"Crunchy Conservatives" ....a trend in the works?

I was listening to WBAP's David Gold (right after tonite's 2 hour presentation of 24) and he was interviewing Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons. It was a captivating interview and I had to stop what I was doing to listen. Dreher, who has a piece in today's Dallas Morning News on this subject, has been picked up by National Review Online to do a blog with the same title (Crunchy Cons).

It must have been 6 months ago or so when one of our distant friends or relatives mentioned to my wife, after learning we shopped at Whole Foods and sought out organically grown stuff whenever possible, that we were "engaging in a 'liberal lifestyle.'" (Yeah, right! Since when do the leftists have a corner on healthy, good tasting food stuffs?)

Whole Foods does seem to be the mother ship of new agers, libs and remnants or hopeful new proponents of the hippie movement, and as such, I feel like Al Frankin at a Talk Radio convention whenever I shop there. Still, the cornucopia of organic plenty keeps me coming back again and again. But, I sort of digress.

The premise of Crunchy Cons is that there is a growing trend of conservatives who don't necessarily tow the republican line when it comes to stereotypes. We're sick and tired of the social engineering going on in government schools so, many of us homeschool our kids. The homeschool movement is growing exponentially by those who may be "crunchy cons." In fact, many of us were "crunchy" way before it was cool!

According to Dreher, the "crunchy cons" are countercultural:

.....choosing to home-school their kids was a turning point in becoming countercultural. When "you begin challenging fundamental common practices in today's society, once you challenge one, it's easy to challenge them all," he told me. I hear that loud and clear. Julie and I are doing a hybrid home-schooling program with our school-age son, in conjunction with a neighborhood Christian school. When some people, even conservatives, hear that we want to home-school, they think that we are unrealistically trying to raise our kids in a bubble.

We choose a form of home-schooling not to run away from something, but to embrace the radical notion that we know what's best for our children. I want my boys to go as far and as fast as they can in learning about the world, and not to have their imaginations and intellects stifled by conformity. And having gone to public school myself, I don't want my kids socialized by a hypercompetitive and sexualized youth culture where traditional values are sneered at.

Home-schooling is so common now that there are lots of kids whose parents share a common set of cultural values, and who are creating healthy countercultural peer groups for them. Being nonconformist about your kids' schooling doesn't mean you have to turn into hermits, but it does mean taking a stand outside the mainstream.

Do you think you might be a "crunchy con?" Well, Mr. Dreher has a "Crunchy Con" manifesto so you can see how you stack up. I must confess that I can't go along with all of his points but, then as a counterculturist, I can't go along with all of anyone's points. See how you measure up:

I. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

II. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.

III. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

IV. Culture is more important than politics and economics.

V. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility and good stewardship -- especially of the natural world -- is not fundamentally conservative.

VI. Small, Local, Old and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New and Abstract.

VII. Beauty is more important than efficiency.

VIII. The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty and wisdom.

IX. We share Russell Kirk's conviction that "the institution most essential to conserve is the family."

X. Politics and economics will not save us. If our culture is to be saved at all, it will be through living faithfully by the Permanent Things, preserving ancient moral truths in the everyday choices we make.

I especially believe in #X. The family is the core of civilization and our culture will only be saved if there are enough families who stand up for and fight to preserve the eternal principles on which this country was founded.