"I disagree with you, but i don't think you're Hitler"

[Angrboda]

If I was left wing though, I would expect me and other left wingers to stand up and fight Stalin. If I was right wing, I'd defend being right wing but also fight the exploitation of the masses. Whatever ideology I subscribed to I would expect to defend it's true position from extremes of any kind, the same thing I expect of religious folk. More so from religious folk, seeing as at least being right or left wing is subscribing to ideas that clearly exist. If you choose to be of whatever religion and claim it to be peaceful, when someone comes along and uses your religion to cause suffering you should be on the front-line of fighting them, otherwise don't bother with the religion because without the peaceful masses of any religion there is no way religion would have power to cause the evil it does.

In this same sense, all Americans 'caused' 9/11. All Americans are guilty of the wrongs that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney committed while in office. I'm guilty for President Obama being in office, because I did not vote. And yes, perhaps all of the Weimar Republic was responsible for the murder of 6,000,000 Jews. What's missing here is a sense of proportion, and an acceptance that we can't -- perhaps even shouldn't -- eliminate all evils. Here we are, arguing whether we shouldn't "police our own", and I have to agree in the main that while I may not agree that being a dick is the most effective policy, so long as it hurts no one, then I don't feel inclined to pressure that person or persons to behave differently. Likewise, while I may not agree with the Fred Phelps of the world, I don't fault more moderate Christians for his existence. Sure, all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing -- but that's where most of us live, doing nothing. Who among you atheists have done something concrete today to oppose the evils of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Communism, Democracy, etc -- the list goes on indefinitely. Most of us are plenty busy just being who we are. And If I fault the moderate Christian for doing the same then I am a hypocrite. I did not make the evils of this world and if they gain sustenance by flying under a banner that I share [those few evil Taoists], then I do not feel shame if I do not spend my waking moments opposing them. Perhaps I bear some blame for allowing them to borrow the cloak of legitimacy from me, but it's not like I supplied the gun they used to kill someone with. The blame, if it exists, is proportionately less; way less.