More on the topic of tolerance, which I suggest is the core animating principle of the U.S. Constitution in my working book, "Toward a More Tolerant Constitution - Of, By, and For the People"....
From Walter Isaacson's much-lauded new biography on Albert Einstein (another on my holiday wish-list of books):
“[Einstein's] success came from questioning conventional wisdom and marveling at mysteries that struck others as mundane. This led him to embrace a morality and politics based on respect for free minds, free spirits, and free individuals. Tyranny repulsed him, and he saw tolerance not simply as a sweet virtue but as a necessary condition for a creative society. ‘It is important to foster individuality,’ he said, ‘for only the individual can produce new ideas.’…"
