Can one be both conservative *and* tolerant?

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The current system does a better job, statistically, than lynching. The underlying assumptions remain largely the same. A similar correlation exists between enslavement and imprisonment.

I disagree you have more choice in being in prison than a slave has. Slavery is hundreds of times worse than slavery. At least in prison there are basic outlines for the treatment of prisonsers, sure they are not always followed. Lynchings were clearly more effective keeping AAs down. Today we have many time more AAs willing to speak out and succeed than ever before.

Good one

Those questions beg several others. Tolerant of what? Who defines tolerance and bigotry? Or for that matter, who defines liberalism and conservatism? Most people identify with a political label and then let the media tell them what people under this or that label are supposed to believe. Usually when the power elites, working through the media, want to effect some sort of social change they'll declare that some subset of society are being denied their "rights". Then a mass of tiresome drones calling themselves "liberals" will rally to the cause, and delude themselves that anyone who does not rally to the same cause (i.e., anyone who continues to believe in things everyone believed in only two years ago) is their moral and intellectual inferior. "Liberals" won't admit they're just pushing their own agenda (or the power elite's agenda really); they'll claim they're representing concepts like "tolerance" itself. And conservative drones let them, which is why conservatives always end up caving in to liberal crusades within ten or twenty years.

I really tried avoid this thread and I'm posting this late.

No - the two are mutually exclusive. You're trying to meet a politically engineered/hacked/baked definition of 'tolerant' that's in direct violation of definition 1) in the Oxford dictionary. It's a word-war, you don't win by any other means than bringing a dictionary into battle and being willing to use it.

Sounds like a personal problem. I don't know anyone that aimless and empty. Unless you are projecting, in which case nice to meet you.

It doesn't always seem conservatives cave. Abortions been legal for a while and the religious right still hates it. I didn't see seem that way for segrgation and interracial marriage. I would say both parties are bought and paid for by powerful elites/corporations.

Well obviously! They bet on both sides so they win either way.

Politics is little more than theatre. Actually it's more like pro-wrestling.

I'm not saying the outcome is fixed like in pro-wrestling (because I'm not a conspiracy nut) but the drama and feuds and chest-beating are pretty similar.

Best to be as moderate as you can be. You got radical hypocritical liberals who preach of tolerance yet cannot fathom an opinion that differs from their own and this whole conservative rescue that will eventually collapse upon itself just like the left did after Bush.

Alright, let's go with oxforddictionaries.com:

Showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behaviour that one does not necessarily agree with.

We'll use the same source for "conservative":

1 Averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.

2 (in a political context) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially conservative ideas.

Not seeing the logical exclusion here.

I suggest that a: intolerance (as defined above) is not exclusive to any ideological or political position and b: aversion is not synonymous with intolerance. One can be averse to new ideas yet tolerate their existence, averse to same-sex marriage yet tolerant of those who choose to avail themselves of one.

We're all both progressive and conservative (in their practical senses) as it suits us. Where we differ is in those things we hold extreme views of, and those things about which we are more moderate.

I too was reluctant to respond here, but on the basis that the original question is rather a stupid one. "Conservatism" and "liberal" are not antithetical. Likewise, "tolerant" and "conservative" are entirely compatible, depending on the degree of conservatism. If we're going to pretend all ideologies trend to extremism in every case, then everyone is equally intolerant and we can give up on the democratic process.

I think you missed what I meant by that. Tolerance, in the Oxford dictionary, is very different from 'tolerance' as it's taught on the left.

Does that help at all?

Well if we're going with the definitions of the "left", by which I'm assuming you mean the language of Progressives, it's all Newspeak. I thereby revise my answer to:

Pancake.

I understand the "present-day" definition of "left wing" and "right wing." And I understand its usage here.

But I don't think "progressives" like Teddy Roosevelt would have been considered "left wing" in their day.

To me, "the left" means someone who blatantly espouses socialist/communistic ideas. "The right" means somebody who espouses reactionary ideologies like Nazism, Fascism, ultra-nationalism. In most cases, both "the left" and "the right" by the "old" definition don't believe in representative government at all (except for something like a "council" hand-picked by a dictator).

I believe it is a rare Democrat who is a "leftist," and a rare Republican who is a "rightist."

Oxford makes a distinction between socially and fiscally conservative, which are the labels used in the US. The location also makes a difference. A social conservative from the Netherlands would likely be tolerant, since they have a tradition of tolerance. The US has a tradition of violent suppression of differences, so a social conservative in the US could not be tolerant.

A fiscal conservative would neither be tolerant nor intolerant, except as it affected their bottom line. No such person exists, to my knowledge. People have preconceptions and use heuristics, for the most part.