we take the same regulatory approach as tunisia, or we try to make it more ridiculous or simply...evil. but where are the rioters? americans have no guts. capitulation is our best thing. i can just hear your basic bureaufuck, the type you find the world over: i'd like to help. i really would. but we have to follow the rules. i have no choice. rules are rules, etc: the high school assistant principal's approach to personal responsibility: none whatsoever. it would shock me if, for example, anyone actually took direct responsibility for having made the decision: the decision to starve the homeless, the bold opposition to extraordinary generosity. well, nobody did, but probably he was inhabiting a particular human body at the time. he's hoping that god won't be able to find him in his body to punish him eternally; he is trying hard not to exist. i wonder whether jesus had a permit when he fed the hungry with loaves and fishes. ultimately, that's probably why they strung him up. but they had no choice! rules are rules. it would be a great comfort to us if we actually had no choice, so we pretend that we don't. that is what bureaucracy is for.