In The Death of Common Sense, Philip K. Howard argues that the
             present day over-reliance on statutes and regulations in America as a means
             to create a just and fair society has, in fact, achieved just the opposite.
             In presenting his case, Howard is actually making a strong point in
             reminding the reader that the dispensation of justice requires the
             understanding and practice of the spirit of the law. Blind application and
             adherence to statutes of law will only lead to a system that may end up
             Howard traces the root of the system to the rationalist movement in
             the 1960s that favored statutory law, as it was believed to be more
             consistent and fair: "The credo of this rationalist order, like our law
             today, was that government should be self-executing and dispassionate. The
             idea spawned numerous reform movements, including socialism. It also led to
             the invention of modern bureaucracy." (Howard, 27-28) It is evident in the
             preceding statement that the spirit behind the formation of statutory law
             was unquestionably praiseworthy. Unfortunately, the solution devised led to
             a bureaucratic system that only succeeded in loosing sight of that very
             Bureaucracies, as is widely acknowledged, usually lead to the stifling
             of good ideas, innovation, initiative and most important a loss of
             perspective. Indeed, experience has shown again and again that
             bureaucracies usually miss the wood for the trees. And in doing so defeat
             the larger purpose for which they were set up in the first place. Howard
             ably demonstrates this very point when he cites the example of Mother
             Teresa's nuns of the Missionaries of Charity having to perforce abandon
             their plans to convert two abandoned buildings into homeless shelters in
             New York City on account of the bureaucratic insistence of the city's
             building code that the nuns would have to install a lift (Howard, 3-5). The
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