Live-and-Let-Live
We were in St. Charles, Illinois in a leadership development forum fixated on every word spoken by anti-apartheid leader Denis Goldberg. Goldberg spent his entire life fighting for racial equality in South Africa. He was a close friend and die-hard supporter of Nelson Mandela, and like Mandela, Goldberg spent 22 years in prison before apartheid was finally ended in 1994, ushering in Mandela’s election as South Africa’s first President. The room, packed with hundreds of Accenture leaders, sat stunned into silence. It was time for Q&A and it seemed no one knew how to follow Denis’ stories of extraordinary sacrifice and relentless hope. I nervously rose to ask Denis a question. “Sir, what can we, as global business executives, do to advance the cause of equality you devoted your life to serving?” Denis briefly paused, gripped his cane to sit up straight, and stared directly into my eyes and said, “It is simple, be tolerant of everyone except the intolerant.” It was as if he had tattooed these words directly on my heart. Ever since then, anytime I read or hear news about inequality or injustice in the world, I am left with this phrase ringing in my ears:
Be Tolerant of Everyone Except the Intolerant
Richard M. Fiero is an exemplar of being tolerant of everyone except the intolerant. Fiero is the U.S. Army combat veteran who recently tackled the Club Q gunman and beat him bloody with the gunman’s own handgun preventing him from killing and injuring even more innocent people. The gunman targeted an LGBTQ+ bar on a night when there was a drag show and killed five people and injured at least 18 more. Other patrons assisted Fiero. One wrestled the gunman’s rifle away from him and one of the drag dancers stomped the gunman with her high heels. Fiero was at Club Q with his family to watch one of his daughter’s friends perform a drag act. It was his first time at a drag show and he said, “These kids want to live that way, want to have a good time, have at it. I’m happy about it because that is what I fought for, so they can do whatever the hell they want.”
This idea, that everyone should be able to live their life the way they want to live it, was foundational to the formation of the United States of America, modern France, and many other free nations. While not everyone was free or treated equally at America’s founding, this definition of liberty is based on natural rights. “All men are created equal.” We are endowed with freedoms at birth which are not dependent on government laws. They are universal and inalienable. Many have argued that the only restriction on these rights should be the harm principle or situations where someone’s actions do harm to others. France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, which Thomas Jefferson consulted on, said:
Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.
While many underrepresented groups in the U.S. have been subjected to laws that have encroached upon their personal liberties, history, for the most part, has shown a progression toward more freedom. In the Supreme Court Case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), a 6–3 vote struck down a state law that compelled public school students to salute the American flag and say the pledge of allegiance. One of my favorite quotes about the United States was written by Justice Robert H. Jackson in his majority opinion: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
What makes America great is there is no American religion, no American gender, no American race, no American ethnicity, no American country of origin, and no American sexual orientation. What makes America great is you can believe what you want, say what you want, read and write what you want, own a gun or not own a gun, smoke, drink, or abstain from both, and love and marry who you want. In America you can choose to stand and salute the flag or take a knee in silent protest, or even burn the flag in fiery protest, because this is America. What binds us together as Americans is an absolute rejection of tyranny and infringements of our natural born rights. What makes us a more perfect Union is radical acceptance of what others want to believe and do so long as it does not harm anyone else. You can disagree with what your neighbor believes, says, and does and still respect their right to do it, especially if you want them to treat you the same way.
What makes America great is when we live-and-let-live. America, it is high time to be tolerant of everyone except the intolerant and for them, stomp them with a high heel.
