LET'S BAN EVERYTHING

THE Mercury News is right to favor limits on gambling (Opinion, Nov. 5).
After all, why should we allow adults to run their own lives?

But why stop with limiting gambling? Why not outlaw it all together? Look
at how successful prohibition and the war on drugs have been. And while we
are at it, why not outlaw fried foods, liquor, candy and bed times later
than 10 o'clock?

The editors of the Mercury News have fallen into the trap of all bluenoses
and enemies of democracy who seek to save other people from themselves.

The notion that you, the princes of the Fourth Estate, know better than we,
the unwashed masses, what we should and should not be allowed to do is at
its heart undemocratic. It strikes at the very notion upon which this
nation was founded, that people are smart enough to run the country and
therefore should be free to run their own lives.

John Rickman, Cupertino