Few parents appreciate or tolerate someone encroaching on their children's developmental processes by assuming the role of surrogate parent.

And yet, as socially oriented beings, we intervene when a fellow being places him or others in a perceivably dangerous situation.

When a dangerous situation is seen as a socially repetitious condition, society creates laws concerning that condition. It is the greatest portrayal of "for the greater good."

At the same time, those who are appointed to enforce laws are not robots following a program. 

They are members of society, humans with a degree of compassion and discretion, who do their job accordingly, examining the conditions surrounding violations and determining the degree of enforcement they will apply to the situation.

That is the ideal, anyway. It is one thing for an average citizen to act in behalf of his fellow man in an obviously dangerous situation, as in the example given above, of preventing someone from walking off a bridge or leaping from a skyscraper.

It is quite another thing to demand that we assume parenting children who are not our own. And it is another thing to assume the role of enforcer of impersonal laws when we are not qualified for or appointed to that role.

Laws exist for reasons.
Only unreasonable laws are made to be broken.
If all laws were reasonable and for the greater good, and if there were not those among us who disrespect all laws, enforcement, and indeed, the creation of laws, would not be necessary.

This, from an aging rebel and outlaw who raised a son...

ps/smoh