What happened to the tolerant left, you ask?

Okay, well… we’re right here. We never went away and we never changed.

Somehow the idea of the tolerant left has morphed, in the eyes of conservatives, into this all-consuming need to tolerate everything. We’re accepting of more religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities. We fight for equal rights for women, LGBT, and minorities. We’re aware of societal racism and want to make changes.

And then…we get upset about the right.

There’s always someone who brings the N-word into the conversation. Or someone who thinks gay people should be put into concentration camps. When they voice that opinion, and the left gets upset, the question always arises: What happened to the tolerant left? Well, there’s a lot of answers to that, to be honest.

First: What do we tolerate? If you think that the liberal left tolerates everything, boy am I here to ruin that view! We tolerate people being themselves and saying what they want to say. As long as it’s not harming anyone, or talking about intent or wishes to harm anyone, we’re good. It’s that simple! We just want people to be able to live without being in fear. It’s as simple as someone wearing a hijab without fear of violence, or living through the long transition from one gender to another and being accepted. Being able to be you without threat of violence or murder is number one priority.

So when someone brings up how “all Muslims are terrorists” or goes on a tirade about how “the gays are ruining society”… we’re not okay with that.

Second question: But what about freedom of speech? This one’s my favorite, and has been brought up a lot since Milo Yiannapoulos was set to speak at Berkeley. Freedom of speech was brought up a lot about why he should not have been protested. Milo’s rhetoric is incredibly harmful to multiple communities (a topic I won’t delve into—this time), and even then his freedom of speech was not compromised. Freedom of speech is simply the right to express your opinions without government interference or censorship. As it turns out-the public isn’t the government, and freedom of speech doesn’t protect you from the consequences of your speech.

You can spew your hate speech all you want, but don’t be surprised when people get angry at you for it.

Third: But liberals are attacking my views??? If your views oppress, belittle, offend, or strip people of their rights—you’re probably receiving backlash. As it turns out, the one thing the “tolerant left” isn’t tolerant of… is intolerance. We’re intolerant towards racism, sexism, and really all forms of hate-speech that degrade entire groups of people. If you think that’s oppression of you and your views, that’s on you. Few quick tips, if you think Christianity, white people, or men are oppressed: you’re already wrong. The largest religion and the people who hold the most power are not going to be oppressed by people who just want to be able to hold rights equal to them.

A lot of what I’ve seen has been the left trying to progress society, and the right being upset about it. I won’t deny that there’s been hate speech towards the right by my fellow “tolerant” left-leaning people. There’s always hate speech on both sides.

But when you think “what happened to the tolerant left?” maybe you should be asking why the right is so intolerant.