In keeping with the spirit of the celebration, youngsters should tell towns passing ordinances forbidding Trick or Treating for children over 12 years of age or six feet of height to "go to Ghenna".
It is claimed that the regulation is justified on the grounds of the fear felt in part by single mothers confronted by trick-or-treaters nearly six feet tall. However, isn’t that the fault rather of whatever reason or moral shortcoming as to why the mother is single in the first place?
For starters, since most adolescents don’t have official ID’s prior to obtaining a driving license, on what grounds can a child be compelled to reveal their ages to law enforcement and (more importantly) how can age even be legitimately proven? After all, it seems foreigners can’t be compelled to reveal their identities, so why ought actual Americans be forced to?
The hyperpious will snap that any law that restricts what they consider to be a heathen practice is a good thing. However, if that is the case, what is to prevent other statutes from being promulgated that will arbitrarily forbid activities that ought to be of an ethically neutral nature in the eyes of the state such as at what age one can be given a Bible or at what age teens are permitted to date?
Those not wanting to deal with Halloweeners beyond a certain age or size are perfectly free to ignore the knock at the door and to have prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law those that get destructive over not having been rendered the coveted confections.
The passage of yet another layer of regulation to which once free citizens are required to bend the knee a bit more is not always the answer. Those failing to realize this rank among the most frightening boogeymen of all.
by Frederick Meekins
