Are we?

I think we are tolerant of different religions and lifestyles. We allow people to practice their faiths as long as they dont come into conflict with our laws, we allow religious groups to set up thier own schools and as long ago as the 1940,s or 50's we gave about 950 million people the right to a British passport though we did back track on that one. I dont think we make particularly repressive laws either.

We treat economic migrants and assylum seekers with the benefit of the doubt and find it very difficult to re patriate people who we find are here illegally.

I think the reason we are tolerant and even tolerant of the intolerant is because we have a stable society with a strong consensus. If that broke down we would be repressive and intolerant. Our treatment of minorities and peoples with fundamentally different beliefs to ours is a measure of our social cohesion and something to be proud of.

Originally Posted by RiceBurner

err - because we're a tolerant people??


what's wrong with tolerance?

Nothing, its good.

On the smug side we can be proud of it without being chavenistic, but I think it took us a long time to get here and its not just in out national character, its also in our affluence and our political concensus. If we lost either of the later I think the tolerance would be severly tested. We probably need to bare that in mind when considering the less tolerant more repressive peoples and regimes.

We are too tolerant and PC bound. There needs to be a greater adherance to common law, non of this constant legislation by Labour, just make the penalty fit the crime and carry the sentence through fully.

Originally Posted by Trunch

We are a tolerant society and long may that continue, but sometimes that tolerance is taken way too far to the detriment of this country's own citizens, and I think it's that that gets a lot of peoples backs up.

I agree with that I think Politicians only represent a small elite sometimes on issues like for example immigration and economic migrants. The first port of call for immigrants and migrants are usually the less well resourced areas of the country or society and then the strain on resourses and the cultural errossion isn't evenly spread. While there may be a net benefit to the country as a whole it may not feel like that if you are competing for scarce resousrses in a relatively deprived area.

Originally Posted by Greenman

Being tolerant as a society is a good thing imo, but there needs to be a clear line as to where the tolerance becomes stupidity and when we are being taken advantage of.

My wife works with assylum seekers as part of her duties and says a large proportion are out for wht they can get and yet there are others who are tragically geniune. Clear lines are not allways so easy to draw in practice.

Originally Posted by Trunch

Exactly, and when it gets to that stage, it fuels the fires of the likes of the BNP which no right thinking person wants IMO.

Dianne Abbot said after the BBC, BNP show, that she believed the majority of the BNP voters arn't even racist they just feel there needs and views arnt being represnted by mainstream politics. I think we have a certain amount of intolerance of our own people and politicians have an unrealistic "let them eat cake attitude". They seem to think the whole population lives in the middle class idyl they aspire to.

i don't think we* are that tolerant, we're just too polite and british to say what we really feel

*you

Its more dis-interest than tolerance. Nobody gives a shit.

i think we're more understanding. given the alternative is suicide bombings etc to prove a point i don't think we're too bad.