UNBUNDLING. The relatively quick first phase of the Iraq campaign of the war on International Terror has inspired a great deal of commentary about lessons learned, errors of experts, and the making of new agreements and the unmaking of old agreements. Andrew Sullivan's essay on Republicans on both sides of the cultural divide is as good a place as any to start. Sullivan notes splits between the cut-spending and the cut-taxes positions on fiscal policy, and the leave-us-alone and the it-takes-a-village positions on social policy. But aren't those symptoms of a bigger problem: the bundling of political positions into political parties, with the obligation of each voter to somehow pick one? Sullivan is correct to note that Republicans run the risk of becoming dizzy with success. The bundling problem, however, is endemic to all political parties. This Samizdata post takes issue with a Daily Kos proposal to bring libertarians into the Democratic Party. Your mileage may vary, but under current political alignments, if you want choice in abortions, you've probably forfeited school choice. Bundling, again. Read this (via InstaPundit) and decide whether your representative, or your party, has a manifesto in which your perspective gets across-the-board support. Then read (or reread Eject! Eject!'s latest switchlist posting. Key point: to make a division-of-labor society work "requires mutual trust. And it requires hard work." And simple rules appear to work better than more cumbersome ones. I repeat: the real conflict has not yet begun, although the lines are being drawn, and one of the lines will determine what bundling, if any, of rights and obligations becomes the model for governing our interactions.