Philip K. Howard, author of The Rule of Nobody, was a guest on Monday’s The Daily Show.

Said Howard: “Out of the history of the universe, has anyone accomplished something by following a rule? They role up their sleeves, they take responsibility, they figure out what the resources are to take care of the VA, and the do the best job and they report.”

Jon Stewart: “I don’t know what you need to get an A, B, C, or D, but I stopped eating at Bs about a year ago. It feels like it’s working. It feels like a bureaucratic standard that has set some standards to achieve, and has done it. It’s simple and it’s the alphabet. Lord knows I love the alphabet.”

Howard: “It’s important that law be comprehensible. And it’s important that people in charge of law be able to exercise their responsibility in determining whether a restaurant meets sanitary codes and such and they give it a letter grade and the public can see it has a letter grade and the public can make a judgment.”

Provide information, let people make their own choices (but don’t expect everyone else to clean up your mess when you make a bad choice).