Posted by Matt Holdridge on 03/17/10 3:19 PM Last updated 03/17/10 3:25 PM   [Newer: Idaho signs anti-health-insurance law] [Older: Pelosi's Plan to Pass Health Care Without Traditional Vote]

This is a bit of an old article but in the midst of all this distressing news, I thought it would be nice to entertain something more lighthearted, intriguing, and wholesome that speaks to many of us in our movement. 

From NPR (Read more and listen to the segment here): 

What is a Crunchy Conservative? 

At a time when the Republican Party seems to be fracturing from within, commentator Rod Dreher says it's time for the GOP to return to its roots. And he thinks conservatives could find inspiration from fellow Republicans who embrace a counter-cultural yet traditional conservative lifestyle -- what Dreher dubs "Crunchy Cons."

"Crunchy cons prefer old houses and mom-and-pop shops to McMansions and strip malls.... Many of us homeschool our kids, and cheerfully embrace nonconformity. I read Edmund Burke and wear Birkenstock sandals. Go figure."

This is from Chapter One of Rod Dreher's book, Crunchy Cons.

A few summers ago, in the National Review offices on the east side of Manhattan, I told my editor that I was leaving work early so I could pick up my family's weekly delivery of fruits and vegetables from the neighborhood organic food co-op to which we belonged.

"Ewww, that's so lefty," she said, and made the kind of face I'd have expected if I'd informed her I was headed off to hear Peter, Paul and Mary warble at a fund-raiser for cross-dressing El Salvadoran hemp farmers.

Lefty? Moi? But on the subway home to Brooklyn, I had to admit she was right.

A taste for organic vegetables is a left-wing cliche, and here I was, a writer for the premier conservative political magazine in the country, leaving my post on the front lines to consort with the liberals in my neighborhood as I filled my rucksack with the most beautiful and delicious broccoli, carrots, greens, and whatnot in the city. What's up with that?

...We were no doubt responding to the just-picked freshness of the produce, not its organic status, but no matter. At some point, I started hearing more about the kind of lives the farmers who supplied us were living, and the values of simplicity, community, and self-reliance they honored. In all candor, these people were probably to the left of Ralph Nader, but they reminded me of the kind of older farmers and gardeners I grew up around in rural southern Louisiana--deeply conservative folks whose last Democratic presidential vote likely went to JFK.

Posted 03/17/10 6:56 PM Sheri Louisville, KY

The only cliche about self-reliance, healthful eating and wearing sandals is that these actions somehow belong to only a certain group of people. It's when people do these things just to "belong" to said group, rather than through purposeful living, that it becomes cliche.

Posted 03/17/10 9:55 PM Isomies Mechanicsville, VA

Identity politics, people feel an attachment to some party or politician because of similarities in culture, appearance, speech, etc. It's silly. What's missing? Thinking.

Posted 03/18/10 06:54 AM celticreeler Rolla, MO

In the middle you have the great mass of people, who trust the experts who say, "Eat refined/agrichemical laden food! Turn in that detailed census form--you have nothing to hide! Borrow to the hilt on that enormous house--it's "free money! Buy these books for your kids--research has shown that Columbus was just a white interloper!" At both ends you have the people who don't buy it. But at one end you have people who don't believe in ownership of property by individuals, and at the other end you have the small government conservatives who do.

Posted 03/18/10 09:38 AM Commander Yo Fort Collins , CO

I am most definitly a crunchy con. I proudly ride my bike to work I escew corporate stores as much as possible I listen to indie music and progressive math core I love open space/parks (yes they are run by our local government) I recycle I hate watching corn and wheat fields being torn up for corporate housing developments or Wallmarts... Although the collapse of easy credit,regardless of Bernanke, has nearly stopped explosive development in Colorado.

Posted 03/19/10 06:54 AM mastiff Clinton, CT

I LIKE it! I guess I am a Crunchy Con or even better, a Conscious Capitalist: http://reason.tv/video/show/918