GOVERNMENT'S PROTECTIVE ROLE

READER KIRK Muse (Letters, Oct. 5) was exactly right. Your answer -
"Someone has to. Adults too often act like children" - was completely wrong.

In a truly free society, adults make their own choices and live with them.
A government's only protective role should be to save us from other
people's actions, such as drunk drivers, rapists, murderers, Celine Dion CD
manufacturers (a tip of the hat to a very funny Matt Hillier Letter of the
Day, Oct. 5) and anybody else who inflicts harm on others, not from ourselves.

What a very liberal viewpoint, to believe the government should look after
you to such an extent that it replaces your judgment of what is right for
you to do to yourself. One cannot help wondering why the Sun is not against
alcohol. If anyone needs protecting from themselves, surely it is
alcoholics. And if not them, then why those of us who imbibe in other less
harmful substances?

Fred Cooper

Quinte

(Sometimes, as in the case of seat belt laws, people have to be saved from
their own stupidity.)