In my lifetime, American society has been transformed by widespread accommodation of vice. Marijuana has been legalized in many jurisdictions, as has addictive online gambling. Not surprisingly, pot use and regular gambling have increased. In 2025, 17 percent of adults report smoking pot daily, up from 8 percent in 2020. Less than a decade ago, nobody had a sports betting app on his smartphone; today, half of American men between eighteen and forty-nine have opened accounts. And pornography is readily available on the internet, protected as free speech by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Social norms have likewise shifted. Open use of \u00adillegal drugs is widely tolerated. Silicon Valley titans use ketamine and other substances, making a mockery of the restriction of these drugs to medical use only. The New Yorker <\/em>publishes essays cheering \u201cthrouples\u201d and other sexual arrangements. Activists campaign to remove the stigma from \u201csex work,\u201d which few local governments make efforts to prevent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing in\u00a0National Affairs<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cThe Case for Prohibiting Vice<\/a>\u201d), Charles Fain Lehman observes that social conservatives have been routed in recent decades. Large-scale social trends run against us. But Lehman thinks we share some of the blame. Too often, those who wish to sustain moral codes accept the dominant terms of public debate, which rest on the notion that people should be free to do as they wish in their private lives, as long as nobody else is harmed….<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lehman advises social conservatives to stop trying to shoehorn their moral judgments into liberal arguments that rest on proofs of harm. We need to talk more frankly about what it means to have a good society, one that promotes human flourishing. And we should not shy away from the obvious truth that a good society discourages vice because it is vicious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> \u201cFor most of American history, a libertarianism in private life, restrained only by the harm principle, did not hold sway. American constitutional law accords \u2018police power\u2019 to the states, allowing them to pass laws to protect and promote the health, safety, and morals of their\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/jvv02FoYXU<\/a><\/p>— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 10, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>