the archives, out on the edge of town, in Sub-Basement Level 12 of the ever-expanding Smithsonian Mausoleum of the Unsayable. First, Bob Hope, touring the world in the year or so after the passage of the 1975 Consenting Adult Sex Bill:

“I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.”

For Hope, this was an oddly profound gag, discerning even at the dawn of the Age of Tolerance that there was something inherently coercive about the enterprise. Soon it would be insufficient merely to be “tolerant” — warily accepting, blithely indifferent, mildly amused, tepidly supportive, according to taste. The forces of “tolerance” would become intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.

Second joke from the archives: Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra kept this one in the act for a quarter-century. On stage, Dino used to have a bit of business where he’d refill his tumbler and ask Frank, “How do you make a fruit cordial?” And Sinatra would respond, “I dunno. How do you make a fruit cordial?” And Dean would say, “Be nice to him.”

[neverdem]

So much for being nice...the left and their GOPe handmaidens can drop dead. Neither deserve any respect.

[neverdem]

Ping

[Telepathic Intruder]

“Tolerance” in the liberal sense means tolerance to depravity. But that breeds intolerance to truth and virtue.

[kingu]

I’m sure the link is forthcoming...

[BlessedBeGod]

So much for comedians. Bob Newhart cancelled a speaking engagement with Catholic businessmen because of pressure from gays:

Comedian Bob Newhart Cancels Speaking Engagement with Legatus under Pressure

Be sure to read the entire article, which continues underneath his photo. It describes one group which wants to force all Americans to acknowledge that gay marriage and real marriage are equivalent to each other...or else.

[BlessedBeGod]

Here you go:

The Age of Intolerance

[Mr Ramsbotham]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/366896/age-intolerance-mark-steyn

[neverdem]

I’m sure the link is forthcoming...

Thanks for the reminder, but someday I might not be able to be reminded. I'm no spring chicken. Take a quote from the article, or make a quote from the text, then do a search on the text with quotation marks. Click on the source and author that matches. That should do the trick.

[matt1234]

Arrested for a joke? Did that really happen?

[Flycatcher]

GLAAD spokesgay Wilson Cruz...

Good stuff.

[Colinsky]

Arrested for a joke? Did that really happen?

Arrested because he joked about Mandela: Police hold shopkeeper for eight hours, take his DNA and seize his computer - after local councillor objects to off-colour internet comments

Neil Phillips wrote: 'My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela.'

http://tinyurl.com/lnrz6g5

[WXRGina]

The inimitable Mark Steyn PING!

[Elsie]

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen quotes:

“A Plea For Intolerance” (1931)

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil ... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment.

Tolerance applies only to persons ... never to truth.

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not.

It is suffering from tolerance.

Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos.

Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.

[matt1234]

Arrested because he joked about Mandela: Police hold shopkeeper for eight hours, take his DNA and seize his computer - after local councillor objects to off-colour internet comments

PC facism has taken over the UK and Canada. I fear it's coming to the US.

[Kickass Conservative]

He probably said that Mandela was kind of cheap, he never used Run Flats when he Necklaced anyone.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Bump....

[zipper]

While American gays were stuffing and mounting the duck hunter in their trophy room....

You can always count on Steyn to come up with a good double entendre.

[zipper]

It describes one group which wants to force all Americans to acknowledge that gay marriage and real marriage are equivalent to each other...or else.

As Steyn says, the gay lobby doesn't want "tolerance", they want approval. Or else.

---

Soon it would be insufficient merely to be “tolerant” — warily accepting, blithely indifferent, mildly amused, tepidly supportive, according to taste. The forces of “tolerance” would become intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.

[Pining_4_TX]

For Sale: Genunine Mandela Brand Necklacing Kits

http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/fire-sale-genuine-mandela-brand-necklacing-kits-t12511.html

[Rummyfan]

Because the latter culture would be too boring for any self-respecting individual to want to live in, even more bloody boring than the current TV landscape where, aside from occasional eruptions of unerotic twerking by sexless skanks, every other show seems to involve snippy little Pajama Boys sitting around snarking at each other in the antiseptic eunuch pose that now passes for “ironic.” It’s “irony” as the last circle of Dante’s cultural drain; it’s why every show advertised as “edgy” and “transgressive” offers the same pitiful combination of attitude and impotence as a spayed cat humping.

Bravo Steyn!