Russ's Ravings: Toxic Tolerance Is Complicity

Editor's note: The following is Patch Field Editor Russ Crespolini's, hopefully, weekly column. It is reflective of his opinion alone.

We've crossed a line where tolerance is being exploited. People who have stood silent to the horrors around them are calling for civility only because it helps shield them and their distasteful agenda.

Full disclosure, I was an incredibly judgmental teenager and young adult. Anyone who knew me then can attest to that. Much of it was trying to find my place in the world and trying to justify my own thoughts.

As I grew older, became a parent, confronted my demons things changed. I entered a field where my neutrality was not only an asset but it was demanded. And I continue to function like that to this day.

"There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and shame the devil."

That is a famous quote by Walter Lippmann but it is not one of the quotes about journalism I use often. Lippman was a reporter for a time and coined key phrases like "stereotype" and "cold war" and won a Pulitzer Prize for column writing. He also believed the function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act. And he saw difficulty in finding overlap.

Uncovering truth is rare in this industry due to a myriad of constraints, and what we are left with is constructing narratives, the best narratives possible. But those narratives reflect our experience and ignorance as well.

I don't belong to a political party. I don't believe in any sort of dogma, or labels of any type. I respect the rights of others and defend the rights of others even when their views don't align with mine.

My ballot this year looks like I was playing pong because I vote based off of candidate and platform and never party.

At work my hate mail and praise mail is equal parts partisan, rarely tipping from one side of the other. If someone is calling me a conservative mouthpiece in one email the next says I am a libtard. And for work, I tolerate it. The ignorance, the name-calling, the threats. It is part and parcel of what we do. And it also shows that is struck a nerve when you live in the head of someone rent-free.

The hope, is that they chew on it long enough to find some growth.

But in my personal life I have noticed there has been a societal shift in the last few years. A movement that has brought the zealots and the fringe squirming out into the light.

And I am not only talking about the conspiracy nuts like QAnon (and the people who spread human trafficking misinformation) or Proud Boys and, you know, Nazis.

I am talking about the people who want the opinions of THOSE people held in the same regard as anyone else's. Because then their own opinions, which are often abhorrent, are easier to push forward.

They will post memes on social media about how people can vote differently or believe differently and still be friends. They will post misinformation and claim "well both sides do it." In the past, it was acceptable to be tolerant of the polite, well-educated people looking out for only themselves at the expense of others.

I believe we are beyond that now.

The stakes are just simply, too high.

How many people who claim that their issue to rally behind is limiting the reproductive rights of others but have engaged in premarital sex? Had extramarital affairs? Used condoms? Got divorced?

Why can't they say the same magic words to their deity and be absolved of those sins?

Because it isn't actually about that.

It is about control. The shame of sin driving you to a confessional and to the donation box. The shame of it controlling your actions until your "union" and decision to procreate is deemed worthy in the eyes of an institution devoid of marital insight.

This type of domineering is leading to theocracy. And we are not a theocracy to be guided by a religion.

The same people who were cheering protesters being injured in the streets (and likening everyone of them to looters) were demanding respect and civility when a COVID outbreak hit positions of power.

"How terrible you are to wish harm on another!"

A week earlier these same people were encouraging and cheering on the kidnap and murder of Americans here on our soil. And went stone silent when the plot to kidnap and murder the governor of Michigan was foiled.

There are people stealing pro police signs and defacing them. Businesses are burned and damaged. They throw trash on the lawns of people and shout epithets just because they don't agree with a candidate choice. And people try to excuse that behavior. This isn't about sides or whataboutism. It is about universally what should and shouldn't be condemned.

But they deal in absolutes, and they try to make it ok and it is not ok. Not all police officers are bad, not all protesters are looters. But there are things being called into question before like they never have been in the history of our nation. Science itself has been turned into a weapon to wield rather than a standard to hold ourselves to.

Epidemiologists and infectious disease experts are being given less credence than a chiropractor with a YouTube video. The "do your research" people want all information to be weighted the same.

But we can't tolerate that anymore. Because it is a false call for equivalency.

For these people pushing the boundaries, their quality of life was never decided by a Supreme Court case. Their medical sovereignty wasn't taken away from them by others. And they've never had to defend your life or livelihood out from behind a keyboard.

If it was? There would be no end to the railing. How do I know this? I watch you whine about wearing a mask. I watch you complain about virtual learning. I watch you scream about every inconvenience imaginable both publicly and privately.

Can you imagine if there was an actual hardship you were facing?

But because it isn't a real threat to you, or your rights, or your bank account, you hide behind a call for civility.

And while I will still respect the right you have to take up this position. And I will defend your right to show the world who you are, I also do not have to put myself in a position where I have to tolerate it in my personal life like I do my professional life.

There was a time in my profession where we didn't give equal time to nonsense. But we've been shamed into it, slowly.

I share this with you today, because so many of my readers are struggling. They are fighting with their relatives, their friend and coworkers. They are warring with themselves, trying so hard to chart a course when there is so much turmoil.

So I am giving you the advice I give myself: I have no obligation to tolerate the views of those who would hurt my loved ones through action or inaction. Tolerance, is complicity.

So yes, we can have different opinions. But being friends is no longer the high road. It sends the wrong message. I am raising a daughter in a world where there are those who want to make her less than a full person. A world that already has those designs on people I love. And there is no place in this world I am leaving for her, for the likes of you.

Russ Crespolini is a Field Editor for Patch Media, adjunct professor and college newspaper advisor. His columns have won awards from the National Newspaper Association and the New Jersey Press Association.

He writes them in hopes of connecting with readers and engaging with them. And because it is cheaper than therapy. He can be reached at russ.crespolini@patch.com

This article originally appeared on the Long Valley Patch