today is a good day, i think...

...for being disgusted at websites i'm nominally-affiliated with and supposed to be regularly producing content for.

in this space, i was about to make rather cruel fun of some article about right-wing christians by some pluralist "lutheran seminarian', but i had second thoughts because it wouldn't be nice to make fun behind somebody's back. so instead i will talk a little bit about "affirming" and "valuing" things.

that is to say, if i ever hear of somebody "affirming" my tradition and "valuing" my religious experience, i will plotz. i mean, sure, i suppose i do "value" the tradition of the orthodox jews. i think there should be more of them and i think they're very cool by me. i "value" or perhaps even "affirm" most traditions and religions in some way [exceptions include: mormonism, modern paganism, genitalia worship [aka liberalism?]...]. i wouldn't tell anybody i affirm their tradition, though: it's contentless and patronizing. everybody "affirms" everything these days except for strawmen. as for valuing things and "values" in general: who cares? one of the stupidest moves by the religious right has been to assume the rhetoric of values in their discourse [the libertarian right is free to do so since they don't believe anything]. the modern nihilistic left is perfectly at home in it, and anybody who is not a nihilist will quickly begin to function as one. the "dominionists" and "theocrats" want governance based on truths about God and man, not on preferences and whims. Rousseau and most of the enlightenment folks, even, wanted governance based on truths about man: not so the moderns, they deny there is any truth about humanity and instead only have values for us to suck on. values are things we think are important, not necessarily things which are important. without grounding these values in some basis, political discourse simply becomes a struggle for power: who gets to impose their preference on the population.

in conclusion: i do not value reason, tolerance, respect for science, personal liberty, or religious freedom.