But the notion that individuals who walk away might find common cause, might use that cause to build something that, if not entirely separate from the system, is at least not completely aligned with it, reads to the system—to any system of empire—as fantasy. For someone fortunate enough to be born wearing the boot, the capacity for mercy may well extend only to how hard one chooses to step on the neck. That anyone should take the shoe off entirely, walk from the site of the trampling, is unthinkable.
