March 17, 2003
Classical Toryism gaining ground
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___yond the tribalism of the right or left," said Dart, author of "The Red Tory Tradition."
___"People are rediscovering classical Toryism. I think there's a renaissance of it going on. These are people seeking to conserve, in the old sense."
___Crunchy cons worry that the United States' Republican and Canada's Alliance parties elevate profit over the common good and may be too eager for war, including impending conflict against Iraq, Dart said.
___Yet they don't like liberals' individualism, private spirituality and anything-goes attitude.
___Classical Tories, Dart said, stress family, community, the environment and organized religion.
___The editor of B.C. Christian News, a newspaper with a strong evangelical flavor, has a crunchy con feel to him.
___Flyn Ritchie has five children, home-schooled in their early years. He loves Christian writers such as C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and Tolkien and is conservative on abortion, euthanasia, atonement theology, family and sexual morality.
___He appreciates the Republican and Alliance parties for standing up for conservative social values, but he disagrees with them on their throw-away-the-key attitude about criminals, their unbridled enthusiasm for capitalism and their readiness to reduce foreign aid.
___Ritchie attends a Dutch Reformed Church, which sent a family to France to reclaim a fragile wetland. He doesn't want to be pigeonholed. But he laughs when he realizes that despite his evangelical loyalties, he regularly attends the local folk music festival and has been a member of organic food co-ops.
___And if there were any doubt he's a full-fledged member of the crunchy-con movement, he offers final proof: "My wife makes her own granola. It's better and cheaper."
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