Mantua Books is releasing my new book later this week.

It is already available through Amazon.com or by email from the publisher at:

mantua2003@hotmail.com.

I will post more information on the book in the next few days.

Mantua is also releasing at the same time the impressive collection of essays by distinguished Canadian author David Solway, entitled Hear, O Israel!

Yesterday, I hiked with my wife along a mountain overlooking the ocean in the brilliant sunshine in this natural paradise of West Coast Canada.

Unlike so many here, I cannot, however, worship nature, just appreciate it.

My thoughts returned to how we have just seen a demonstration, in a Small Claims Court in a middle sized city in Ontario, that so perfectly reflects Tolerism:   Never mind exactly what I said to the hooligans preventing me from exercising my fundamental freedoms, I said something "unpleasant to listening ears" and that is enough for moral equivalence.

A Judge has now opined on the "flavour of what was said" rather than the exact words.   A Court is not too embarassed to try somebody on words without ever determining what exactly what was said and in fact the Judge stated that "I need not attempt to define the exact words used."

And so I realize my "crime":   after being prevented from talking by Islamists who spit on our freedoms, and having no Chapters employee stand up for their guest author's rights to be free of this abuse, and after being called a "fucking Jew", the Kitchener Small Claims Court rules:

"His retort was to describe a group of people as terrorists and his intent was that the two hecklers with whom he had directly engaged in this angry exchange be included within his generalization.”   

Sometimes it takes me a few days for the message to sink in:

My crime was to say there is a such a thing as terrorists, and when confronted with people refusing to let me talk, saying I have no right to talk, because they have a world view of countries where there is no such right, I then supposedly (I say supposedly because after everything, the Judge could not articulate what precise words I said) included these fine recent immigrants within some "generalization".

Now I understand.

I have been re-educated in the Gulag of Political Correctness and Moral Relativism and Equivalency.   The independent media will probably not even see this as a story worth covering.

The Tolerists are winning:   the part time Small Claims Court Judge in Kitchener has ruled:  an “us against them” mentality is the problem, and more tolerance and indulgence towards Islamist extremists is the solution.

I am reduced to a Shylock, being tried as a Vengeful Jew, by a Court which saw me only as a former President of a Synagogue, and chose to not even write about all my work in Race Relations, Affordable Housing and downtown revitalization.   The only thing relevant is my Shylock status.   Read  the last few chapters of my book, Second Generation Radical, on my website, www.howardrotberg.ca.

The Judge didn't have to articulate just what I said, he could comment only on the "flavour".   The Judge didn't appear concerned at all at the conduct of the hecklers or the Chapters employees.   He didn't mention that the Store Manager at first refused to call the Police and I had to insist.  Instead he went to great lengths to validate the actions of the Store against this Shylock making a scene over something so trivial.

Shylocks, having had their humanity robbed of them, having watched their children murdered in every generation, without comment by the elites, are to be blamed for their "us against them" mentality.

Now I understand.

As I have written, granting indulgence and leniency to anti-liberal and enemy ideologies should not be seen as a virtue.   However, the Left is permeated with Toleristic practices.

Here are ten aspects of Tolerism:

1.  Giving abnormal respect to international bodies, like the U.N., even though these bodies (at least as to the General Assembly and the vile Human Rights Committees which have recently been led by such Human Rights luminaries as Syria and Libya) directly contradict all the values by which we are supposed to live.    Check out the last Durban Conference and the upcoming Durban II.

2.  Giving respect and a free ride to "Non-Governmental Organizations" which would be far more scrutinized if they were our own governmental organizations.   And so, the Tolerists who seek to support their positions by reference to statements of NGOs seem not to care how these NGOs are funded, who controls the boards of directors, what their record is with respect to due governance and use of funds, and what level of democracy if any is involved.

3.  Not laughing out loud when a country like Belgium, with its less than stellar history with respect to human rights and the prevention of genocides, assumes jurisdiction to try other national leaders for perceived crimes.

4.  Repeating ad nauseum allegations of America's enemies about how bad American foreign policy has been - when it is clear to me anyway that the foreign policy of Britain, Germany, France, Indonesia, Russia and China and 90% of other countries are much worse.

5.  Trying to make us believe how bad America is when 90% of the world's population, if given the chance, would immigrate to the U.S. in a minute.

6.  Not paying too much attention to how China's military support of Sudan has enabled the Darfur genocide.

7.  Using twisted logic to blame other country's foreign policy failings on the U.S.   This works in tandem with holding the U.S. to moral standards of taking responsibility for its actions, but absolving every other country from that moral standard, and instead supporting victimology and blamology when used by such other countries.

8.  Upholding prohibitions against racist and sexist comments against every possible group in the world, except for American white male redneck evangelical Christian gun-owners.

9.  Agreeing with every enemy propagandist that the West, particularly America, is in serious decline and that liberal democracy is no better than numerous other systems.

10.  Arguing that we should talk for a few more years to Iran about halting their imminent completion of their nuclear bomb program, and then, when pressed that such negotiations would only facilitate Iran's acquisition of such bombs, arguing that Iran does not really mean it when they state explicitly that it will use those bombs against Israel.   This works in tandem with failing to understand that Israel is becoming surrounded by Iranian terror proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas, and naively believing that these are just freedom fighting organizations.

In part one of this essay, I came up with the term "Tolerism" to describe the ideology of excessive Tolerance that is distorting the thought processes of too many in the West.

I pointed out that:

Merriam-Webster defines "tolerance" as:

sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own 

I mentioned that I think that "sympathy" for the human condition is always a good quality.  But what about "indulgence". Merriam-Webster describes the verb "indulging" as:

to give free rein to : to take unrestrained pleasure in : to yield to the desire of : to treat with excessive leniency, generosity, or consideration

Accordingly, I pointed out the problem when a person abandons the religious concepts of Good and Evil, and fails to view beliefs and practices as Evil even when they are inimical to what we should view as fundamental human rights, but instead "indulges" them - i.e. to "treat with excessive leniency, generosity and consideration" and in fact sometimes to "take unrestrained pleasure in".

Treating very bad behaviour with excessive leniency, and even taking unrestrained pleasure in that behaviour, hardly seems to me an admirable ideology.   Yet, over and over again, we are told that "Tolerance" is our most important value. I disagree.

Now, when talking to Tolerists, I avoid the Israel-Arab problem entirely and I just ask them what they would have done with Hitler and the Nazis.   Would it have been an admirable and tolerant position to be lenient with the Nazis?

If you think that the Tolerist mind gives in at that point, I have news for you.  I have now heard the argument, made in all seriousness by a highly educated (but morally infantile) Vancouverite, that the Nazis were, in his opinion, the result of the Allies after World War 1, imposing draconian terms on the losing Germans.   To this Tolerist, then, in an astounding leap of tolerist logic, the Americans were responsible for World War Two and even the Holocaust!

The Tolerists have infected so much of our Cultural Elites.  Here is the example of PenCanada which gave its inagaural 2005 Paul Kidd Award for Journalistic Courage to an anti-American ranter named Paul William Roberts, as if it takes courage nowadays to join the chorus of anti-Americans.   Roberts succeeded in getting a three page excerpt from his nonsensical book carried by the Globe & Mail, which shows the current reach of Tolerism.

Here is my response (in a letter to the editor that the Globe declined to publish) after the Globe published a second article containing the bizarre political analyses of British travel writer Paul William Roberts.

>
"Last September, in three full pages, Roberts expressed his view that the
inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina proves that the U.S. is an
imperial superpower undergoing the death throes of republicanism and
heading steadily toward oligarchic totalitarianism.    Inadequate disaster
planning, yes, but totalitarianism?
>
>
>
Then he wrote of a sense that the American Empire is in decline, that
the only successful wars it has ever waged are the ones against the
environment and its own people.

Its own people?
>
How could he fail to grasp the American achievements in halting Hitler
and Japanese aggression in World War II, and in freeing Eastern Europe and the
Russian people from Communist totalitarianism by winning the Cold War? ... because it is clear that while the U.S. has made many mistakes,
and will continue to make them, (especially in foreign policy), the
reality is that its vigorous democracy, free media and judicial system,
and educated population will continue to keep it a positive force in
world history.  (Especially when one looks at the alternatives.)
>
>
But now we see on your pages a new article by Roberts that claims moral
equivalency between George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  While Roberts
writes about the dangers of Ahmadinejads quest for nuclear arms, and
his pledge to use them to wipe Israel off the map, he astoundingly
comes up with the judgment that To see Irans leader objectively requires seeing Mr.
Bush and his judgments in a similar manner & (the) two men (are) so
mirrored in each other ideologically, emotionally, intellectually and
even spiritually.

>
Ideologically?
>
While his article does provide a summary of Ahmadinejads recent
war-like statements (under a column headed Tough Talker) and while he
does acknowledge that monstrosities are likely to come out of the
Iranian regime, Roberts says we need to understandAhmadinejad because
from understanding comes respectand further (w)e'll have to stop
pretending that weve done nothing to offend denizens of the area.
>
What we do know about Ahmadinejad (and which information Roberts omits)
is the following:
>
During the crackdown on universities in 1980, as part of Khomeinis
Islamic Cultural Revolution, Ahmadinejad played a critical role in
purging dissidentlecturers and students, many of whom were arrested and later
executed.   The universities were closed down for three years, and
Ahmadinejad joined the Revolutionary Guards.   In the early 1980s he was a
member of the Guards Internal Securitydepartment, and earned notoriety
as a ruthless interrogator and torturer.
>
It is believed that he worked as an executioner in the notorious Evin
Prison, where thousands of political prisoners were executed in bloody
purges of the 1980s.   Then he became involved in external
terroristoperations, masterminding a series of assassinations in the
Middle East and Europe.  I fail to see how Bush's involvement in
business organizations and then service as Governor of Texas would compare.

>
Ahmadinajed is actively funding terrorist organizations, and has called
for militant Islam to rule the world.   Roberts' rationale for restraint in
dealing with the man, according to this article, is to refer to a
bizarre, obscenity-laced quote from one of a colourful cast of former
drinking buddies at a London beerhall, who said (and I paraphrase),
that its not a good idea to fight with someone who does not care if he lives or dies.
>
Well, I think we all know that the suicide-bombing crowd is hard to
defeat, but I'd prefer not to give up on the basis of the advice that
Roberts puts forth.
>

Roberts article is so offensive, so juvenile in its anti-Americanism,
and so morally confused that it has no business appearing in any
serious newspaper to whom Canadians are looking to shed light on the issue of
Islamist terrorism and its state sponsors.   I know George Bush is far
from perfect, but spare me comparisons to Ahmadinejad"

And so, Roberts is not only a Tolerist par excellence, but he comes from Britain, the leading purveyour of Tolerist nonsense.  Britain is the home of banned "intolerant" expressions, like "Islamic terrorism" which has been deemed "offensive" to all Muslims.

The "indulging" of the enemy in this war on our freedoms, and the viewing of their abhorrent conduct with "generosity" and "leniency" is a foundation of Tolerism.

Tolerists like Roberts actually seem to take "unrestrained pleasure" in the difficulties of the Americans to fulfill their goals to protect individual freedoms.    PenCanada, in giving an award for "Courage" to infantile Tolerism, shows the dimensions of the problem here in Canada.

I shall return to this topic periodically.

Merriam-Webster defines "tolerance" as:

sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own 

I think that "sympathy" for the human condition is always a good quality.  But what about "indulgence". Merriam-Webster describes the verb "indulging" as:

to give free rein to : to take unrestrained pleasure in : gratify: to yield to the desire of : humor <please indulge me for a moment> b: to treat with excessive leniency, generosity, or consideration

Those who have been reading my blog from the beginning (just one month ago!) know the serious problem I have with the elevation of "tolerance" to the highest value of western civilization, and the extent to which (a) it leaves us open to tolerating what should surely be intolerable; and (b) it creates for some reason in its proponents an intolerance to discussing or even hearing any other points of view.  The concepts of political correctness, moral equivalency, and moral and cultural relativism become the ideological blinders for the denizens of the post-religious utopia that narcissistically looks only inward, and not outward to the obvious world war being waged on liberal values by proponents of Radical Islam or as it is often called, Islamism.

In my blog essay,

A Re-evaluation of Holocaust Commemorations: The Ten Lessons We Should Have Learned

at:  http://secondgenerationradical.blogmatrix.com/holocaust%20museums/

I point out how the over-reliance on "tolerance" has even polluted the religious values of Jews who have self-assumed the role of keepers of the moral of the Holocaust.   Even the Orthodox Jews who run the Wiesenthal Centre's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles have cast aside traditional Jewish values of Justice in favour of the secular confusion of Tolerance.

This can only have assumed the status of an Ideology, a set of beliefs and values which are filtering out every other fact and argument that does not accord with their ideology, which I have chosen to call Tolerism.

For when a person abandons the religious concepts of Good and Evil, and fails to view beliefs and practices so inimical to what we should view as fundamental human rights as Evil, but instead "indulges" them - i.e. to "treat with excessive leniency, generosity and consideration" and in fact sometimes to "take unrestrained pleasure in", then we have a big problem.

My forthcoming book, Exploring Vancouverism:  The Political Culture of Canada's Lotus Land views the "Lotus Land" culture of Vancouver, where organized religion has its fewest proponents on a per capita basis in all of Canada, as a culture that has abandoned the yardsticks of Good versus Evil.   The mariners in Alfred Tennyson's great poem, "The Lotos Eaters" land on the idyllic shores of a Lotus Land where life on the beautiful beaches is complemented by the intoxication of eating the "Lotos" leaves brought by the natives.  Soon the mariners decide not to go back to Greece and resume their struggles for good versus evil, because, after all, what pleasure do they derive from that struggle, as compared to life in Lotus Land.

In fact, if one checks out the on-line Urban Dictionary, (www.urbandictionary.com),

one sees that there is a term being used by young people, called Tolerism, but it is defined as:  One's skill in consuming massive quantities of alcohol without displaying obvious signs of drunkenness.

I suggest that in our wider culture, Tolerism is the skill in consuming massive quantities of political correctness, and moral and cultural relativism, without displaying the obvious signs of the drunken leniency toward, and even taking pleasure in, the slow ascendancy of Islamist values of terrorism, breach of human rights, and attempted reversals of the wonderful liberties and advances made in western societies, where church and state have been successfully separated, and an enormous degree of freedom reigns.

The drunken Tolerists, with the abymsal ideology of Tolerism threaten all that we have accomplished.