I'm leaving for the great outdoors in an hour or so but I wanted to put a period on the whole Ariel Waldman thing.  It started out as just a post but more and more the people I see on the other end of things (just about everyone on Techmeme) scare me.

Not because they disagree with me but because I realize the opinions they espouse don't match up with the values they claim to have.  You endlessly hear blogger's go on and on about the evils of censorship but the second someone says or does something they don't like its open season on that person. 

Who needs values if you have unbridled emotion I guess...

I keep hearing the argument of...

"What if it was your Mother/Daughter/Wife/Sister?  Wouldn't you want it taken down then?"

and I have to wonder, do these people know what having values even means?  If your values change when applied to those you care about than you simply have no values at all. 

Moreover if you are willing to make exceptions to your values every time someone does something you don't like you have no values at all. 

I was once told that most Germans living in Nazi Germany were people who put a high premium on morality.  The problem is they were willing to make exceptions when it came to people they didn't like...and they didn't like the Jews. 

Values are based on judgment, dislike is based on emotion.  When you allow emotion to overpower your judgement you open yourself up to committing the worst evils that the world can produce and, quite frankly, shutting up a name caller isn't worth that.