Minaret Ban

I think the ban on the hijab in public schools and other public places in France and elsewhere is deeply misguided at best, thinly veiled racism at (much more likely) worst, but at least in that case, I understood the plausible rationale behind the policy. I've read several discussions of Switzerland's Minaret ban, and have come up completely empty on the reconstruction of a plausible non-bigoted justification. (The closest I've seen is a bizarre, metaphorical 12-year old quote from The Turkish Prime Minister.)

File under "Reasons why unpopular minorities and those concerned with their status remain unenthusiastic about plebiscitary democracy, #43,214."

Read more...

Follow-Up on Health Care, With More Stuff About Veto Points

Yglesias responds, conceding that the Swiss analogy doesn't really work "except in the broad sense that Switzerland is the other example of a developed country that came late to the universal health care game thus did it in a way that involves a lot of compromises with existing interest groups." To invoke our shared institutional hobbyhorses, I'd also note that it's not a coincidence that the Swiss system also has an unusually high number of veto points for a European system. (Ellen Immergut's analysis is definitive.) But, still, American institutions remain an outlier here, much to the detriment of the possibility of a good health care bill (and ensuring that even if a decent bill somehow passes it will be vastly more expensive than necessary.)

Read more...