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Libertarian writer Shikha Dalmia says Ayn Rand was right about so much, but fatally wrong about an essential aspect of human nature: the impulse to selflessness and compassion. This explains why she's a cult figure for younger people, but eventually is outgrown. Excerpt:

Most people read Rand when they are young and are deeply moved by her, only to outgrow her by mid-life. Her adherents like to blame this on the moral pusillanimity and irrationality of the readers. But the real problem is perhaps with Rand herself: Her ideology of self-actualization speaks much more to the concerns of the young than the mature--again, because she ignores the "other-interested" side of human nature.

More:

For example, under Rand's schema would a person who abandons some passion in order to look after an elderly parent have a higher or lower moral standing than someone who doesn't (assuming that the parents are equally worthy)? Will the former be happier? More at peace? Rand gives us no real reason to believe so. In fact, the distinct impression one gets from her work is that an individual's first duty is to cultivating his own passions rather than nurturing his interest in the flourishing of those around him (with the possible exception of one's romantic partner). No surprise then that the virtue of generosity or benevolence, though it has pride of place in the work of Aristotle--the only philosopher to whom Rand acknowledges any intellectual debt--occupies a second-class status in her own work.

The fact is that Rand gets harder to take as one grows older and concerns about those around us become more important than our own personal project of self development. The relentless, single-minded dedication to one's passions that Rand seems to favor requires a coldness of the soul, a narrowing of one's humanity--the natural interest in the fortune of others that Smith alludes to--that most people find is not exactly conducive to their happiness.

This has profound and unfortunate political consequences. On the practical level, it makes it difficult to build a strong and growing anti-government movement based solely on Rand's philosophy, because the older cohort of her followers is falling off on a regular basis. On the theoretical level, Rand's ideas offer no real possibility of developing robust civil society responses to address the needs of those down on their luck. It is difficult to imagine a Randian qua Randian, say, volunteering in a soup kitchen to feed the hungry, or even founding the Fraternal Order of Fellow Randians to provide free health coverage and housing to jobless and homeless Randians. Since misfortune and distress are a normal part of the human condition, a philosophy that offers no positive, private solutions to deal with them will just have a harder time making the case against government intervention stick.

The former House speaker can't believe conservative knotheads are trying to override the local GOP's choice of candidate in a New York Congressional district. Excerpt:

Recall, the 1994 victory was in part because Republicans swept the 1993 elections. Three of the four Republican winners that year were moderates - significantly to the left of the conservative Republican base: Riordan was elected mayor of Los Angeles, Whitman as governor of New Jersey, and Giuliani as mayor of New York. George Allen, a conservative, was elected as governor of Virginia.

Furthermore, many of the Republicans elected in the 1994 landslide were moderates, including Nancy Johnson, Tom Campbell, Jim Leach, Chris Shays, Jan Myer, and Jennifer Dunn. They all signed the Contract with America and this coalition of Republicans passed Welfare reform, sealed the fate of HillaryCare, supported NAFTA, passed the first tax cut in 16 years, an increase in defense and intelligence spending, and (despite a Clinton veto that shut down the government) a four-year balanced budget.

In other words, support from moderate Republican elected officials enabled conservative governance, it did not prevent it. This is a lesson conservatives should keep in mind to counter the impulse to force out from the Republican Party anyone who is to the left of us on some issues.

Meanwhile, here in Texas, the state GOP just elected a hard-right social conservative as party leader. When last heard from, Cathie Adams e-mailed her associates to warn them that Obama's speech to schoolchildren made her think of Hitler. The Dallas County party chairman, who has been unfairly dogged by social conservatives for wanting to include Log Cabin Republicans in the conversation, and who has been trying to make party regulars understand that young city-dwellers who are Republican-friendly are increasingly turned off by the hardcore stuff, says picking a RINO hunter to run the state party sets the Texas GOP back five years. Excerpt:

Dallas County GOP chair Jonathan Neerman says the party needs "serious leaders with serious ideas," and Adams apparently doesn't fit that description. "She has been part of an issue group that has gone after Republicans, and I don't know how she can shift gears and go from being an issue-group leader going after Republican candidates and elected officials to now being one where she has to try and grow the party."

Neerman says there's "a crisis of confidence" in the state party, claiming elected officials don't feel like the party has been there for them or has been working for them to win elections. "You've seen the state party take positions on issues where there's no uniform agreement amongst Republican elected officials. So what they've done instead of trying to grow the party is formed a circular firing squad to go after Republicans."

I am given to understand that The New York Times is planning to give Ross Douthat a blog. What the heck is the hold-up? The guy is one of the best bloggers going, and the loss of his voice in the blogosphere has been keenly felt. I'm with Conor here:

Damn you, The New York Times, give Ross Douthat a blog! Don't you understand that delay makes no sense? You'll get exceptional content for the same outlay in salary, better print columns, and ideas that more fully penetrate the national conversation. What's your downside?

My interest in the matter is selfish. Due to Mr. Douthat's extended absence, Rod Dreher and I have been talking past the folks at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen in a sprawling, muddled debate about the state of the right, the role dissident conservatives should play, and the wisdom of attacking talk radio hosts, among other issues. If only there were a deliberate writer who would ponder our entries, clarify the issues at stake in a concise, hyper-linked summary of our views, and proceed to offer a fair-minded assessment of their strengths and weaknesses, finally adding a bit of insightful analysis that moves the whole conversation forward.

There have been lots of thoughtful, if frustrating, posts on the League and on Conor's blog about the proper role of dissident conservatives. I keep planning to sit down and join the fray once again, but this is going to be a busy afternoon here at the paper. I commend to you Conor's essay (follow the link above), which is full of links back to the various comments posted on the League's excellent blog. I think we're still talking past each other. I understand, or I think I do, what the League critics are getting at when they accuse Conor, me and others of taking potshots at easy movement-conservative targets, but not doing things to engage the base. My objection remains the same: I don't see that it's my role to reform the conservative movement and make it fit to govern again. I'm only a conservative writer with opinions. I used to feel more invested in the fate of political conservatism, but that's not my thing anymore. Don't get me wrong, I certainly hope to see the GOP reform, and a more responsible conservative government return to power in this country. But I don't craft my opinions around that strategic goal. I don't deliberately set out to alienate allies on the left or the right, but at this political moment, most on the politically active right are incapable of hearing dissent. Anyway, I'm not sure why it's wrong for conservatives who are interested in politics but not politically engaged in the same way that, say, the National Review folks are, to write what they think and not worry overmuch about how the base is going to hear them. True, if you wish to be persuasive you have to think about your audience, but when you are delivering a message that many in your audience resolutely do not wish to hear, there's not enough honey in the world to make that pill palatable. E.D. Kain dissents:

Nor am I advocating that conservative dissidents should be duplicitous, or that they should abandon their philosophy texts for charts and wonkery exclusively, or even that they should join the Republican Party. I certainly haven't. But what I am saying is that simply advocating the "conservative disposition" is not enough. It just sounds good on paper. It takes no account of where that disposition might actually lead us as a society. And that's why this project Conor is engaged in - of being aloof and distant from the actual political trenches - strikes me as not only futile, but as the easy way out.

Here's Conor, on the difference between conservative dissidents and conservative wonks:

These are sometimes overlapping categories. Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat arguably fit into both camps, as does Ramesh Ponnuru. David Frum isn't a wonk exactly, though he sure is knowledgeable about policy, and dissents from mainstream "movement conservatism." Of course, there are wonks who aren't dissidents -- see the Heritage Foundation -- and dissidents who aren't wonks: Rod Dreher, Daniel Larison, and myself, to cite three dissidents who possibly have more policy preferences in common with the folks we're dissenting against than with one another! What draws us together, by my lights, is that we identify with the political philosophy of conservatism -- albeit different threads of that philosophy -- rather than the political coalition of "movement conservatism," so we can appreciate aspects of one another's oeuvre, especially when we're writing against the most absurd orthodoxies of thought within the political/ideological coalition.

My sense is that among us, Daniel Larison is most interested in politics, though he understands he is so far outside the mainstream that he has little chance of influencing it in the short term, whereas Rod Dreher and I are less interested in electoral politics, and more interested in our own related but distinct projects: aspects of American culture, in Rod Dreher's case, and the intersection of public discourse and American journalism, in my case.

That isn't to say that we're entirely uninterested in politics, anymore than it is to say that Ross Douthat isn't at all interested in journalism, or that Rich Lowry is uninterested in culture. It's just to say that every writer has his own primary interests, obsessions, and areas where he thinks he can make the biggest difference.

This helps explain, I think, why Rod Dreher is confused by what is written at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. It's as though he is saying, "So I subscribe to the political philosophy of conservatism -- what do you mean I should take responsibility for bringing a sane, right-leaning political coalition back to power in this country? That isn't my project, and even if it were the base wouldn't listen to me anyway."

Put another way, tweaking Rod Dreher for his failure to fully invest himself in reforming "the conservative movement" with wonky solutions acceptable to the base makes about as much sense as criticizing Reihan Salam for failing to abandon his cosmopolitan tendencies long enough to convince culturally conservative Texans to raise backyard chickens in the name of spiritual fulfillment and environmental sustainability.

And the eggs! Anyway, I once again rise to associate myself with the Rt. Hon. Friedersdorf, and to thank the League for a robust argument -- though one that by now seems exhausted, if inconclusive. I think we can all agree, though, that humanity would be better served if the damn NYTimes would un-gag Ross, and let him return part-time to his natural habitat, the blogosphere. As someone who both writes a newspaper column and a blog, I can tell you that it's far more interesting to me to work on the blog, because I'm not confined to the 800 word length, nor do my blog entries seem as -- what's the word? -- significant as the newspaper column.

Mark Thompson continues the dialogue, saying that Conor and I don't understand what he and other critics have been getting at. Excerpt:

Our point has nothing to do with insisting that Conor or anyone else soft-pedal their critiques of Limbaugh, et al, although those attacks may well have the effect of making matters worse. It certainly does not suggest that reform-minded conservatives should refrain from objecting to torture or the conduct of the War on Terror or civil liberties violations by the Bush Administration - quite the contrary, Ron Paul's growing influence on conservatism shows that it is possible to passionately dissent without forfeiting the ability to move conservatism in your direction. Nor do I think we are suggesting that Conor or any other specific reform-minded conservative is to blame for the current state of the Republican Party.

No, the point is that reform conservatives need to recognize that there is an ideological problem with conservatism as currently constituted as an amalgam of libertarianism, hawkishness, and religious fundamentalism that leaves modern conservatism incapable of governing well or ethically. It is all well and good to criticize the Bush Administration or to take issue with talk radio, but until reform conservatives recognize what caused the Bush Administration's faults and the hyper-vitriol of talk radio, they will be unable to do anything about it.

The assumption of many reform conservatives seems to be that the Bush Administration and talk radio are just a few bad apples who managed to deceive conservatives into thinking that they were good conservatives and had all the answers.

Maybe Mark is right, but I know that I'm not in that camp. I'm also, to be fair, not in the camp of conservatives who think seriously about policy matters. so there's that. But I agree with him that contemporary conservatism no longer makes a lot of sense as a confederation. I tried in my book to suggest ways that conservatives could fundamentally change our lives (and policies) to be more true to the authentically conservative values. Maybe I was, and am, full of shinola, but at least I'm trying to rethink this thing. What I'm not sure Mark et al. understand is how difficult it is at the present time to get a hearing on the right for dissenting views, even those that don't just bash Beck or Limbaugh. Again, it's what you get when you have a movement that cares more about hunting heretics who deviate from a rigid ideal than a movement that's interested in reinterpreting its principles for changing times and changing conditions. And believe me, on the right today, if you offer anything seen by the Fox/Limbaugh mothership as deviant, you've got no chance to be engaged.

While I agree that it's fairly pointless, as a tactical matter, for dissidents to attack the talk radio giants, this comes, I think, out of a deep frustration that people with little more than slogans and attitude have bigfooted discussion among conservatives, and have helped turn the GOP and the movement into something that's extremely hostile to change (as distinct from skepticism of it, as all real conservatives should be), and almost fanatically opposed to dissent from within. A fairly conservative friend of mine and I were talking the other day about something Glenn Beck had said, and my friend looked disgusted, saying, "I'm sick of being associated with conservatives." The impulse to take on the Becks and the Limbaughs comes from a sense that these guys are hurting us bad, and preventing the kind of clear thinking that we need to get back in the political game. I'd love to know how Mark and the League propose for dissident conservatives to "engage" the base when the kind of people the base trusts and takes its cues from demonize dissidents as RINOs, closet liberals, squishes, wets, suck-ups, and so forth. I'm asking seriously. I don't know how to go about this in the current climate.

Juan Williams was in Dallas yesterday, and said some controversial, interesting things at a luncheon. Read all about it here. I like these excerpts:

On the No. 1 mistake liberals make: "The world is changing fast. There's a need for innovation," and "liberals are slow to react. For example, the biggest challenge of our time is education, and the poor quality of education for minorities. How can we have a discussion about equality when there's such an achievement gap? How are we not talking about the breakdown of the family-70% in the black community? Yet the left is absent on those issues. That pocket of issues requires innovative thinking. You don't see the left changing with the times."

On the No. 1 mistake conservatives make: "Republicans feel embattled, and I think it's been a mistake by some Republicans not to be more engaged in the health care debate. There's also a changing demographic: more people of color, younger people, and there has to be a Republican approach [to them]. There has to be a clear message sent, and a willingness for the party to engage. That's crucial if it's to grow."

I would say that the two most important mistakes both sides make are complementary.

No. 1 mistake American liberals make is to devalue the paramount role of culture in determining behavior, particular in terms of success and failure. They are afraid to privilege some cultural values over others. This is to say, I'm pretty much agreeing with Williams. The No. 1 mistake American conservatives make is to devalue the role social and economic structures play in creating culture (well, their more particular mistake in the current moment is to be more interested in heretic hunting than innovative thinking, but you've heard that from me already).

What do you think the No. 1 mistakes each side makes are? If you answer, answer for both liberals and conservatives, not just one side. (Feel free also to comment on Juan Williams' remarks).