Why Americans Hate Government

In a wonderful profile of an improv comedy performer in New York City, this excerpt struck me:

When I ask him what he’s doing for money, he starts telling me about his new job as a driver for Van Leeuwen’s Artisanal Ice Cream trucks, which doesn’t start till the weather warms up, but which he’s already excited about because it meant he got to spend yesterday at the Department of Consumer Affairs learning about all the forms one has to fill out to get certified to handle food in New York. “I like the bureaucracy of it because I don’t have that in my life at all,” he says, sounding like an excited child. “You have to do this up here and then you have to wait six days and then you have to go downtown and check with somebody at an office and then you have to wait for something in the mail and then bring that and do other things that other people have sent you and then you have to get them in triplicate and make sure you have a proper proof of ID, and proof of address, which can be a number of different things …”

All that to sell ice cream.