From Wikipedia:
"Tolerance is a social, cultural and religious term applied to the collective and individual practice of not persecuting those who may believe, behave or act in ways of which one may not approve."
"Tolerance implies both the ability to punish and the conscious decision not to. It is usually applied to non-violent, consensual behavior, often involving religion, sex, or politics. It rarely permits violent behavior."
I would assume that no persecution of those engaged in violent behavior is an example of "inappropriate tolerance". But "violent" behavior leaves a crapload of gray/grey area (violent as in violently chopping down a tree, violently attacking an animal, another person... the reasons for doing so, what's acceptable, what's not, etc).
The reason i'm asking, is because i'm a bit bothered by some of the stuff i've been reading lately. E.g. "some things deserve more tolerance than others" seems to show a parellel to "some people are more equal than others". If used by a powerful group, with lots of followers, to perform evil deeds, it seems like "tolerance" could be corrupted quite badly, yet still stand up in the minds of many as valid "tolerance".
There are several examples of where the tolerant seem to come off as intolerant. For instance, banning "hate speech" (oh goodie, another gray/grey area). I'm sure many of you read slashdot, so I don't have to elaborate there hopefully.
Some people might argue that Tolerance is better in whole, because people's ideas of it differ, BUT that doesn't seem good as a whole to me, because it might prevent people who aren't being as tolerant as they should from seeing the wrong they're committing (well, the wrong in my mind. there's no universal rule set that at least I'M aware of).
I wouldn't have even asked if it weren't for the possible groupthink effect on people. A sort of "well, everyone in my normal group feels this way, therefore everyone else should think similarly" thing. That might make sense, but of course something making sense doesn't make it so, logical fallacy. Not everyone seems to be aware that's a logical fallacy though. Not everyone seems to even know what a logical fallacy is.
Excuse my bad grammer.
Just wondering if anyone here had any opinions :P.