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Part of the problem we’re facing today is that many young people just don’t know the difference between right and wrong in this society of blurred boundaries. When someone is wrong, they can always claim that they’re a victim of something else. Society made them that way.

Where does one get the notions of right and wrong from anyway? Today, most are getting it from the media, politicians, sports and musical entertainers, and anyone else they idolize. This is probably the worst group of people to get morals or ethics from; they’re not only a very flawed cast of characters, but most of them are shameless about their constant immorality.

Our society is headed further down the slope of the dark side of immorality as it has for decades, and its relative morality travels with it just like an index fund.

If right and wrong are defined by politicians and the media, I would suggest we are all going to hell if we follow their notions. Politicians and the media both lie to us incessantly, then take no responsibility for it, and are not held accountable.

Is right and wrong defined by law? To some extent perhaps, but law is nothing more than a version of the legislated morality of the society it represents. Let’s look at some examples.

Speeding is wrong, right? I would argue that some people can safely operate their vehicles at a higher velocity than the posted limit. I see no wrong in that, as long as they are in control, and not unnecessarily risking the harm of others.

Is it wrong for an 18 year old to drink a beer? It wasn’t 30 years ago, why was it suddenly wrong 10 years later? Remember prohibition? A lot of people were illegal during that time.

Adultery has been long considered wrong by many. In fact, there are laws against it in most states. However, they have not been enforced in decades. Is it now right to have sex with another’s spouse? If you think so, think about whether you would like their spouse or family to find out.

(I understand in our new age of ‘enlightenment’ that there are ‘swing couples’ that are OK with sharing their spouse. I see their point, but not sure why they got married if they want to behave in that manner.)

There used to be laws about sodomy on the books, but now most have been erased or are not enforced. Does that make it right? If homosexual marriage is legal and right, then why not polygamy? Those are consenting adults also. Why can’t man or woman marry a consenting animal?

It is legal for our government to tax a large percentage of our income, before we even see it, in order to waste most of it on fraudulent bureaucracies, and other programs as they see fit. Many of these people in charge didn’t pay their taxes, but are forcing the rest of us to, which is another story. But is it right?

You are legally allowed to sell “snake oil” to the public, on the internet, or wherever, and if you make the worthless product sound good enough, many people will buy it, only to be disappointed afterward that it doesn’t work at all. Is that right or wrong?

Greedy banks, while extorting their customers at every turn, got too greedy and lured customers into paying for things with credit that they couldn’t afford, which ran their businesses into the ground. Then they accepted billions of dollars of taxpayer money from the government as a bailout. Is that right?

Some rap gangsters, doing what they preach in the form of various crimes, have rap sheets longer than any of their rap songs. But they’re not behind bars; they’re still out there freely performing their “art.” Right.

It’s also legal to sell your body for sex, sell your soul for rock and roll, have abortions, lie and deceive others, be unkind to your neighbor, curse at an old lady, buy and sell people, mismanage someone else’s money and take no responsibility for it, adopt an underage child to have sexual relations with him/her, and the list goes on.

Some people would find the aforementioned items of questionable morality. In fact, some would call them just plain wrong. So we’ve proven that the law does not provide an accurate authority on right and wrong, right?

What is right and wrong then? Do we just feel it? Some do, I would argue, but why, and how? Clearly serial killers, rapists, thieves and others, don’t see it the same way I do.

Morality and ethics used to be well-defined, once upon a time in America. Schools and parents alike taught kids the real difference between right and wrong, and why it was so. The Ten Commandments were used as the general standard.

Today, parents leave it up to the government, schools, and media to raise their children. Now, God and his Commandments can’t be mentioned in schools without bringing about a law suit. They are even scoffed at in the public square by the media.

In the not too distant past, half a century ago, Americans knew the difference between right and wrong. Crime was low, and people were punished for doing the wrong thing.

Then we had the drug induced, sexual revolution, anything goes, moral relativity, “awakening” decade of the 60’s. Manson, Bundy, and a whole host of other serial killers sprouted out of this era.

The children of this generation have terrorized others in schools with guns and bombs, for no apparent reason. But there is a reason: they have no moral compass. They simply subscribe to the moral authority of the day: Moral Relativism.

Pure Moral Relativism states that the morality of anything is simply relative to the people or society of the day, or even to personal preference.

Fortunately, for now, most Moral Relativists will at least admit there is a line you don’t cross: you can’t hurt other people. But if you listen to the rest of their debate, you may not agree with their definitions of hurting people.

Some interesting examples:

A drug addict hurts nobody except himself right? Ask his family members: his wife, kids, etc. whether they think this is true. Aside from that, has he helped or harmed society?

A sexual relationship between an adult and child hurts nobody, since they are both consensual participants, right? Again, ask the child’s family if they feel this is true. The same argument can be made for the adulterous relationship.

If a man presents an investment without substance, such as a Ponzi scheme, or snake oil, and people buy into it, then that is their choice. It’s just another stock market gamble. The victims would disagree.

What if a man makes money off others by a legitimate business such as selling food or cloth? Does he therefore hurt others by taking their money while he makes a lot of it? Some would argue so.

The fact that Moral Relativists will mostly agree to not hurting others is convenient, but who decides whether even hurting others is right or wrong? What if most people were to agree that hurting others for your own benefit is right, as in survival of the fittest? We have still to define the “hurt.”

Such is the slippery slope of Moral Relativism. If there is not an absolute right or wrong for most issues and crimes, then who defines it? Simply, it’s the individual. Therefore, if enough individuals decide that it is right for them to kill, maim, rape, steal, and destroy, then it is OK according to Moral Relativism.

Suppose you end up stranded on an island, and there are 10 men and 3 women. The nine other men have collectively agreed that it is OK for any man to rape any of the women. What do you do?

In order to prevent sliding further down the slope to complete immorality, we must admit that there is an objective right or wrong. We can either do that now, or continue pretending that we don’t have a standard for this so that we can be “tolerant” of others’ rights to be immoral or unethical.

Regardless of your version of how Moses’ Ten Commandments came into being, it is generally agreed by scholars that they appeared about 3500 years ago. Since then, they increasingly took hold in the western world as the moral standard by which most laws have been based.

If you haven’t ever read the Ten Commandments, look them over real quick and then answer this question: Is anyone harmed by the following of these rules?

Perhaps you are an atheist, and disagree with the first three. I still aver that nobody is harmed if you follow those. If you don’t know how to follow them then don’t. (An aside to atheists: those first three are meant for you.)

The bottom line is that, if people did adhere to these Commandments, regardless of your religion, the criminal harm of others would be almost nonexistent.

Seriously, if nobody steals, murders, adulters, lies about their neighbor to his detriment, or covets other’s property, how many more serious crimes are there? Assault and rape, I would assume, but every civilized country has laws on the books about this, because we know they are wrong. And I would propose keeping such laws.

Some financial scheming crimes aren’t covered, you might say, but we can categorize most of these under the 8th Commandment regarding theft.

The fact is that, unless we admit that there is a higher authority regarding morality, then the pure relativity of it that leads to chaos, will take over.

In the past, court witnesses were required to raise their right hand, put the other on the Bible, and state, “I swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

Obviously some people didn’t believe in the truth, or God, but this method was still very powerful, because the witness was consciously condemning himself in front of God if he did not tell the truth, whether he believed it or not.

Now, that commitment on top of the Bible and God no longer exists in courts, since it offended some people. I’m so sorry that they were offending criminal suspects, by the way. But without swearing to God, who are the witnesses swearing to?

Since the truth is relative, and without making an oath to God, the witness or suspect is only swearing to himself and his own relative morality. What good is that? Can we expect any modicum of truth out of him?

The entire justice system of our society has been compromised by Moral Relativism, from the courts, to how police can handle the suspects without offending them, to the definitions of the crimes that are committed.

Remember how OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder because the lead detective had made a racial joke in the past? Which is worse: the joke or the murder? The slippery slope of relativism simply leads to more crime and more chaos, with fewer repercussions.

This is what happens to a society that abandons its commitment to God and his Commandments. Immorality, unethical behavior, and crime are not only tolerated but promoted from the Moral Relativist segment of the society, under the banner of Tolerance of course.

I’m not trying to sell religion here. Each person is free to worship in his own way. What I’m proposing is that we respect the commitment to God and the Judeo-Christian ethics that our Founding Fathers set forth in this country. They obviously had good reason for doing so.

If you’re one of the small minority that doesn’t believe in God (less than 10%), then you’re in a small enough segment that you shouldn’t be able to enforce your version of morality on the 90% majority.

Even so, consider following the Ten Commandments anyway. Just think: if you’re wrong and there is a God, then at least you’ll be doing the right thing by him, and that may count for something one day.

In the meantime, we need to admit as a society and nation that there are universal truths, rights, and wrongs. We need to return to following God’s law as it was stated thousands of years ago, which doesn’t hurt anyone, but in fact protects people from getting hurt.

What have we got to lose by having a more moral and ethical society?