I think this reader is getting at a good point though, for the record, in a lot of Westerns, the brothels were as American as apple pie:
Jonah,
I think Brooks makes a good point that the country needs more of the conservative view of order. But what he doesn’t mention is that the reason conservatives have shied away from “civic order” despite the fact that people in cities “understand that their lives are profoundly influenced by other people’s individual choices” is because most of the erosion of this civic order has to do with sex. What single thing most “threatens Americans’ efforts to build orderly places to raise their kids?” Well, I’d argue its the erosion of traditional sexual mores and the resulting divorce, illegitimacy, etc. And restoring those standards requires at least implicitly telling lots of people that they are making really bad choices. It needs desperately to be done, but I’m more than a little skeptical that it’ll be a winning strategy for the GOP any time soon.