I once heard a man yell at a New York bureaucrat: "You are the Vampire State!"

I was reminded of this incident one weekend last February when I took my children to Bethpage State Park for some winter fun. A park ranger blocked our entrance and forced us to return the sled to the car because there was not enough snow on the hills. I thought of arguing with him that the safety of my children is my job. Then I remembered how useless trying to reason with state employees turned out to be at the end of summer last year at Jones Beach.

I grew up on the outskirts of Bulgaria's capital, Sofia. Our neighborhood looked more like a village than a suburb. We would often wake up to the sound of a rooster crowing across the street. I used to buy fresh milk from a farmer whose cows grazed in a field less than a half-mile from my parents' apartment building.