So earlier this week we had “Organic Sex” (otherwise known and the oh holly fuck please let my period come sex topped with a layer of crunchy granola in a yogurt vat of sperm).

Then I ran across this annoying bit- The Crunchy Con Manifesto. The funny thing is, except for a few things this guy sounds like a progressive. Let’s have some fun and tear it to shreds.

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

Huhm- I’m gonna beg to differ on that one. Let’s wait till the end and come back to it.

2. 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.

Conservatism has always been based on the continued accumulation of wealth and power- that’s the nature of conservatism. To be conservative is to approve of the power structure as it stands and to keep it that way in the future. Character is a ridiculous word thrown out by people who cannot speak to their own good acts and so use a fuzzy, non-descript word like character or morals. Everyone has character, except maybe those in a coma.

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

Uhm- PROGRESSIVE- duh. We don’t trust big government either, but as long as we have free and fair elections at least we can fire government when it screws up. You can’t fire big business.

4. Culture is more important than politics and economics.

Culture is only more important than politics and economics when everyone has equal access to political and economic foundations. Culture becomes really unimportant when you can’t feed your family.

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

Progressive- progressiveprogressiveve. Good stewardship of the natural world iparticularlyry and fundamentally progressive.

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

How are you applying these terms? Small houses, local produce, recyled materials=Progressive McMansions, slave-labor foreign produce, new disposable Walmart products= Conservative.

Though you could look at it this way: Small-minded, local corruption, old boys club = Conservative. Big tent, global respect, netechnologieses= Progressive.

I’ve got to wonder about the inclusion of particular and abstract. I smell a little bit otoilette water. It means not making grand abstract statements like “All men are created equal”, and instead judging wich particular men are your equal, or better, or worse.

7. Beauty is more important than efficiency.

Dude, the stupid generalizations are getting silly. I need an efficient toothbrush, I could care less about how it looks if it works. I need beautiful music, I could care less about how efficiently it was produced.

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

Couldn’t agree with you more. So fund more arts programs, libraries, music programs- Progressive progressive progressive.

9. We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to
conserve is the family.”

There are 2 ways of looking at this one, depending on how you use conserve. Now progressives would agree if conserve means to protect from loss or harm. Progressives think that harm is done to families by poverty, forced pregnancy, and refusal to grant legal status to families because they do not meet “traditional” standards.

Now if conserve means to limit, then family must not be as esential an institution as you say it is. If you want to limit families, then their value to society must be small while their cost to society is great. Why elese would you want to conserve them, they aren’t an endangered species.

10. Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives

Culture is the collection of beliefs, ideas and practices of a society. It is always changing to accomodate the politics and economics of the time. Culture is not, nor has it ever been, a stagnant set of rules and mores. By conserving these “Permanent Things” you are trying to put the cart before the horse. Culture follows politics and economics.