Tolerance ends where darkest hatred begins

Tolerance is often treated as an unqualified virtue. But even virtues have limits.

When men in black shirts marched outside NSW Parliament last weekend waving banners about the influence of  ‘the Jewish lobby’ on Australian politics, most Australians were disgusted.

Yet some tried to pass it off as just another exercise in free speech which needed to be tolerated.

That reaction misses the point. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from moral judgment. And tolerance doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to hatred.

The small neo-Nazi group calling itself the ‘National Social Network’ wasn’t holding a protest; it was staging a provocation. It wanted attention. It wanted to create fear. And it probably wanted to see how many respectable people would defend it in the name of liberty.

A few on social media obliged, insisting that “even Nazis have a right to be heard”. Technically, that’s true; but morally, it’s nonsense. The right to speak doesn’t mean the rest of us must treat every idea as equally valid.

A society that is truly free must depend on limits: respect for law, equal dignity of citizens and rejection of bigotry and violence. Cross those lines, and tolerance loses its meaning.

And yet, this reluctance to draw moral boundaries isn’t confined to one country. It reflects a broader cultural unease on both sides of the Pacific — the fear that condemning the wrong people might make you look like you’ve joined the other side.

Conservative American think tank, the Heritage Foundation, is in a storm of controversy after its president refused to condemn an interview between broadcaster Tucker Carlson and antisemitic, white-supremacy activist Nick Fuentes.

When institutions on the right start equivocating about figures like Fuentes, they invite moral rot from within.

The same risk faces Australian conservatives. It’s not that mainstream liberals or conservatives share the ideology of the far-right. They don’t.

The danger is moral contagion — the temptation to excuse hate because it’s directed at your political enemies. When outrage becomes a substitute for principle, you start losing the very civilisation you’re trying to defend.

Antisemitism has always been more than an offensive opinion. It’s a worldview that corrodes the moral foundations of democracy. Wherever it takes root, civic trust collapses and politics turns poisonous.

We’ve already seen glimpses of this corrosion in other democracies; from conspiracy theories creeping into mainstream debate to online movements that thrive on rage and suspicion.

When prejudice masquerades as patriotism, democratic life becomes a contest of grievances rather than a community of citizens.

Jews, once again, are being scapegoated as symbols of everything the far-right detests:  cosmopolitanism, education, liberalism and even success.

That’s why conservatives who care about law, order, and tradition should see antisemitism not as a fringe issue, but as a direct attack on their own cause.

Real conservatives should be the first to draw a line because they built their tradition on self-restraint, responsibility, and moral order — not resentment.

So what should the right do? Not ban every offensive gathering or censor every crank. That’s the authoritarian reflex of the left.

The answer is moral clarity. And that starts with leadership. Politicians and commentators on the right need the courage to denounce hate without hedging or excuses.

Faith leaders, civic groups and conservative media should model the same discipline because silence, too, sends a signal.

Call out hate when it comes from your own side. Refuse to share platforms with bigots. Don’t confuse provocation with principle.

Freedom isn’t licence; it’s discipline. And tolerance doesn’t mean neutrality between good and evil. Nor does it mean issuing to indulge those who would destroy it.

A society like ours depends on the difficult art of living with difference – of disagreeing without destroying. But that only works if we all accept the basic decency of the other side. The moment hatred enters the picture, the social compact breaks.

Conservatives once understood that. It’s time they remembered it. Freedom without virtue becomes mere licence; toleration without limits becomes complicity.

We are told a healthy society must make space for all opinions, however offensive. But tolerance has limits, and we are now seeing those limits tested by a new and deeply troubling phenomenon — the re-emergence of antisemitism on parts of the political far-right.

Antisemitism is once again a political litmus test. For the conservative movement, it will determine whether it remains a moral force capable of governing or decays into a reactionary subculture shouting at the margins.

The choice is still open. But it begins with the courage to say that tolerance ends where hatred begins.

Peter Kurti is Director of the Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program at the Centre for Independent Studies, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia.