Hippie Rant (an occasional series)

Althouse hipped me to this article, about a local Madison "politician." Excerpt excerpt:

Austin King says he has accomplished a lot in his two years on the Madison City Council. But he boils the race down to this: "This district is a very young and progressive district," he said of the downtown District 8, populated by many students. "My opponent's an older conservative guy. From a purely demographic point of view, I don't think he stands a chance." ...

King said the city gets a bad rap as being too idealistic."People are always telling us that in Madison, we're in a bubble. I used to fight that. We're in a bubble where people around us don't think logically," he said.

Althouse links to point out the fact that the kid (he's only 23) gets flak for being too liberal, and how that affects the prospects of other Democrats who have, shall we say, somewhat more practical policy goals.
I'm linking to this because I know this kid. He lives with my ex-girlfriend's (of the late, lamented Bethlehem Steel blog) sister, and I've hung out with him on a significant number of occasions. I saw him on the Capitol Square in Madison in 2000 at an Al Gore campaign rally*, holding his Ralph Nader sign higher than anyone else there. Which is why I found this bit that Annie emailed me so hilarious:

We like to tease Austin because he had a role in keeping Nader off the ticket for Wisco in the [2004] election and he was talking about how [working to defeat Bush by helping to consolidate Democrat and "progressive/green" votes for Kerry] was important to the election, nay the free world, because as a swing state, Wisconsin would be pivotal in the outcome [of the election]. He then got a far-away look on his face and said, "I think I may have prevented another world war." Now, when we obviate a bad situation, we always say the same thing. The more inconsequential, the better. Like catching a spoon before it falls off the counter, then: "I think I may have prevented another world war."

That is unambiguously rad.
Let's return to the article, though, for a final point:

"People are always telling us that in Madison, we're in a bubble. I used to fight that. We're in a bubble where people around us don't think logically," he said."How can you ask someone who thinks Jesus is coming back to Earth to care about global warming? Yeah, Madison's my bubble. It's a bubble of intellectualism and deliberative democracy and discourse. I love my bubble."

Again, it's not the obvious hypocracy that bothers me so much as the condescension. Notice the contrast he draws between logical thinking and Christians. I'm sorry, but that's not only offensive and intolerant, it's just really pathetic thinking. If someone can explain to me why Christianity and environmentalism are mutually exclusive, I'd love to hear it. Or why Christianity and logical thinking are mutually exclusive, for that matter. But to blithely ascribe both sets of beliefs to the entire (what I'm assuming he's referring to, at least) Republican party, or to conservatives in general, is intellectual laziness to the extreme.


*See? Fair and balanced.