If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.
The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato. “The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek.
