There's also a lot of bullshit encoded in the ways of the past. Just because you like one of them doesn't make it good for the society.
And talking about "moral decay" (as if morality was some objective set of rules that society can either follow or not follow, and not a huge continuum of various moral standards of both individuals and societies) makes me quite sure that you're speaking from sentiment, rather than from reason.
"It feels right to me, therefore it is right" is not a good argument for convincing anyone of anything.
I agree that it's very hard to measure this sort of thing. There are way too many (constantly changing) factors that affect the crime rate, that it's almost impossible to isolate a single cause and measure its effect.
However, that should only motivate us to approach the problem even more rigorously, rather than to resort to subjective heuristics.
And talking about "moral decay" (as if morality was some objective set of rules that society can either follow or not follow, and not a huge continuum of various moral standards of both individuals and societies) makes me quite sure that you're speaking from sentiment, rather than from reason. "It feels right to me, therefore it is right" is not a good argument for convincing anyone of anything.
I agree that it's very hard to measure this sort of thing. There are way too many (constantly changing) factors that affect the crime rate, that it's almost impossible to isolate a single cause and measure its effect. However, that should only motivate us to approach the problem even more rigorously, rather than to resort to subjective heuristics.