Limits

Everything has limits, even tolerance, because not everything in this world is worthwhile. The prophets of yesterday and today sacrificed their lives because they raised their voices and had the courage to say: You are not allowed to do what you are doing. There are times when tolerance means complicity with crime, guilty omission, ethical insensitivity or simply, accommodation.
We should not be tolerant of those who have the power to eradicate life from the Planet and to destroy a great part of the biosphere.  We have to keep them under strict control.
We should not be tolerant of those who kill innocent people or sexually abuse children. We must apply the law to its fullest extent to them.
We should not be tolerant with those who enslave children, making them work to produce goods at lower prices to reap huge profits in the world market.  We must apply to them the world legislation.
We must not tolerate the terrorists who, in the name of their religion or political agendas, commit crimes and slaughter human beings.  We must stop them and bring them before the tribunals of justice.
We must not tolerate those who implement corrupt policies that waste public resources. We have to be especially hard on these people because they squander the good of the whole community.
We must not tolerate those who traffic in weapons, drugs and prostitution, using kidnapping, torture and physical elimination of human beings.  There are clear punishments for them.
We must not tolerate practices that, in the name of culture, cut off the hands of the thieves and force women to endure genital mutilation.  Human Rights must prevail over those practices.
On all these levels we must never be tolerant, but decisively firm, rigorous and severe. This is a virtue of justice, not a vice of intolerance.  If we do not do that, we will have no principles and will be accomplices of evil.
Unlimited tolerance destroys tolerance, in the same way that liberty without limits leads to the tyranny of the strongest. Both liberty and tolerance, then, need the protection of law.  If not, we will see the dictatorship of those whose world vision claims to be the only one, unique, and denies all others.  From this springs anger and the desire for revenge, the breeding ground of terrorism.
Where are then the limits of tolerance?  They are in suffering, in human rights and in the rights of nature.   Tolerance ends whenever a person is dehumanized.   No one has the right to impose unjust suffering on other.
These rights are stated in the Letter of the Human Rights, of the UN, signed by all countries.  All traditions must follow these precepts.  Practices that imply violations of such pronouncements cannot be justified.  The Letter of the Earth protects the rights of nature.  Anyone who violates them lacks legitimacy.
Finally, do we have to be tolerant with the intolerant?  History shows that to combat intolerance with intolerance leads to a spiral of intolerance.  The pragmatic attitude seeks to establish limits.  If intolerance means crime and the evident abuse of others, the rigor of the law must prevail and intolerance must be limited.  Outside of this legal restriction, there must be liberty.  The intolerant must be confronted with the reality that all share as our living space, engaging him in constant dialogue to make him think about the contradictions of his position.  The best path is a total democracy that tends to include everyone without exception, and respects a common social pact.