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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
Clearly the American civil liberties record has deep flaws in it, especially in social and racial justice and toleration of radical political expression, and clearly the record is not as pristine as American ideals are. Yet it must also be remembered that the record would probably not be as good as it is if American ideals were not so high, for they act as a constant standard and constant challenge.
Robert Justin Goldstein (1987)The study of political tolerance remains intriguing, to a great extent, because of a paradox found repeatedly in empirical studies. Americans express strong support for abstract ideals such as free speech and minority rights. The standing decision on democratic principles, absent any context, seems to be one of tolerance. Yet, when faced with unpopular groups exercising particular rights in a particular situation, many people want to limit the freedom of such groups. Everyone should have a right to march to express their political ideas, but not the Nazis in Skokie – or a group I dislike in my town! This disparity could occur because decisions about particular groups conflict with standing decisions about democratic values. It could also occur because contemporaneous information about a particular group and its behavior lead people to arrive at judgments that differ somewhat from their standing decision.
In this chapter, we begin to take seriously that most people actually believe their expressions of democratic ideals.
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