Most conservatives have enjoyed the outcomes of two notable stories in the last week or so. They reveled in the dropping of all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players and cheered the revelation of perceived hypocrisy, if not the actual firing, of radio personality Don Imus for his disparaging remarks about the oddly named Lady Scarlet Knights basketball team.

What I find amazing is the canonization of the Duke trio in some quarters. While they were no doubt falsely accused of rape and other crimes by a race-baiting charlatan masquerading as a District Attorney who will hopefully spend some time behind bars, have people forgotten that a drunken stag party occasioned the charges against them in the first place?

That such parties occur on college campuses and other locations where teens gather is a fact of modern life, but paying strippers? Yet, I suppose we are to applaud the lacrosse players because they held the “party” at their rented house instead of at the local strip joint in order that their younger brothers could join in the fun, lest they miss out on what some are calling “a rite of passage.” It’s good to know that their parents’ fifty grand a year isn’t going to waste.

For years, many folks have blamed college coaches for the deplorable actions of some student-athletes, yet defenders of the Dukies lament the fact that coach Mike Pressler was unjustly forced to resign. Yet one third of his 2006 team had been arrested on his watch before the incident, albeit on mostly misdemeanor charges. So shed no tears for the coach who admits that “[w]e didn’t know a lot of the time what was going on with athletes off the field. But when we knew about it, we dealt with it.” You can read all about his suffering in his new book due out in stores in June. Expect more volumes to follow.

People who have criticized Mike Nifong’s outrageous conduct but also acknowledge the immoral yet legal behavior that caused the whole problem, have been met with tired cliches like “judge not, lest ye be judged” and the disgusting premise that this is typical of the way college boys have behaved for years. But let’s not forget that Pressler resigned as a direct result of a vile email sent by one of his players who jokingly suggested that at a repeat performance there would “be no nudity” because he would kill the strippers and “cut their skin off.” Just like seeing how many kids you can stuff into a phone booth, I guess.

We find ourselves in a society where it would seem that earning a living in the “sex trades” can be an honorable thing, especially if one is that epitome of modern womanhood to which all young girls should aspire; a single mother. In this climate, where sex is such an everyday commodity, when strip clubs flourish even in small towns and ads to enhance “performance” flood the airwaves, expect more disputes between clients and contractors to occur, with or without duplicitous DAs.

The Imus flap is another disturbing milepost on the road to our cultural decline and one that directly ties into the Duke case. Don Imus, as an aging baby-boomer, represents many of his generation who constantly try and remain “hip” by adopting the evolving mores of the sexual revolution they perpetrated on this nation.

It has been pointed out ad nauseam that Imus’s remarks are no worse than the rap music lyrics that are so popular today and, indeed, that some of the Rutgers gals are probably fans of the genre. Again, there is an overtone of racial pandering accompanying what would have been an outrage to all Americans only short years ago; that an industry celebrating the scatological “humor” and sexual fantasies of adolescent boys, flourishes.

That rap music adds violence to the mix should come as a surprise to no one — that connection was inevitable — see the link to the Dukie email above. That the glorification of sex outside of its intended purpose only leads to the debasement of other social norms, is not a function of race; although certain racial provocateurs on both sides would have it so.

According to Newsweek, the younger brother of Reade Seligmann once raised his hand to ask his teacher a question: “I need to know why bad things happen to good people.” Bad things often happen to people who have forgotten what is good.