Why So Indignant?

Judges 19:29-30
(29) And when he entered his house, he took a knife, and taking hold of his concubine he divided her, limb by limb, into twelve pieces, and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel.
(30) And all who saw it said, "Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day; consider it, take counsel, and speak."

Why did this upset the people of Israel? We have seen throughout the book of Judges that they were doing whatever they wanted to do. The repeated refrain is "In those days, when there was no king in Israel" and sometimes "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes" gets added on. Why did they care?

This reminds me of the recent Michael Phelps "scandal" with him hitting a bong at a party. Why do we care? After all, we have now elected two presidents who admitted to using illegal drugs while in college. A fair number of Americans have tried illegal drugs. Many more flagrantly abuse legal ones such as alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine. Many of those claim to be Christians. Why the indignation?

The people of Israel had the Torah and they knew how they were supposed to live. Yet they consciously chose not to do that. I think that something like the Levite and his concubine or our gold medal winning hero smoking pot reminds us of where our moral bearings should be. It forces a degree of introspection. Rather than dealing with our inherent hypocrisy and selfishness we decry these acts in others.

That's just my theory though. I would appreciate comments on this as I'd like to see what others think.