+ Yes, our family shops at Wal-Mart. It’s not our first choice, but sometimes you need to go there; no need to feel guilty about that. When we can, though, we patronize the mom and pop shop, as a matter of principle.

+ Modern conservatism is not focused too much on money and power? Jack Abramoff, hello? A president and a Congress that spend out the wazoo to stay in power (and a political culture that lets them get away with it)?

+ You can’t easily separate culture from politics and economics, of course, but in the end, the culture of any given society has more to do with whether that society will survive, and/or be a good society, than its political system or economic arrangement. As we are now learning in Iraq. John Adams, in 1798, wrote: “We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

+ “Beauty is more important than efficiency.” That’s vague, but again, arbitrary. Pencil factories are ugly as hell, but very efficient. Without them, we would have to pay much higher prices for beautiful handmade ones. Yes, and you can worship God under a tent on the edge of the garbage dump, and he’ll hear your prayers just as sure as he’d hear the prayers of someone sending them up from Chartres cathedral. But wouldn’t you really rather be in Chartres cathedral?

+ How do you know our culture is media-driven? That’s an old chestnut of the left. What’s it doing here? Have you considered that cause and effect are reversed? Maybe those who are culturally, and/or spiritually, dead prefer pop culture. Research hasn’t shown much impact on culture from media; media tends to reflect, not cause, culture. Anyway, what would you do about it? Do you want to repeal the first amendment?

Good grief! Of course the culture is media-driven – that point is so obvious it hardly seems worth commenting on, but if you have any research to the contrary, send it on. If you read the book, you’ll see that all I say is that people should voluntarily limit their consumption of pop culture. I don’t see what the freak-out is for.

+ I would love to rebuild an old house in an established neighborhood, but I can’t afford it; I have two kids in college. I suspect that only wealthy cons can become Crunchy. Yeah, that’s me, living on a newspaperman’s salary, sitting inside my posh pleasure palace, lighting cigars with $100 bills and ordering Little Lord Fauntleroy pants for the boys from Neimanmarcus.com. Actually, the house we bought was pretty cheap, because 10 years ago this neighborhood was filled with drug dealers. Our house is not much bigger than some people’s garages. And we love it because small as it is, it’s beautiful, and it’s close to work so I don’t face a long commute when I’m late getting home at night. Come on, Mr. McKinney, read the book. Wal-Mart sells it.

+ If you want to encourage people to adopt your lifestyle, fine. But if you want to use the power of the government, i.e., the gun, to force people to be like you, that’s scary, and not very Christian or conservative. I only propose, I do not seek to impose. Again, read the book. You’ll see.