A Patriot in the Garden

You know all that flag-waving, “true-American” rhetoric we hear from the Rush Limbaugh conservatives?

I was thinking about that today, as I was pondering getting our organic garden ready to spring planting.

It’s Ok. I know I am preaching to the choir generally.  But a good argument is worth saying, just in case it’s seeps into the other side.

Here’s how I feel: eventually, if a mostly-reasonable person hears enough of it, then she can start to change their story.  Sometimes a bit. Sometimes a lot.

So here’s my logical argument for Why the Organic, Local Food Movement is Patriotic.

1. Food. Made in the U.S.A. Often in your actual state.

2. Employees are your neighbors: those hard-working folk in work boots and seed caps. You know the ones. Called farmers.

3. Requires less food shopping at Wal-Mart, where many parts of the chain of processed food are made in some god-forsaken foreign land.

4. No subsidies. Hell, local farmers are the bastard stepchildren of the USDA. Go small government!

5. Free-range animal farming means less money being poured into prisons!

6. Nowhere in the Bible did Jesus eat seedless Mexican grapes from a plastic clamshell.

7. And, the obvious. Food which defines: “Taste great. Less filling.”

So, for all my grungy, hippie-dippie organic-loving localvores out there: I am pleased to inform you that you have passed the test for first-class, red-blooded, proud-to-be-an-Amer-can patriot.

For all my more conservative friends: I regret to inform you that you will have to become a fancy-schmancy, organic buying asshole in order to solidify your rank in this fair land as “true patriot.”