Liberty Minute April 7 2014

Forty years ago, Marxist academic Herbert Marcuse devised a doctrine called ?Repressive Tolerance? in which the concept of tolerance was weaponized in the service of cultural revolution. While revolutionaries were out of power, Marcuse taught, they should demand tolerance from those who defend traditional values and institutions. Once in power, however, the revolutionaries were to abolish tolerance for those with whom they disagree.

As Marcuse wrote: ?Liberating tolerance ? would mean intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the left.? Officially sanctioned intolerance would include suppression of ?discussion and propaganda, of deed as well of word.? That is to say that there would be no freedom of speech for those who peacefully express opinions now deemed to be reactionary.

Marcuse?s doctrine of ?repressive tolerance? was put on display recently when Brendan Eich, the former CEO of the Mozilla computer technology company was forced to resign because of a small donation he made several years ago on behalf of California?s ballot Proposition 8. That measure defined marriage as a union of a man and a woman. Eich was targeted as a thought criminal by a revolutionary clique that left-wing entertainer Bill Maher calls the ?gay mafia.? He won?t be the last.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.