Tolerant of Intolerance

One of my political beliefs that I feel might be unpopular is that people should have a legal right to be jerks. Let me quantify that.

Let's say I have an apple, and you want it. I have a right to keep my apple, no matter how badly you want it.

Let's say I have two apples, and I'm only hungry enough to eat one. I still have a right to keep the second apple, no matter how badly you want it.

Let's say I have a dozen apples, and you would like to buy one. No matter how much you offer me, I have a legal right not to trade any of my apples for your money, even if I made a similar trade with someone else earlier. They're my apples. I get to decide if, when, to whom, and for what I trade them.

Let's say I have one thousand apples, and they will all rot if they don't get eaten soon, and that you are literally starving and you will die if I do not give you an apple. I still have a legal right to keep the apples. It would not be morally right for me to keep my apples to myself, but I should have a legal right to do so.

Scrooge was not a criminal; he was just a jerk, and people should have a legal right to be jerks.

However, people should not have a right to physically attack each other or to destroy or steal each other's property. There is a point where behavior becomes criminal. My legal right to be a jerk to you may extend to saying mean things and being selfish, but it doesn't extend to physical violence against you or anything you own.

So, if one person doesn't want to do business with someone else because they don't like the color of their skin, I think they should have a legal right to refuse to do business with them, just as the person of the disliked skin color has a legal right to take their business elsewhere. If a person doesn't want to bake a cake for someone else because they disagree with that person's views of marriage, they have a right not to. It'd be rather petty of them, but I think that people should have a right to be petty, selfish jerks.

People who are discriminated against by other people often call for tolerance, but I'm calling for tolerance, too. I'm calling for people to be tolerant of other people's desires and opinions. I'm calling for people to be tolerant of other people's property rights, and the selfish ways in which they use them. I'm calling for people to be tolerant of other people's intolerance, rather than trying to legally force others to cater to them. Sure, it's rude and selfish and probably morally wrong, but it's not our place to legislate morality, and people have a right to be jerks.