This is why you keep sacrificing virgins, and why your unicorn defenses are working just great.

Indeed, while European citizens are being asked to sacrifice their standard of living and even their livelihoods for the sake of the national economy, transnational corporations are thriving.

Rising artist Sedki Al Imam approaches Eid with jest.On Eid al Adha, Muslims sacrifice a goat or sheepand distribute the meat amongst the poor, neighbors and relatives.

As a result, political leaders have often asked citizens to sacrifice personal freedoms and comforts in the name of secularized spiritual entities, such as the nation or the state and citizens have eagerly obliged.

The overthrown Tunisian dictator must now regret that his security forces did not arrest Bouazizi and lock him up, rather than allow his public self immolation.

People still remember the Cultural Revolution and view themselves as survivors of a shared traumatic experience, underpinning a commitment to collective sacrifice in order to rebuild the country.

Recognizing also the sacrifice of all the men and women who lost their lives in United Nations peacekeeping operations, and recalling in this regard the establishment by the Security Council of the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal,

Skeptics doubt the credibility of this policy, which in principle obliges the US to sacrifice New York in response to an attack on Warsaw, or endanger Los Angeles to defend Taipei.

Above all, the term was an effort to communicate to Americans, accustomed to waging war with speed and decisiveness (and insistent on it since Vietnam), the long term sacrifice and commitment needed to win a war of survival.

How can a man who represents big business, or who simply seems fascinated by money, dare ask them to sacrifice for France? The French passion for equality nowadays far outweighs the French passion for liberty, and thus threatens French prosperity.

But it may also explain why one self immolation in Tunisia helped to kindle the Arab Spring, whereas some three dozen self immolations by Tibetan monks and nuns have failed to ignite a similar popular movement against the Chinese state.

And Japan s greatest generation the men and women who rebuilt a war shattered country into an economic powerhouse should not be deemed unwilling to sacrifice for the greater good. After all, they saved their country once they are more than capable of doing it again.

Meanwhile, existing political systems promise good jobs, sound governance, a sustainable environment, and social harmony without sacrifice a paradise of self interested free riders that can be sustained only by sacrificing the natural environment and the welfare of future generations.