WHY PUBLIC POLICY IS DIFFICULT, AND PHILOSOPHICALLY CONSISTENT PUBLIC POLICY IS IMPOSSIBLE.  Megan McArdle offers the Trenchant Observation of the Day.

All the activity of a modern human takes place in the context of society.  That requires balancing of individual rights and the common good.  But this is not a blank check for the government to trample rights as it pleases . . . nor a blanket answer when people complain that the government has gotten too intrusive.

And the tension between decentralization and coordination persists.