Some people pronounce it government, but we don’t need them quiche eaters around here.

Seriously though, the American public seems to be torn between the desire to keep government off our backs and out of our private lives, and the desire to pass laws against people who behave badly. I was thinking of that as I considered another country rushing into a disastrous mess.

Cambodia has outlawed adultery. You can get a big fine, or even prison, for stepping out.

I suspect the Cambodian politicians are trying to do the same thing Americans do — score cheap political points and distract the people from real problems that are big, hard to solve, and require shared sacrifice.

You’re probably indulging in a condescending little laugh right now. Those Cambodians, such simple childlike people. Not like us sophisticated Americans who understand Democracy. But don’t laugh too soon. I was driving up Rt. 95 listening to the radio. You know, the quiche station, N.P.R.

They were interviewing Cambodian female politicians, advocates for women’s rights, who thought the new laws would amount to an intrusion on people’s family lives and a complete nightmare for their legal system. They thought that adultery was a matter for married couples to work out privately, not a problem for government to try to solve. Then they interviewed the other side. A woman said that men were just too immoral and someone had to put a stop to it. She was against promiscuity and cheating. A man said that the new law would strengthen marriage.

The weird thing was that they sounded just like the two poles of American politics. One invoking family values and laws regulating how individuals live their private lives. The other, including feminists and liberals, defending personal freedom and restraint in government intervention in individual decisions.

Remember, my fellow Americans, it wasn’t so long ago that Nathanael Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter. Politicians worldwide are happy to invent a glorious crusade against a threat that doesn’t exist, rather than do the tough work of governing with fairness and regard for the long term good of their people.