"Do we have to show tolerance to the intolerant?" is not the newest question in the book, and historians will probably tell you that in fact free societies stay free if they draw a clear line what is unaccepted behaviour.
Liberty is always a balance act, because if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society. If you live in a "survival of the fittest"-type society that might be acceptable, but that might not be a free society anymore because it fails to protect the freedoms of some within it. If you overregulate and control on the other hand, you will also reduce the total freedom within society.
This is a balance few nations on earth managed to get right for prolonged periods. In my eyes the US didn't get it right for quite a while. Civility is a part of it, but letting people get away with fascist behaviour in the name of tolerance/free speech will potentially put the US (and therefore the whole world) in a much, much darker place.
Liberty is always a balance act, because if you give bad actors freedom in the name of tolerance they will use it to reduce the freedom of weaker actors within society. If you live in a "survival of the fittest"-type society that might be acceptable, but that might not be a free society anymore because it fails to protect the freedoms of some within it. If you overregulate and control on the other hand, you will also reduce the total freedom within society.
This is a balance few nations on earth managed to get right for prolonged periods. In my eyes the US didn't get it right for quite a while. Civility is a part of it, but letting people get away with fascist behaviour in the name of tolerance/free speech will potentially put the US (and therefore the whole world) in a much, much darker place.