We had the death penalty back then...people behaved.
Not as many illegals and other scum bags.
Agreed. When there are very tangible consequences to bad behavior, it tends to suppress bad behavior.
Take away the consequences and you're going to get bad behavior. You'll get millions of illegals crossing the border. You'll get gangs of thieves robbing stores in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses. You'll have criminals fighting back with police who are restricted from using force until extreme force is required as a last resort. You'll get evil with no moral compass killing dozens over petty imagined slights. You get deviant behavior that decorum prevents me from listing here.
Yep, remove consequences and you get a "free" society so "free" that it needs a big government to step in and control virtually every aspect of your "freedom" - up to and including what medical treatments you can, cannot, or must have. Great job people, we have {censored} ourselves into a corner.
It is a lot more than that. Most people weren’t raised by wolves.