BY JOE CONASON Once upon a time, conservatives liked to say that “ideas matter.” They attributed this pithy slogan to Ayn Rand, venerated author of Atlas Shrugged and The Virtue of Selfishness, and tried to live by it, generating books, papers and legislative proposals by the dozen. Although many of their theories later proved flimsy, they at least attempted to address real problems with fresh thinking. But ideas no longer matter – and in fact […]