PROHIBIT LIFE?

Editor -- The furor over television and movie violence, pornography,
gambling, and marijuana brings to mind the example of the prohibition
of alcoholic beverages which formally ended with the ratification of
the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on December 5, 1933.
Because some people had trouble with alcohol, the 18th Amendment
prohibited all alcoholic beverages. For years, gangsters such as Al
Capone would smuggle the liquor into speakeasies and people would
party away, despite the laws, and much to the profit of the fine gangsters.

If some people are violent, patrons of prostitutes and rapists,
pathological gamblers, or potheads, does this mean that life itself
should be illegal? Shall we ban all forms of entertainment because
some of the ultra-left and some of the ultra-right do not learn from
their own history?

PHIL ROBERTSON
Honolulu