this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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You really should read the article that [email protected] posted (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance#:~:text=The%20paradox%20of%20tolerance%20states,or%20destroyed%20by%20the%20intolerant.)
The TL;DR is that in order to create a tolerant society, ironically, the only thing that cannot be tolerated is intolerance. The paradox comes from the idea that if intolerance is tolerated and allowed to gain any kind of a foothold then the society is no longer tolerant, but if we stamp it out and nip it at the bud then that's also intolerant.
However, the paradox obviously has one preferred outcome which is that intolerance of intolerance is the only way to maintain a (mostly) tolerant society. The other option is letting the Nazis win.
This isn’t an axiom. It’s just Karl Popper’s opinion. One of the few times the paradox of intolerance was actually invoked in a legal setting was in Communist Party of Germany v. the Federal Republic of Germany
The German federal government had petitioned for the Communist Party to be banned in 1952 on the basis that the party's revolutionary practice means "the impairment or the abolition of the fundamental liberal democratic order in the Federal Republic". Following hearings, the Federal Constitutional Court ordered in 1956 that the party be dissolved and its assets confiscated, and banned the creation of substitute organizations.