Crunchy

I am eagerly awaiting Rod Dreher's new book on small- "c" conservatism and green issues. I was pleased to see this post on the issues by blogger Mark Shea. He says:

" Rod Dreher noted that the air in Dallas is filthy and that there's no particular reason conservatives (whose name is, after all, related to the word "conservation") couldn't make this an issue. He's got an asthmatic kid, and like most normal people, doesn't buy the notion that "What's good for General Concrete and Cement is what's good for the country."

'It was a modest point really. One that would have been perfectly intelligible to Teddy Roosevelt, J.R.R. Tolkien, or C.S. Lewis.

'Result: a curious sort of pile on from the Cornerites, all of whom treated Rod as a) ridiculous, b) not One of the Tribe, and c) simply dismissible.

(Snip)

"What struck me about it was, again, the curious notion that some things simply render putative members of the Conservative Tribe ritually impure. Not keed on filthy air, Rod? You've been hanging around those Tree Huggers too long. There's nothing to discuss. Instead, let's make fun of you. Note, for instance, Podhoretz's nasty reference to Dreher's "new friends". Tribalism, pure and simple"

Read The Whole Thing!.