Dreher jumps in to the discussion:
The point here is surely not to deride empiricism. Heaven knows conservatism could stand to quit leading with its heart and start thinking more empirically about the world as it is, not the world as they wish it to be. The point, if I’m reading [Williams and Sullivan] correctly, is that too many leading voices on the left give themselves over to wonkiness, and presume that their moral convictions are widely shared, such that the only reason anybody could disagree with them is through ignorance (willful or not), or malice.
Eli Zaretsky looks to the Dems' left flank for moral inspiration:
What drives American history forward, then, are not horse-swaps, “grand bargains,” and “pragmatic” compromises between centrist liberals and centrist rightists but rather a struggle between the Center and the Left over the meaning of equality. The implications for understanding America today are clear.
Obama’s first term disappointed not only because his pursuit of a center-right dialogue was still-born and vacuous, but also because it wound up empowering the Right. The immediate and welcoming response to Occupy Wall Street demonstrated how much Americans have missed the presence of a leftist voice; it was as if we had been waiting for someone to raise the question of equality again. We need the spirit of Occupy Wall Street to speak not only to our moment of national crisis but also to inspire a permanent radical presence in American life, one that builds on the egalitarian tradition at the core of our identity. Only a genuinely independent, radical Left can revitalize centrist politics and relegate the extreme Right to the marginal place it has historically occupied.
The Dish 