The King of Ruffle Bar and the Insanity of BureaucracySean Kerrigan, Contributor Officials became very concerned with capturing the dog, even going as far as using a helicopter to hover over the island daily. It continued to evade police, eventually attracting a national audience as they continued in vain to corner him. The New York Times reported that police stated the dog looked in good shape. Indeed, the police had been aware of the dog for at least two years prior and were content to leave him on the island. Why dont they leave the dog alone? one officer asked. The dog is as happy as a pig in a puddle. Representatives for the ASPCA said, When we catch the dog, we will have it examined by a vet, and if it is in good health, we will find a happy home for it. (Italics added) Hall notes that if the story were a fable, there would be no doubt as to its interpretation. It is clearly a story about a little man against a big bureaucracy, which is probably why it received national interest. But more notable, is the reaction of the ASPCA, which would not have been content until the dog was placed in a controlled setting. Hall writes: The bureaucracy, when activated, can be very dangerous because reason cannot abate its quest for uniformity. Hall notes that this is primarily a Western problem, not one shared the world over. We in the west are alienated from ourselves and from nature, he writes. We labor under a number of delusions, one of which is that life makes sense, that we are sane. We persist in this view despite massive evidence to the contrary. The story about the King of Ruffle Bar is replayed over and over in American society, except we are the animals the government continually seeks to cage. Considerthis story from Philadelphia, where a woman who attempts to feed children is handed a $600 fine. The reason? Zoning regulations state that it is a residential area, and shes handing out food. Pay special attention to the bureaucrat in this video.His sense of self-righteousness is stunning. The state bureaucracy cannot abide inconsistency. It must stomp out irregularities even in defiance of reason. The Western tendency to value conformity over reason is, in its most benign form, a mere inconvenience, but once activated, laws are potent tools for control and harassment. Not all bureaucratic misadventures are so tame, however; and, at their worst, the power of the written word can be deadly. RELATED ACTIVIST POST ARTICLE: Sean Kerrigan is a freelance journalist and occasional blogger 