[Amy Welborn 02/21 07:53 PM]When I read Crunchy Cons, I found myself frequently wondering, “Who’s he arguing with? Who disagrees with this?” Rod’s description of a life in which a priority is given to forming character, seeking meaning and living, for lack of a better word, humbly, didn’t strike me as terrifically radical. I welcomed the book, but I, not being versed in the ins and outs of conservative political philosophy, couldn’t see why it was controversial.
I expect I will in coming weeks, as echoes of the original discussions on NRO will undoubtedly resound here, but I do think that my sense that it isn’t bizarre to be a “conservative” who also eats organics, doesn’t want to have their land backed up by a factory farm and its by-products, homeschools and prefers crafted to manufactured is impacted by my long-term red-state residency in the Midwest and the South and absolutely no interaction with policy wonks, professional ideologues or political operatives, except through the “pages” of spots like this.
I lived in Florida for years — Florida where everyone, no matter what party, has mixed feelings about development, wants to preserve the water table, such as it is at this point, the wetlands, the Everglades and the beaches, and where everyone wonders if the newest stucco-plastered development is really the best thing.
Now I live in Indiana, where new Wal-Marts are often greeted with the same skepticism as they are in California, where small farmers are not wild about factory farming, to say the least, where the Amish thrive as they meet the demand for produce that actually tastes like something.
I’ve given birth assisted by midwives, nursed my babies, known tons of homeschooling parents (I’m not one, unless you count muttering, “Yeah, that’ll teach you” as “homeschooling.”), and many of the people I’ve known through those channels don’t see those choices as particularly compatible or incompatible with any political movement. My last two babysitters have been organic fanatics who would be surprised to learn that because of that, they must be political liberals.
In this part of the country, in my part of town in particular, buying old houses and fixing them up isn’t a bohemian luxury — it’s the most affordable housing in town, and ripping up shag carpet, shining up those hardwood floors and treasuring your crown molding is just what people do.
So part of me has a hard time seeing what the big deal is — partly because I’ve never experienced the choices that Rod describes as particularly characteristic of liberals, not in my house or in the lives of my acquaintances, and partly, I suppose, because…I agree with him.
