It has been said that Marbury v. Madison is the most significant case ever decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The accolade may be overstated because the legal dispute between Marbury and Madison was left unresolved.

Political thinking in the modern democratic era easily lends itself to the reliance on simplifying labels – in other words, ideologies.

Last year I decided to fix our deck. It’s big, about 600 square feet, nine feet off the ground, and it was falling apart. Joists were rotting, and the whole thing was resting on one beam, when there should’ve been three. My foot went through the floor a couple of times.