An annoying feature of policy debates: Arguing over issues which are, for all practical purposes, inherently quantitative, as though they were qualitative. For example, we can't have laws that set this or that limiting condition because laws can't "draw completely arbitrary lines in the sand". Sure they can. They have to. How does one deal with issues now dealt with legal concepts of, for example, age of consent or maximum speed limit, without being arbitrary? Here's another one I love: We can't do this because that's "civil engineering". Well, so are stop signs. The entire civil code is an exercise in civil engineering. So is criminal code.
The questions of whether or not we want laws that use arbitrary limits, or whether or not we accept social engineering, are just a waste of time. There's no real choice there. The meaningful questions are where we want to draw this or that arbitrary line, or how we want our civil engineering done in this or that case.
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