Social vices like smoking, gambling and alcoholism should exist to provide individuals the opportunity to freely choose between vice and vrtue ("Smoking gambling drinking are not 'rights'", Dec 1 ).

It is the function of vice to keep virtue as practised by our moralists within reasonable bounds. The Taliban in Afghanistan (for lack of a more dramatic example) aspire a purity of virtue that condemn women to servitude and men to hypocrisy. This is itself a vice.

Our compass should be rationality and balance - not absolutism of religious or moralistic values. The highest claim to virtue is not in the preaching but in the practice in the presence and not absence of temptations and vice.

The writer said that "for years, the Indian community leaders have been campaigning to end alcoholism and gambling among the poor and downtrodden Indian working classes (because) these are escapist acts of the powerless and downtrodden".

The root causes of the plight of the Indian working class are poverty exacerbated by social and racial stratification and discrimination.

The reference to modern history by Jennifer Chin ("Gov't discourages vices yet invests in them", Dec 1) is totally out of context.

To support Mahfuz Omar's (PAS MP) objections, she pointed out that "the unrestricted sale of opium by the British East India Company in the late 19th century had ruined a great civilisation (China) and political system to the extent that it could raise no strong armies to defend itself against Western imperialism".

Addictive opium as a vice cannot be compared to alcohol, gambling or tobacco that can be indulged moderately. This country bans trafficking of opium, heroin and other drugs, doesn't it? Alcohol, gambling or tobaccos, though discouraged, are freely available and indulged in most developed countries of North America. Does the writer see a decline in these countries?

China's downfall is its failure to study practical science and apply that knowledge to arm itself.

Let's turn to another contemporary drama unfolding in Afghanistan.

The Taliban lecture religious morality, hector and punish those who were guilty of infractions, and inspire those who believed in their cause to fight for it.

When it comes to the crux, it is the Americans who study practical knowledge and develop technology amidst their practice of virtue and vice, that rains bombs from so high in the sky that the Taliban cannot not even see the planes.