So Mrs. Smith should have thrown a fit or refused to use the plane? How would that have helped things? Her compliance was based on American civility, not on subservience.

How exactly do you propose to run things without petty bureaucrats? The simple fact is that bureaucracy is only way to organize a large organization. Sure, we all know of horror stories of bureaucracy. (My favorite was a person who approved fliers who was only there for a few hours on one day a week. No one else would do the job) They come from the inherent nature of bureaucracy – mechanization of people. The bureaucrats are just trying to do their assigned task, not trying to control your life.

The school cases are the result of people trying to absolve themselves of the responsibility of judgement. They want less control, not more – they want to remove the human element entirely. The skittles case is a classic of this kind of mechanical thinking. They treat all banned property as the same, including both candy and weapons