One last time ...
[Caleb Stegall  03/08 09:54 AM]

… on agrarianism. Rod, in response to your correspondent, just a few points. First, I am not and have never been advocating on behalf of a “lifestyle.” Second, if I or others praise the virtues (political and otherwise) of the yeoman class I am not saying everyone has to do it, much as one who praises the virtues of the military is usually not saying that everyone must join up. Note Hanson’s figure of a 10% yeoman class. Much like Colonel Jessup argued: someone has to make the sacrifices, take on the hardships, sit on the wall or walk behind the plow, for the rest of us to enjoy the freedoms we have. Actually, I think there are a great number of parallel motivations behind our society’s anti-military turn and its anti-agrarian turn. That might be something worth consideration by conservatives. And finally, if readers don’t like the agrarian argument, it’s not really me they need to reckon with, but stalwart conservatives like Victor Davis Hanson, as excerpted below, for example.