The news first started appearing on my Facebook feeds page — Sheriff Arpaio is forced off stage by a bunch of singing protesters.

If Arpaio had the podium to himself and was delivering a speech, a protest, like the one that took place, would have been far easier to understand. After all, like Lou Dobbs before he left CNN, there isn’t anything new that Arpaio could have possibly said that would have been enlightening – just a regurgitation of the same old rhetoric.

However, a forum that puts other people in control over the questions Arpaio answers would have been enlightening. Even if he had repeated the same rhetoric, the journalism professors on that stage would not have let him get off without hard questioning. In fact, it would not have been surprising if Arpaio had walked off the stage during their forum since he would have probably perceived their line of questions as offensive and lacking the respect he thinks he deserves.

But we’ll never know.

It’s one thing to protest a single individual who has control of a certain platform, whether it be a podium or a TV show, but it’s quite another to protest, to the point of shutting down, an open forum that can go beyond canned rhetoric and force answers that usually are avoided.

If the protesters had wanted to make their disapproval known, they could have done so in several ways: protest before the event (which they did), boo when he was introduced, boo at his answers, stand up with their backs to the stage, don’t applaud, wear t-shirts with anti-Arpaio text, etc.

But to shut down a free exchange where Arpaio doesn’t control the event, was not only a missed opportunity but a disturbing sign that tolerance only exists for these protesters if people agree with them.

And tolerance is the key.