... unnecessary law because it purports to prevent a "harm" which is not a harm at all.

>> Surely, as a lawyer, you have learned not to
>> try to try to project your particular value
>> system onto the law, which is sometimes archaic
>> and sometimes represents the concensus of a
>> group of lawmakers representing various
>> constituencies.

George Bernard Shaw once said something to the effect that:

"The reasonable man tries to adapt himself to the world. The unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

Everyone who ever attempts to effect a change in the law is "projecting" his value system onto the law. If that didn't happen, the laws would never change.

The fact that a law is archaic, it seems to me, would be a good reason to change it.

The "consensus opinions" of our lawmakers at virtually every level of government in this country is to regulate, control, restrict or otherwise impede personal freedoms, generally for no better reason than to impose their own standards on the rest of us.

The mere fact that something IS the law doesn't necessarily make it good or right. Nor does it mean I have to like it, or even, in extreme cases, obey it.

To repeat my primary point, I don't think that a father allowing a 12 year old to put his tokens into a slot machine is anything for the government to care about, one way or the other. The law which makes that illegal imposes on me a value standard with which I happen to disagree.

----- jim o\-S