Contrary to your letter, all of us, including you, want society to prohibit certain acts by others that endanger society ... namely, you and me. The only question is which acts? How do we go about deciding which acts are tolerable.

There was a time, back in the good old days, when this was fairly simple. If God said something was prohibited, that was all there was to it. Problems began to arise however when various experts began giving contradictory views of what God had said. Later on people stopped believing in God anyway. If He doesn't exist, it doesn't matter much what He says. We were fortunate.

There may not be a God, but there certainly is a Constituion, and, if you can get enough pressure from the right places, you can make the Constitution say whatever you want it to say. Can't beat that. With five votes on the Supreme Court we can do something that even God couldn't do. We can make something good, and with five votes ten years from now, we can make it bad.

A bit more seriously, your letter seems to say that we should not waste money enforcing laws that can't be enforced anyway. Lonely men will always seek out prostitutes, drug addicts will always need the comforts of drugs, etc., etc. Is your criteria for enforcing laws determined by the cost of enforcement? Are you saying that laws should be enforced only if there is some reasonable expectation that we can stamp out this or that particular type of crime? Is a crime acceptable if the criminal was merely seeking the solace of a women, or the solace of a drug?

There are mentally disturbed men running loose who will satisfy their needs by sexually assualting women, or children. I am certain that you would have society prohibit these acts regardless of the cost and notwithstanding any comfort the rapist might obtain, and fully realizing that while we might not eradicate these crimes - we must keep trying.

Incidentally, God did not give us the Ten Commandments to help us make choices. He wanted us to understand that we could not possibly live in a manner pleasing to Him unless we always obeyed every Divine command. We can't. But he gave us an Alternative.