Calling People "Low Information Voters" Doesn't Validate Decentralization or Privatization

In a recent article in Forbes, Ilya Somin bangs one of his favorite drums, that of the "low information voter". Somin complains that many voters don't understand the background to the government shutdown, or how much government spending goes to Medicare, Social Security and foreign aid, then lectures, "This kind of basic knowledge may not be all voters need to know to form intelligent opinions. But it’s hard to do so without it." He complains further that even informed voters can misunderstand the evidence, and that people with conflicting political beliefs can interpret the same evidence as being consistent with their own beliefs. Somin, in essence, blames this all on laziness:

It is easy to blame ignorance on stupidity or on the media. But basic information about most political issues is readily available in the media and online. It isn’t hard to find out what Obamacare insurance exchanges are. The problem is that most people don’t take the time and effort to do so. That is not because they are stupid, but because there is so little incentive to acquire political information.

I'll take issue with both of Somin's assertions. First, there is a concerted effort by parts of the media, the so-called news entertainment industry, to mislead its audiences into believing utter nonsense. If you're marginally informed about the issues, you can't turn on Fox News or drive time talk radio without figuring that out. Whether or not people should trust that type of news source isn't really the point, as many people do trust those sources and end up being misinformed and distracted from the actual issues.

Further, the mainstream media has an unfortunate tendency to turn every policy debate into a horse race, taking the proverbial "view from nowhere" while airing guests and interviews that they know to be objectively false or misleading. It seems that people like the argument more than they like to be educated, and that conflicts and contests generate more readers and viewers than a dispassionate explanation of the facts and how one side of the issue has a weaker case or is just plain wrong. A case in point would be "death panels", an outright lie about the PPACA (Obamacare) that was concocted, refined and perpetuated by the right-wing media. The mainstream media could have snuffed out that absurdity at the outset, but instead treated it as if it was a valid claim and let partisans lie on the air about the meaning and effect of perfectly reasonable provisions of the PPACA. Even though those provisions were dropped as a result, to the detriment of elderly patients, many people remain convinced that the PPACA creates "death panels". The fault for that lies almost entirely with the media. Another example would John Boehner's statements, including his widely distributed editorial, about the government shut-down. If you believe what he says you'll be less informed than when you began trying to follow the issue - but the media is not going to help you understand that, because they want Boehner to submit editorials or make appearances on their shows.

More than that, though, why does Somin believe people should have to dig for information in order to be informed, when they are reading the newspaper (or virtual equivalent) or watching the news and are being assured by the talking heads that they're getting enough information to be informed? Not everybody has the luxury to be a law professor, with many hours in an office to explore areas of esoteric interest, read the Internet, and discuss the issues of the day with informed colleagues. Most people work jobs that do not afford them similar luxuries, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to believe that the time they spend catching up with the news before heading to work, in the car, or after putting the kids to bed is sufficient to keep them informed. It's not what Somin deems being "rationally ignorant", with people knowing that they are informed but choosing to spend time on other things. It's a matter of there being only so many hours in the day, and the fact that the less you know the less aware you are of how much you need to learn.

Let's recall also that the concept of democracy does not anticipate that every voter will be informed on every issue, or even most issues. The Founding Fathers includes a number of checks on popular democracy out of concern that the masses might make bad choices - hence the non-elected Senate and the Electoral College. Inherent in the popular vote is the notion of the wisdom of the crowd - the idea that the larger body of voters will collectively exercise a level of insight and wisdom that significantly exceeds that of the typical individual voter. That's not an excuse for failing to try to better educate the pubic about the issues of the day, but if you accept that concept it's much less worrisome that people wish that spending for foreign aid were only 1% of government spending... it's actual level... instead of 10% or more.

From that rather dubious perch, Somin launches himeslf into a non sequitur:

The problem of ignorance is exacerbated by the enormous size and scope of government. Government spending accounts for well over one third of GDP, and government also regulates nearly every aspects of life. Even if voters devoted far more time to following political issues, they would still be ignorant about most government policies.... But we can help alleviate the problem by limiting and decentralizing government. When people “vote with their feet” in the private sector or in choosing what state or local government they want to live in, they have much better incentives to acquire information and use it rationally than when they vote at the ballot box.

That argument strikes me as utter nonsense. The federal government gets an incredible amount of media attention. The more local government becomes, the less media attention it typically receives. In many communities there's no meaningful media coverage of local government. While there have been corruption scandals at the federal level, in recent decades they have typically involved a small number of individuals with little impact on the overall functioning of government. The problem of corruption can be significantly more pronounced at the state level, as evidenced by Illinois, and can be appalling at the local level, as evidenced by Kwame Kilpatrick's Detroit. It is absurd to pretend that it is easier for voters to stay informed in relation to matters handled by a panoply of state and local governments, than it is to stay informed in relation to the actions of the federal government. Were that not true, one would reasonably expect that corruption and misconduct would improve at the local level, not significantly worsen.

Also, it's a rather arrogant conceit to suggest that if people don't like where they live, it's simple for them to sell their homes, uproot their families, get new jobs, and relocate to a community more to their liking. While there is no question but that when things get really bad a growing percentage of people will "vote with their feet", the significant number of people who stay behind reflect the reality that for most people it's not simple or easy, and for many it's an unaffordable luxury. More than that, there's more involved in choosing where you live than whether or not you like the state or local government, and moving to a different location that has a government more aligned with your beliefs may mean sacrificing social, employment and cultural opportunities that are important to your quality of life, as well as giving up easy access to top hospitals or similar local amenities.

Most of us spend far more time and effort acquiring information when we choose what car or TV to buy, than when we choose the president of the United States. The person deciding which car to buy knows that their decision is likely to make a real difference to the outcome. The same goes for a person deciding where to live in a federal system.

Perhaps he's speaking for himself, but I disagree with Somin's initial assertion. Most people give considerable thought to the president, and whether or not they will vote for or against an incumbent president. One might argue that much of that thought is partisan, and thus "doesn't really count", but that would sidestep Somin's claim - which is tantamount to arguing that people start thinking about their next car or television the moment they bring a new one home. I think people who vote hope that their vote makes a difference. A real difference in the outcome? Very few people who move to a new community do so with Somin's unrealistic notion that they will somehow influence local government simply by leaving one community or by joining another - I don't believe that I've ever met such a person. Moving to a different community based upon an assumption that it will be materially better than the place you live because of your perception of the political ideology of the local government seems like a fool's errand.

Somin presents no evidence, nor really any argument, that localized government would be cheaper, better, more transparent, less corrupt, more efficient... that it would provide any actual benefit to the public. He does not address the complexity of the modern nation state, nor the fact that some of the things of which he complains (e.g., ignorance of spending levels for foreign aid, Social Security and Medicare) are going to remain at the national level. He may have a pipe dream where programs like Social Security and Medicare become state-run programs, but the added complexity of such an approach should be obvious, as should be the impairment of people's ability to "vote with their feet" when they have to worry about how benefits are coordinated between states. But if you leave the big ticket items at the national level - military spending, Social Security and Medicare, along with matters that the federal government alone can reasonably address, such as managing foreign relations, regulating interstate commerce, providing the FDA, FTC, SEC, EPA, FEMA, USCIS, ICE, USPTO and the like, Somin's approach isn't actually going to simplify choices for voters at the federal level. It will instead add to the complexity of their other votes while doing next to nothing to simplify the federal government.

From there, Somin doubles down on his non seqiturs:

By reducing the size of government, we can enable more choices to be made in the private sector, where people have better incentives to become informed.

It seems that Somin imagines a future involving a lot more than localization of government, with government either outsourcing various tasks to the private sector or people being left without government support in certain areas of their lives and having to turn instead to private sector solutions. Somin is employed by a major university, and likely chooses his health insurance from a number of heavily subsidized plans offered by his employer - something akin to a health insurance exchange under the PPACA, but with his receiving a large subsidy for which he would be ineligible under that law. It's unlikely that Somin has ever tried to purchase health insurance on the individual market, let alone insure his family in that manner. It is unlikely that he has dealt with insurance companies' arbitrary denial of coverage, or trying to get individual coverage with a pre-existing medical condition. If he had, he wouldn't adhere to the fantasy that "more choices" result in a better informed consumer and even if all he cares about are incentives he would be aware of how difficult it is to actually compare individual health plans - even those offered by a single insurance company.

Were Somin to research the issue he would learn that having too many options can be paralyzing - people get confused, don't know how to draw meaningful distinctions, and may end up making their choices based upon arbitrarily selected, sometimes incorrect, information and assumptions. Somin may fret for hours or days about what TV to buy or what car to purchase, but at the end of the day his life will be little affected by whether he chooses a Camry or an Accord, a Vizio or a Samsung. If Somin believes his own conceit that voters are too lazy to educate themselves, his is a recipe for making that situation worse.

Justice Roberts, a Bully?

Not quite on par with those who inspired me to poke fun at Peggy Noonan, but really? Ilya Somin argues that, in light of the ACA ruling, then-Senator Obama's comments on Justice Roberts seem prescient, that in his "history of public service...[Roberts] has far more often used his formidable skills on behalf of the strong in opposition to the weak". Somin argues that the ACA ruling fits that description, fancifully arguing that,

Justice Roberts sided with “strong” insurance companies (who are major supporters of the individual mandate) and “those in power” in the “executive branch and the legislative branch” against the comparatively “weak”: small business and the majority of ordinary voters who opposed the mandate and wanted it invalidated.

Somin then admits that he does not believe that Roberts was "motivated by any great love for insurance companies or hostility to 'the weak'", but that "it’s ironic¹ that his ruling in this crucial unintentionally fits Obama’s 2005 critique of his record".

With all of the years Roberts has been on the court, and all of the instances in which the Court has explicitly sided with the legislature or with monied and powerful interests² when they were lined up against much weaker opponents, Somin picks this case as his first (and presumably best) illustration of Obama's point?

Seriously?

In this world in which the "broccoli mandate" is advanced as a serious argument for why a health insurance mandate would inevitably lead to atrocious overreach at the federal level - but be completely acceptable and virtually free of risk at the state level - have we lost touch with the concept of "self-parody"?
-------------
1. A black fly in his chardonnay?

2. Under Somin's strained - dare I say overwrought - interpretation of Obama's statement, most cases that come before the Supreme Court have powerful interests on both sides.

Public Approval of Supreme Court Decisions

Ilya Somin is watching the polls, and wants us know that a new opinion poll shows the Court's opinion to be unpopular. He argues that although public opinion appears to be shifting in favor of the law,

The difference may well be the result of the fact that a substantial minority of the public will tend to assume that any decision the Court makes is likely to be right unless they have very strong personal feelings on the subject.

Nonetheless, this result undermines the notion that the ruling will be a boost to the Court’s legitimacy or that its public image would have suffered had it ruled the other way. It’s unlikely that the Court’s legitimacy improved much in the eyes of anyone but committed liberals and legal academics.

But as Somin admits, pubic opinion of itself "says very little about whether [a] ruling is right or wrong" and some Supreme Court opinions that, in retrospect, seem backward, even atrocious, were popular at the time they were issued. Let's recall also that some opinions that were broadly unpopular, or unpopular in the regions of the country most affected by the outcome, now enjoy broad public support and acceptance. Somin notes that First Amendment opinions on flag burning, although legally correct, are unpopular.

In other words, a snapshot of public opinion means next to nothing.

I personally believe that Roberts crafted this opinion to try to quiet a lot of sound and fury in a manner that, quite possibly, will end up signifying nothing. I am skeptical that any of the significant holdings of the court will pose a problem to future sessions of Congress. You can't modify a federal grant without allowing states to maintain the status quo because that would be too coercive? Okay - we'll explicitly end the old program and create a new one. You can't impose a mandate under the Commerce Clause? We'll rephrase, or make it a tax. The case as it stands will most likely signify a turning point toward or away from the dissenters' perspective on the limits of the Constitution, but Roberts otherwise seemed to be composing an outcome he expects history to largely forget. Legal scholars will take note if future cases build off of this decision, but beyond that there's not much to remember. Reversing the ACA? That would have been an opinion for the history books.

Somin argues,

I do not believe that the Court should decide cases based on the perceived effects on its “legitimacy.” But for those who disagree, the individual mandate decision was not the great triumph that some imagine it to be.

In a big picture sense, of course the Court shouldn't focus on its "legitimacy". It should focus on the law and Constitution. Nonetheless, it will inevitably be presented with difficult questions for which there is a genuine difference of opinion about constitutionality, and it's appropriate for the Supreme Court in those contexts to consider its role in our system of government - as one of three co-equal branches of government - and to act as a court, not a legislature.

That's something conservatives have argued for years - that "judicial activism" harms the court as an institution. While reiterating that "judicial activism" is often a subjective concept and, depending on how you define it, does not have to involve acting outside of the scope of the Constitution and can actually benefit society - Brown v. Board is widely regarded as an activist decision - there's a lot of merit to the argument that political victory should come at the ballot box and not the courthouse.

That argument seems considerably stronger when a court is asked to review legislative action, as opposed to inaction, and again stronger when the legislation at issue was a significant issue in that party's election campaign. When the best the Supreme Court can say on a difficult constitutional question is, "It's a coin toss," there's a certain, potentially corrosive arrogance to nonetheless rejecting the opinion of both the Executive and Legislature that a particular legislative act is constitutional.

I believe that Roberts is aware that this is his court and his legacy, and that his status as Chief Justice of "The Roberts Court" influences how he approaches cases. But to the extent that thoughts of a legacy influence a judge, its better that the effect be to inspire modesty than arrogance.

Silver Lining or Sow's Ear

What's that word Ilya Somin likes, again... was it "overwrought"? Here's his effort to find a silver lining in what he views as a bad decision:

I do think the ruling is a cloud over the Constitution, and I do believe that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion allows Congress to mandate almost anything it wants, so long as the mandate is structured as a so-called “tax” similar to the individual health insurance mandate. In addition, the ruling upholds a major unconstitutional statute.

You see, the Supreme Court isn't the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional. Those five votes mean nothing without Somin's endorsement. Seriously, I understand why people, particularly laypeople, complain that matters deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court are "unconstitutional", but last I checked Marbury v. Madison was still good law.

One thought that comes to mind is, "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it." One of Somin's co-bloggers was the inventor of the "activity/inactivity" distinction and it must feel pretty good to devise an entirely new legal construct to defeat a specific major statute and, in less than two years, have five justices of the Supreme Court embrace it. But this decision would have been a lot cleaner, a lot more honest, had the Court followed a traditional Commerce Clause analysis. It would have been possible to address "activity/inactivity" within that context, and to make clear to Congress that the mandate was only permissible because of the unique aspects of the health insurance market. But with four justices embracing the newly concocted distinction as a basis to overturn the entire law, rather than producing a modest decision that clarified the limits of the Commerce Clause, Roberts ended up endorsing an extraordinary expansion of the tax power of Congress.

Somin adds, "I am also far from certain that the Court will stick to Roberts’ dubious Tax Clause analysis in future, less politically charged cases." If you take Roberts' position at face value, the expansion of the tax power is far more frightening than the "activity/inactivity" distinction. If you take the position that Roberts didn't really mean it - that he was making an argument of convenience in order to save the statute, but he'll never again support such broad tax powers - you would appear to be taking the position either that Roberts contrived a justification, to be used once and never used again, to uphold an unconstitutional statute, or that he was sufficiently embarrassed by the idea of using a specious Commerce Clause analysis to overturn a statute he believed to be constitutional that he resorted to a second specious argument to save the statute. Is there a third alternative?

The "activity/inactivity" distinction is now a footnote, about as important to future litigation as Third Amendment jurisprudence.¹ Congress will simply be careful about its phrasing, and will never again pass a mandate. Yes, it will pass taxes, subsidies, or regulate "inactivity" in a manner that is virtually indistinguishable from the regulation of activity but, as they say, same as it ever was.

Somin dreams of a future in which the Supreme Court revisits the issue, "It depends on future events such as the identity of the next few Supreme Court appointments, and whether or not Obama’s health care law can be repealed or modified." Odd, isn't it, how he doesn't see that as the job of Congress?

In my opinion, there never should have been a mandate. It would have been much more simple, for example, to impose a modest tax that would be applied toward premiums or returned as a tax credit for the insured. But that sort of thing is impossible in this era of Republican demagoguery about "new taxes", so Congress adopted the Republican idea of the mandate. And the next thing you knew, Republicans were arguing that the sky was falling. Now, as it turns out, we did get a tax - because Justice Roberts says it's a tax.

One of Somin's co-bloggers, David Kopel, wrote a post titled, "Next step: Repeal the individual mandate because it is unconstitutional". Again, he means "should have been held unconstitutional", but he gets ahead of himself, dreaming of a future court packed with justices who think like Alito or Scalia.

I predict that the individual mandate will never mandate anyone. Yet the mandate will be long remembered as one of the most consequential laws enacted by a Congress.

I can only hope that, in the wake of this decision, the Repubicans get over their obstructionism and participate in the creation of a superior alternative to the mandate. Unless that happens, though, I think Kopel is dreaming if he believes the health insurance industry will stand for its repeal. If it is repealed or modified, I disagree that the impact of the mandate will be significant. Mandates seem principally to be a Republican thing - other than the Republican ideas for a health insurance mandate and Social Security privatization, what else is there? If the Republicans again push Social Security privatization they'll follow Roberts' lead and say "It's a tax, not a mandate - and we're reforming the tax to make it better." Beyond that, actually including that, it's all semantics.

I would have preferred that the mandate had met its end yesterday morning, but the fact that the mandate will have to be finished off by the People in November and their elected officials in January may lead to even better long-term results for advocates of a constitutionally limited federal government.

Funny, isn't it, how reliance upon the democratic process is possible, and perhaps even better than a Supreme Court ruling, once you lose your case in court. But you know, maybe that should have been the Republican Party's starting point. Winning at the ballot box, not the court. Republicans used to at least pretend they preferred that approach....

Update: Via the VC:

"I think I figured out what happened. Randy Barnett made a wish on a cursed monkey’s paw that his commerce clause argument would be accepted. It explains everything, no?"

(Randy Barnett being the inventor of the "activity/inactivity" argument).
------------
1. Before you go looking, there isn't any.

Your Agreement With the President is Not Rare

Or, at least, I hope not.

Although far from novel, I have no real objection to somebody noting that they have found common ground with a person with whom they usually disagree. Some saying about a stopped clock comes to mind....

But I do take more of an issue with such an expression when it is seemingly made in earnest. In the blog post linked above, law professor Ilya Somin - who is smart enough to know better - writes what he appears to believe:

President Obama’s recent announcement that he supports gay marriage is yet another addition to the short but distinguished list of issues on which the President and I agree.

Previous entries include creating a playoff system for college football, allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, ending the home mortgage interest deduction for high-income taxpayers (though I would go further and abolish the deduction for everyone), the president’s authority to forego defending federal statutes he believes to be unconstitutional, the legality of the targeted killing of Osama Bin Laden, the end of the NBA lockout, and that the Obama health care plan’s individual mandate is not a tax. Based on the above, it seems that the biggest areas of overlap between our worldviews are gay rights and sports. But the list is not completely exhaustive, since there are a few other issues where we also agree, but I don’t blog about them because they are too far outside my areas of interest and expertise.

A few issues? I suspect that, upon inquiry, you would find that the President holds such views as,

• The President should work to uphold the Constitution;
• Our nation benefits from capitalism;
• Hitler and Stalin are among history's greatest villains;
• Genocide is a bad thing;
• Communism is a proven failure, that has caused significant harm to many societies;
• Religious freedom is a good thing;
• Racial discrimination is a bad thing;
• Education is a good thing;
• The state should recognize and protect the private ownership of property;
• Government corruption is a bad thing;
• People charged with crimes should be given due process;
• Legal education is beneficial;
• Women should have equal rights in the workplace;
• People within our society should, as a general rule, attempt to live peaceful, law-abiding lives;
• Cigarettes are addictive;
• People should practice good personal and dental hygiene;
• Despite its flaws, we have yet to develop a better system of government than democracy;
• In an ideal world, we would have minimum public debt and would routinely balance the budget;
• When you need to see a doctor, it's good to be able to afford to see a doctor;
• Not everybody will become wealthy, but its good for as many people as possible to have the opportunity;
• Early childhood education is important to future academic achievement;
• Children should have safe, stable, non-abusive homes;
• Government functions better when political parties cooperate and work toward sound policy outcomes....

I could, of course, keep going. My point is not that, by his own statement, Somin is either not sufficiently interested in or informed about Hitler, religious freedom and personal hygiene to form an opinion as to their merits, but that he's so focused on a handful of issues that he appears to have blinded himself to the enormous common ground he in fact shares with the President.

Kidding aside, Somin's final point also is the type of self-endorsement for which I don't much care - the implication that he only blogs about areas within his expertise - in essence an appeal to authority with himself as the authority.

I'm reminded of a comment a lawyer made, hearing another lawyer brag about his high success rate at trial. "If you're doing that well at trial it's because you're only litigating the cases you know you can win. You're not pushing yourself or your talents." Sometimes the stakes are such that caution is a good thing. Sometimes you don't want to roll the dice with a client's life. But if you're that cautious when it comes to expressing your opinion, you're not pushing yourself or testing your ideas. You also may not be quite the expert you imagine yourself to be, putting yourself at risk of having people read your blog posts and your self-congratulatory claim that you're an expert and reacting, "If that's his best thinking, no wonder he doesn't want to opine on other issues."

Also, with due respect to the fact that some people do hold special knowledge or well-honed analytical skills relevant to a particular subject or issue, quite often the "experts" are shooting from the hip. Not just the talking heads on television who pretend to be experts on every issue of the day, but also people who work within and specialize in a specific field, or leaders of government who insist that dramatic action is justified by information or intelligence they cannot reveal to the public. We've had some dramatic demonstrations of failure by the so-called "best and brightest" in recent years, and some remarkable incompetence in intelligence gathering and analysis leading up to the Iraq War. There's a reason "The Emperor's New Clothes" resonates as a story, even though it was a child, not a subject matter expert, who pointed out the Emperor's folly.
---------
Update: I see that Ilya Somin has read this post, appending to his original complaint, which I suppose could constitute a lesson in "how to think like a lawyer:

A somewhat overwrought critique of this post takes me to task for supposedly being unaware of numerous largely noncontroversial things that Obama and I agree on, such as that genocide is evil or that Hitler and Stalin were great villains. I’m well aware of these areas of agreement, thank you. But this post was about issues on which Obama and I agree, which means questions that are controversial in modern American politics. The fact that Obama and I agree on many things on which there is an overwhelming national consensus isn’t relevant to that. We also agree that the Earth is round, and that the Sun rises in the East.

I guess Somin believes that the best defense is a weak offense?

First technique in thinking like a lawyer: Misrepresent your opponent's argument. Somin complains that I take him to task for "supposedly being unaware of numerous largely noncontroversial things that Obama and I agree on". Yet I explicitly stated,

My point is not that, by his own statement, Somin is either not sufficiently interested in or informed about Hitler, religious freedom and personal hygiene to form an opinion as to their merits, but that he's so focused on a handful of issues that he appears to have blinded himself to the enormous common ground he in fact shares with the President.

On top of that explicit statement, I also note that I was "kidding" Somin. There is simply no room for ambiguity. If Somin read my post, he knows his characterization of it is false.

Second technique in "thinking like a lawyer" Redefine your terms. Somin complains that he was speaking about "issues" and apparently that I should have guessed that when he says "issues" he means only "questions that are controversial in modern American politics". Yet in his own post, Somin refers to "sports" as one of the two issues upon which he and the President find common ground, belying the notion that he was referencing only "questions that are controversial in modern American politics".

Third technique in thinking like a lawyer: Pound the table, and perhaps people won't notice that you have changed the subject. I expect that if I were to actually list contentious issues for which Somin would presumably agree with the President, Somin would complain that the issues upon which he agrees with the President are not "questions that are controversial in modern American politics" - that the only "controversial" issues are those for which he differs from the President. For example, if he reads his own group blog Somin surely recognizes that gun control is "controversial in modern American politics" - so by insisting that he disagrees with the President on all "questions that are controversial in modern American politics" other than gay rights and sports is Somin stating that he advocates gun control?

Somin's "rebuttal" reinforces my position that he, and people who use similar rhetoric, miss the forest for the trees. The President, for example, proposed a deal last year to balance the budget through a set of tax increases and budget cuts, including significant entitlement cuts. Somin objects to balancing the budget? To any tax increase necessary to do so? To entitlement cuts? There was recent controversy over women's access to contraception, and whether an employer's religious objection should justify the exclusion of any medication or treatment the employer finds objectionable from a job-based health insurance plan. Somin truly takes the extremist position, that for example a Christian Scientist employer should be able to exclude blood transfusions and antibiotics from a health insurance plan? There are national politicians who would be happy to ban contraception - should we nonetheless treat the issue as not "controversial in modern American politics", or does Somin join the anti-contraception faction?

Somin's response reminds me of something I've been meaning to write about - the manner in which many people in our society confuse politics with policy. The horse race is more fun to watch than policy-making, but media focus on every major issue as a contest serves to exaggerate the differences between the parties. If a reasonably intelligent, issue-driven Republican were to sit down with Obama, I expect that they would find a lot of common ground and be able to quickly reach mutually acceptable compromise on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The problem is that in the present political climate, the Republican would insist that the meeting occur off the record and instead of embracing the common ground would instead issue rhetoric that sounds a lot like... what Somin wrote.