I certainly agree that fear is not the best motivation, nor is it ideal. But it is not the job of every last person in society to exercise the patience of a sai

I certainly agree that fear is not the best motivation, nor is it ideal. But it is not the job of every last person in society to exercise the patience of a saint and try to fix such problems on an individual basis A government that is ruling through fear has lost its moral justification. That you'd just say it's not the best nor ideal -- I find this highly suspect. You'd really take a grudging, fake consensus, over just giving people the opportunity to talk as they will and live and let live? It really is analogous to taking fake consent for sex! I'd like people who hate others to do as little damage as possible, and I'd like as little interaction with them as possible, because quite frankly, life's too short. You don't have to look far to find the depredations of people in authority who secretly hate. I'd like hateful authority to do as little damage as possible, and I'd like as little interaction hateful authority as possible, because quite frankly, life's too short. (Not to say that all authority is hateful, of course.) As an aside, I also find your use of the term "infiltrating" interesting; that has fascinating ingroup/outgroup connotations for who you consider infiltrators versus who belongs. There is a pattern of "activists" and media critics doing this to various spheres of interest, and to specific organizations, as well as explicit talks in political groups about doing exactly this. I think "infiltration" is a very apt way of describing such insincere political-agenda driven behavior in a non-political group. As for who belongs: Those who are primarily and genuinely passionate about the area of interest. The poor, the downtrodden, the beleaguered -- people like that have their passions, and they are often the most stalwart and pure in their interests. Very often, for these reasons, they produce the best art. It's no wonder then, that they react to "Carpetbaggers" with passion and vehemence. It's not so different when it comes to interest groups of the affluent. If you want society to make progress, then enable as much sincere, passionate interaction as possible. Balkanizing society into strict divisions based on political viewpoint is exactly the wrong thing to do. Fostering a society where people can interact with those of different viewpoints is the right thing, and this will require the ability to interact with those of highly differing viewpoint -- just so long as it's all live and let live. The version of "tolerance" where it's alright, just so long as everyone agrees with me -- this is just like the "multiculturalism" of many Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, who are all for tolerance, so long as everyone converts to their religion.