A great read. Here's a bit more...
"The rescue squad can get to you anywhere in St. Paul in four minutes or less. That is official policy...And the four-minute-or-less response represents the nature of our civil compact here in St. Paul: if you urgently need help, someone will be there before panic sets in. In the suburbs, thanks to Republicans and their code of personal responsibility, the coronary victim will have time to read the entire Gospel of St. Mark before help arrives. There is a message here: if lower taxes are your priority over human life, then we know what sort of person you are. The response to a cry for help says a lot about us as human beings."

Fantastic clip.

Bravo Garrison Keillor, and bravo gingembre for bringing this to peeps at clipmark.

Nothing more clearly defines the difference between those with the capacity to conceptualize empathy for ALL, and the philosophy of knuckle-draggers, that is to say the neo-cons who are only able to empathize with their own small group, ie, family members. And that is because they cherish property values above all other values, and they perceive their family members as being property.

Sorry about taxes, neo-cons, but civilization is a costly endeavour. You can either do your best to bring your society along with you, or you can build higher walls and more prisons to protect yourselves from your society.

Well said Socratoad. Garrison Keillor is one of my favorite writer, looking forward to reading this piece soon.

I just finally got around to reading the whole source. I have new respect for Keillor. Always thought he was just another NPR schmuck spouting nostalgic sentimentality about the Midwest for Eastern sophisticates. Boy was I wrong. This is a powerful piece of writing.