No, it's not. You're simply hearkening back to the frontier, boomtowns, and waterfronts -- places where rough people have always congregated.
By far the greatest number of Americans were and are hardworking, honest, and above all, quiet. History rarely takes note of such people, which is why you are prompted to make the comment you did.
An apt observation. However, with the decline in stigmatization for conduct that was once unacceptable, there is a decline in the moral character of the people. Of course that has little, if anything, to offer as a justification for more laws. The need is for a general awakening of the intelligent element, as to what works in human society--and what leads to certain disaster.
While the States have Police Powers to deal with anti-Social conduct that threatens Society, the Federal Government does not--outside the District and the Federal Reservations. So it is important to understand that not only can the Federal Government not correct the effects of the moral decline; its efforts to do so, other than by repealing unconstitutional laws--which of course it should do--can only cause more of a decline. As Reagan stated so well, the Federal Government is not the solution; the Federal Government is often the problem. (And see The Moral Bases of A Political Society.)
It is difficult to even imagine a more corrupting influence on the youth of America, than the image of a Government, which refuses to respect the limits on its own powers. Clintonesque liars, who escape retribution, set the worst possible example.
Your peaceful picture of American community life is also threatened today by the unholy combination of a half-baked immigration policy, combined with politically correct adulation for the concept of multi-culturalism and "diversity," which is not calculated to preserve much tranquility in our midst.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site