When using the term “cultural defense,” I am referring to defending moral absolutes, as understood in the Christian sense of the expression.
The concept of the moral code finds its genesis in the Natural Law (God’s Law, from which all just and positive law derives) The moral code is transcendent, not relative. It exists outside the social order, whether or not it is recognized by the constituents of that compact. The moral code is imprinted on man’s heart by his Creator, specifically God, even while man may deny God’s law, he cannot escape it’s jurisdiction over him.
History is replete with the consequences of man’s folly — some direct cause, some accidental. Even if we fail to see the connections, and so some cause-effect relationship is hidden from us, yet such obscurity does not diminish God’s knowledge of our secrets.
Neither is God obliged to grant us understanding of His ways... What may seem an injustice to our minds, may, in the greater scheme of those things which are of infinite design, be for some greater good. It is not for us to question. All will be revealed in God’s own time, not ours.
Cause and effect, reap what you sow, law of karma -- all amount to the same thing. I have been at least vaguely aware since the age of about 15, that as a wealthy world power, we run the risk of the fate of the Roman Empire. I am in agreement with you that moral absolutes must be upheld. The Germanic peoples practiced a Spartan self-discipline, for they lived close to the land, where nature is unforgiving.
Selfish over-indulgence and apathy about injustice to others are the great sins of dissolution that ruined the Roman Empire. Jaded appetites and vacant consciences. Let's not let it happen here!