Obviously we shouldn’t let assholes have unchecked power, and we shouldn’t give liars positions of trust, or pedophiles unmonitored access to children, but I think even the shittiest person is still a person and they deserve a base line standard of comfort and respect, and therefore society is morally obligated to at least try and meet that standard.

A lot of people would agree with me that far, but say this approach breaks down in real world scenarios where we have limited time and resources, and I have a hard time disagreeing. But I recently came across a Fredrick Douglass quote that crystalized an idea for me:

“The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons or property will be safe.” - April 1865

Even if a group isn’t oppressed, the mere fact that they feel oppressed is, in and of itself, a problem. That problem gets worse if it is generally socially acceptable to publicly degrade that group, and powerful people who think they are oppressed can be incredibly dangerous

And it’s not just people who fall into those groups neatly, any one who has to worry that they might be part of one of these groups will be effected by this. It’s part of why the angriest homophobes have a history of being gay. Or how, very few people in America will ever starve to death in the streets, but the fact that so many of us have to worry about that scenario is not healthy for our society, and drives people to desperate measures.

If we just made sure that everyone was guaranteed a safe place to stay, and enough food to not die, then we wouldn’t all be trapped in this high stakes game of survival, and we could focus on just being better people, rather then weeding out the bad ones.

(Also, what ever standard of living we eventually decide is the baseline, all nationally elected politicians should have to live under it)