The thing is, this sort of truism seems so flat and weak. I'd even say it's the symptom of something worse and increasingly prevalent – skin-deep, black-and-white thinking that ignores the complexity of any interesting issue. It's thought-terminating clichés all the way down.

Almost every single member of society draws a line at some point between things they think are acceptable and should be tolerated, and things they think are unacceptable and should not be tolerated. The interesting questions are in figuring out how we build a shared, messy consensus that most of us can live with – one that protects the right of people to speak freely and without fear while protecting the rights of others.