I had an interesting discussion with one of my children's upcoming school teachers. It had to do with grading handwriting, and whether or not a spelling word that had a letter incorrectly formed should be marked as wrong. I'm not going to get into our separate opinions, but rather the fact that as two intelligent people we listened to each other. We tolerated the other's opinion even if we disagreed with it.

Why is this such a hard thing to do? Whether it's politics, religion, coworkers or simply a parent and a teacher trying to understand each other, it seems that no one is willing to tolerate an opinion contrary to their own.

Different opinions are what makes the world interesting, but it's also what starts wars. How many different Christian religions are there around the world? All of them believe basically the same thing, but each seems to think that they're MORE right than the next.

There's another aspect of Tolerance that doesn't get talked about much. Why is it that those who demand tolerance don't practice it. I've seen far to many groups and organizations that demand equal treatment, yet ostracize those that dissent.

In the end what I want to say is this. I'm a person, I have opinions, I'll listen to yours, but just because I listened doesn't mean you changed my mind.