![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Crime and Tolerance
Aug. 6th, 2004 07:25 pmI filled out an application at a bookstore today. It asked a few yes or no questions, and they all had a "Yes" check box and then a "No" box, with one exception. The question asking if I'd been convicted of a crime had the "No" box first. Are they hoping people will slip up and admit to crimes they didn't commit? Or are they just trying to see if you're paying attention?
Anyway, to get to the main thrust of this post, I generally consider myself to be a fairly tolerant person, but there are some behaviors that I just have trouble accepting. A big one here is drug use. I have trouble respecting people who do drugs. Is that wrong? I mean, I can justify it to myself by saying that it's a matter of choice, and drug users made a stupid choice. I'm sure there are people who can do drugs without hurting anybody, and who can still function normally. It still makes me uncomfortable, though. Maybe it's largely my incredibly sheltered life. Drugs were just never part of my paradigm, and it's disturbing that they are for a significant portion of society. Am I being intolerant through ignorance? I have to wonder about that sometimes. There are other kinds of behavior I tend to be intolerant toward, like sleeping around, for instance. The drug issue is the one I seem to keep coming back to, though.
I've been looking up stuff about similarities between the Bible and pagan religions. There are some interesting comparisons out there. Not that they'd be likely to interest most other people. I'm so boring, aren't I?
Anyway, to get to the main thrust of this post, I generally consider myself to be a fairly tolerant person, but there are some behaviors that I just have trouble accepting. A big one here is drug use. I have trouble respecting people who do drugs. Is that wrong? I mean, I can justify it to myself by saying that it's a matter of choice, and drug users made a stupid choice. I'm sure there are people who can do drugs without hurting anybody, and who can still function normally. It still makes me uncomfortable, though. Maybe it's largely my incredibly sheltered life. Drugs were just never part of my paradigm, and it's disturbing that they are for a significant portion of society. Am I being intolerant through ignorance? I have to wonder about that sometimes. There are other kinds of behavior I tend to be intolerant toward, like sleeping around, for instance. The drug issue is the one I seem to keep coming back to, though.
I've been looking up stuff about similarities between the Bible and pagan religions. There are some interesting comparisons out there. Not that they'd be likely to interest most other people. I'm so boring, aren't I?
