Of course, to some of us reactionaries, the return of a form of patriarchy is progress. A society in which many, possibly most, women have to leave the home and enter the workforce simply to make enough to keep the family together is not a society that can lay claim to having made progress, at least not in my view.

OK, back to trees. DC area readers might remember the big debate years ago over whether or not to build that big Disney theme park out on or near a Civil War battlefield in northern Virginia. Some on the Right said that the jobs the project would bring were needed, and would constitute progress. Others on the Right — including, if memory serves, George F. Will and Pat Buchanan — argued that the commercialization of what should be sacred space is tawdry and unworthy of this country. I also seem to recall that at least some of the conservative critics of the proposed theme park were reported to own country property that would be adversely affected by the park, were it to be built (in the end, it wasn’t). So it’s possible at least some of the Disney critics’ motives weren’t entirely pure. Still, it was a worthwhile argument to have. And we have the chance to have the same basic argument often in this dynamic country.