LETTERS: OPPRESSIVE LAWS NEED TI BE REPEALED

To the editor:

A recent article in a Missouri newspaper stated that the Missouri Legislature passed 232 new laws in the last year, and 173 of these took effect Aug. 28, 1997. We would be better served if they had repealed that number instead. Laws are restrictions. They range all the way from harassment of citizens to outright destruction of our freedoms, and they usually cost the taxpayers money.

Our country used to be the greatest in the world without all these unnecessary laws, so it stands to reason that we would be better off without them. Add all these laws to the thousands of others passed by Congress, other states, cities and counties, and what do you have? Hundreds of thousands of useless laws that overlap and contradict each other.

It is no mystery why our misnamed justice system is in such disarray. Lawyers need to research hundreds of law books for practically every case they handle, because no one could possibly remember even a small fraction of all these laws. This is one of the reasons why it usually takes so long to bring a case to court. That is also the reason that poor people can no longer afford to avail themselves of the justice that we are supposedly guaranteed.

Justice should be free to everyone. That is assuming, of course, that if you go to court you will obtain justice. Judging from about a dozen highly publicized court cases of the last few years, it makes one wonder if justice has long been forgotten.

RAY UMBDENSTOCK

Cape Girardeau