"You can't unpull a trigger"

You can never really undo an action. You can try to make amends. You can try to counteract. You can attempt to neutralize. You might even go so far as to make things better then they were before your initial misdeed. But at the end of the day, you still haven't undone your original misdeed.
We have a love affair in this country with "people turning things around."
Tookey Williams writes a few kids books and suddenly it's a tragedy that he's on death row.
We have a love affair in this country with "hidden intellect and personal tragedy."
Anna Nicole Smith dies after a life of prostituting herself, gross excess, and cheap horrid thrills.
It's nothing new, we treated Marylin Monroe the same way.
We have a sick love in this country with the twisted and the cruel.
Look at all the books about serial killers, murderers, rapists, and criminal minds. We treat these people like they are "fascinating".
We make movies and write articles about them, they are our entertainment.

Here's the thing about lives of excess... people have the right to live them. I'm not arguing with that. If you're not infringing on the rights of others... do as you will. I'm a huge fan of Hunter Thompson, because he lived his life of extremes and excesses but never hid the truth that, at it's core, it was what he picked for himself and he never expected anything more then to be left alone to do it.
That is not what destroys a nations moral compass.

In the graphic novel "V for Vendetta" the Terrorist V points out that the crime increase across the state that erupts in the short term as a result of his actions is not the goal in and of itself. The excess and vice are not good things. They never can be. "This is not the land of do-as-you-please... it is the land of take-what-you-want".

I'm pointing at the apparent lack of a moral compass anymore. And it's not the sort of thing that can be legislated, at least not entirely.
Work ethic... national pride... these things can save us.
We don't need to outlaw excess and personal freedom. We need to embrace it. Let all people face the consequences of their choices. Providing a path to excess that has no personal downside creates an unsustainable situation.