Don't Permanently Park the Car
[NRO Staff  03/06 05:30 PM]

An e-mail:

It sounds to me like you're saying that food gets special treatment because there's inherently something special about food and how we use it, treat it, and share it. (Or, at least, there CAN BE something special about food; Mickey D's and Manwich ain't it.)

...And that even if I committed myself to giving as many family members and poor kids as possible a white-knuckle, power-drifting ride around the local twisty roads in my Beemer, it wouldn't be the same as a lovingly home-cooked meal shared around a table.

I can buy that. But I wouldn't be so quick to assume, as Bruce does, that cars (and other things not specific to the crunchy-con lifestyle) can't also bring people together. Check out a local hot-rod cruise-in and see if there isn't a community bubbling all around you. People have all sorts of communal hobbies, and I'd think we ought to be happy about all of them. (Though we can certainly argue about the environmental friendliness of some of them.) Granted, me buying a Beemer isn't exactly it, but there are all sorts of ways to find and build communites: I became friends with a neighbor up the street because he saw my wearing a Cleveland Browns t-shirt.