There is a disturbing trend in this country to push the concept that if some action is not illegal it is not just legal but is wholly right and just. This is a trend that needs to be stopped in its tracks. There are all sorts of things that a person can do that are legal but are immoral, unfair, or just plain wrong.

Adultery is an example. It used to be illegal in many jurisdictions but has now been taken out of the criminal code in most, if not all of them. That's fine, I don't think a person's marital infidelity should be cause for a criminal case. However, I do think there should be a cost to the person that engages in adultery if only a social cost. Such people have broken their word, freely given without duress, to the person that should be able to trust them the most.

The former governor of New York comes to mind if only because his case is the most recent public example. It doesn't have to be about Eliot Spitzer but not only is it recent, it also highlights the inherent hypocrisy of the adulterer better than most such examples.

Spitzer was a hard-charging prosecutor who went after a lot of high-profile offenders, basking in the aura of invincibility that his position gave him. It turned out that once his adultery became public that invincibility evaporated faster than a water puddle in the Sahara. Spitzer was in charge of prosecuting prostitution while he was a customer himself. Rank hypocrisy at its worst.

Spitzer resigned, as he should have, when the public outcry became loud enough. That is an example of public morality working as it should. It doesn't matter whether Spitzer is charged with a crime and ultimately convicted. He has been punished by the community, in his case it was the whole state of New York, but it was community just the same.

Public officials who lie to their constituents need to face punishment. It doesn't have to involve prison time to be effective. Losing their position, and the money and power that goes with it may actually be more painful to them than being incarcerated.

If we let someone slide because there is no law against what they have done, even if we know it is wrong, we enable other, more egregious, wrongdoing. We do no one a favor by averting our gaze so we can pretend that it isn't happening, not the person doing wrong, and certainly not anyone who is the victim of the person. Its easy to avoid becoming involved, I've avoided involvement myself, but it only postpones the inevitable, it doesn't eliminate it.

Community standards have become the butt of jokes, not because they have lost their utility, but because people have convinced themselves that they are "hip" or "cool" or whatever today's generation word is. Such standards are necessary and we should not be afraid to uphold them.

Multi-culturalists insist that all cultures and mores are valid, but that is demonstrably false. A culture that values life above death is a better culture than one that idolizes suicide bombers. A culture that values honesty above dishonesty is a better culture. A culture that values the contributions of all its citizens is a better culture than one that says the Jew or the black man is less valuable.

Our culture is currently the best one on the face of the planet. It may not last but while it does we should do what we can to pass that on to future generations and we do that by starting small, at the individual level. We can't expect the government to do our job for us, and our job is to form the moral guidelines that future generations will follow.

Criminal codes are not the way to do it, they are the court of last resort. The way to pass our moral heritage on to future generations is time-consuming and labor-intensive but there are no shortcuts. Parents must train their families, families are the foundation of our culture and we must build our on a firm foundation, let other cultures build on the shifting sands of changing opinion.