I found, by accident, a book called: Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party) by Rod Dreher. Now how on Earth could anyone resist a title like that??? I immediately checked to see how much it cost at Amazon and then checked the online library catalog (have I mentioned how much I love the library?)...and they had it! I got it that very day! And now I am reading, reading, reading. I wish I could read and knit at the same time. Or at least answer all of Child #3's questions without losing my spot in the book... but I digress.
The bottom line is, I am so happy to find that we are not the only people in this country that vote right and live left-like. In the very first paragraph, the author shares that when he told his editor he was heading out to the organic food co-op she responded, "Ewww, that's so lefty." I get the same thing from some of my conservative friends, especially since we live in such a liberal area. I can't even take DH to the Farmer's Market without him figuratively lunging at the throats of the people there. In fact, the local town is so liberal we can't even drive through downtown without hollering "Water board 'em!" out the window at idiot protesters. But we love organic, nutrient-rich food. We also like conserving and preserving the environment! Right now, we are restoring some acreage at Twin Firs with native trees and vegetation (and using it as part of our homeschooling- hey, I'm a hip homeschooling mama).
Chapter 2 is about consumerism... He asks, "How can you be a traditional-values conservative in a society whose very economic structure is designed to separate you, your kids, and your community from those values, and each other?" He touches on how conservatives love to lecture liberal on indulging the sexual appetite, but rarely consider another of God's commandments: thou shalt not covet. Also in this chapter, he talks about television. A teacher of media theory shares his story of raising his six kids without television and how his students acted like he was doing something illegal. But even without television in his home, he still knew what was happening on TV, and he didn't waste four hours per day finding out. We don't have TV either, yet Children #1 and #2 alway knew what was happening on the popular shows, even though we didn't have TV. We do watch the shows we like, on DVD from the library, and that is enough for us. No commercials, no endless noise (unless we are watching Sponge Bob). We spend our evenings hanging out on the couch with the kids or working on the computer instead of wasting our lives. The author then says, "...the computer is TV for intellectual snobs: a time-waster for eggheads who would never throw away an evening watching cable, but who tell themselves the evening was well spent jumping around blog comment boxes..." Oh. Well. I see. I'm outta here... I have some more reading to do...
