Since there's no test (a la Jeff Foxworthy) for determining whether one is a crunchy con, I thought I'd go to the source and ask you. My wife Marica Bernstein and I for a long time voted Republican, although being from the localist (limited government) extreme of the party, we've found ourselves increasingly distanced from recent Republican politics. Neither of us are believers in the supernatural--classically speakikng, we're both more agnostic than atheistic (and so have little patience with the Dawkins-Harris-Hitchins blowhards). We're staunch believers in the economic superiority of free markets on a local scale and are strict constructionists about Constitutional issues--especially a "pro individual gun rights" reading of the 2nd amendment, a literal interpretation of the 10th amendment, and a narrow interpretation of the 14th amendment. On these points, we don't sound much like your crunchy cons.
However, it's our lifestyle that warrants the interesting comparison. A few years back we began living a "simpler" life. I've been a long-time collector of old cookbooks, many published by local organizations (church groups, PTA associations) in the south in the 1950s and 1960s, and out of them I've been culling "The Big Food Manual." We started baking our own bread from scratch, making our own wines and sausages, smoking our own meats, and slowly moving further and further "off the grid" (though we still have satellite internet in our cabin--we're not kooks). One of our lefty friends even labled us "right wing hippies" last summer. Our motives for adopting this lifestyle, however, aren't the ones you mention for the crunchy cons. We're doing it to hone our survival skills, preparing for the day when the federal government in this country collapses or turns truly tyrannical, and civil war breaks out. (We judge that day to be in our not-too-distant future, given the outlook for the next couple of national election cycles.)
(Oh, and to assure you--I'm a professor of philosophy and neuroscience at a major research university, and Marica is a biologist by training. We aren't inarticulate boobs.)
So what do you say? Do we warrant a place under your newly-described "tent"? Or are we misfits even for y'all?
Cookbook-collecting decline-and-fall-ists who get called "right-wing hippies"? Can there be any doubt that these people are crunchy cons? Y'all are welcome in the big tent. Just don't let me catch you passing notes while the rest of us have our heads bowed in prayer. ;-D
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David wrote: "By my definition a crunchy con is a devout Christian." So I guess I and my Jewish bretheren Rod wrote of in his book aren't welcome then, huh, David? Very Christian of you.
Marcia, The late 60s and the early 70s saw a homegrown terrorist movement in the form of various radical organizations. The most "successful" (ick) of them, the Weather Underground, carried out a large number of bombings.
There were attacks on our troops and sailors abroad in the 80s. In the 90s we saw the Oklahoma City travesty, also homegrown and from the right, and the first World Trade Center bombing by the same network that eventually succeeded on Sept. 11. In the latter, there was also the factor of a new government that could not be induced to take the threat seriously.
Apparently the Clinton administration weighed heavily the idea of going after Al Quaeda between the election and the changeover, but decided to hand the information to the new government. How seriously they took that threat is history. Is that a failure of a generation (or two) or of a government? I don't think this is a distinction without a difference. The current situation in Iraq is the result of a government, as may be an impending disaster in Iran if the neo-con insanity is allowed to play out. Let's hope it does not. I am not sure where this idea that we don't have the mettle, as a people, to fight a real struggle. The "war on terror" is a travesty, an excuse for creeping fascism and implementation of an agenda that was cooked up long before Sept. 11. The actions taken by the administration have played into the hands of the enemy, creating more danger than was originally at hand. There is a large population in the world with no hope, and instead of being the beacon of hope, this government... oh, never mind. Everyone knows. As for cookbooks, the best ones I find are the last 30 years of natural foods cookbooks and even some of the fancy ones, now that organic and natural foods are considered chic instead of a throwback. The Farmhouse Cookbook, the French Farmhouse cookbook, the Italian - er - some farm cookbook by Lynn Rosetto Kasper (the book after The Splendid Table) are great. So is Annemarie Colbin's The Natural Gourmet and Greens, Glorious Greens by XX?. Prairie Home Cooking (I'm in Minnesota) and Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland are great.
To Annonymous, You misinterpreted my comments. Rod has crafted a narrow definition of who is and isn t a crunchy-con. It has been my opinion that a crunchy-con is a devout Christian. But now that you mention it, I suppose any devoutly faithful person within the Judeo-Christian sphere would probably fit.
When someone describes himself as not being very religious , or atheistic, or whatever, he should be given a different title. That shouldn t be intended as a put-down, it s just an attempt to categorize things properly. Look at it this way: A pork chop isn t kosher, no matter how good it tastes.
As far as I'm concerned, a Crunchy is anyone who believes with Ennius: "The Roman State stands on its ancient customs and its manhood."; but of course you must replace the adjective modifying 'state' with one that fits your case.
Rod?
Nice, armchair! Could you give me a citation for the Ennius? If it's from the Annales I'm sure it will be in Skutch's edition of the fragments.
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