I am of the opinion that a person should be granted more freedoms when they show that they are ready and able to take on those responsibilities. This is one of the best ways of raising children.
So, we have a portion of the adult population who doesn't have the IQ necessary to survive on their own. And currently, we drop them on the door of the state to take care of, because we really don't want to be bothered by it.
We used to take care of them as a community. The village idiot slept in a spare room, or loft. And then was used to sweep boardwalks or deliver notes for their meals. Now, there is none of that, and the world has gotten much more dangerous for those slow of wit.
I have not yet thought of a good way of working this all out.
Because you cannot give them full rights, because they cannot be held fully accountable. Some of them cannot understand that putting a knife into someone causes damage.
Unfortunately, any thinking along these lines ends up with the state using this as a control mechanism, just as you said above.
Perhaps my ideas of providing minimum housing, food and clothing would take care of this. The community builds a room/tiny apartment for each person and creates several cafeterias. You show up, you get a room to sleep in. You show up, you get fed.
Then, these low IQ people will just sort of mill about ... as long as they are of the level of being able to cloth and feed themselves.
https://fee.org/articles/the-cruelty-and-carnage-of-the-minimum-wage-the-case-of-tad/
It is even worse today. It costs so much to even hire a person (even if there wage was $0/hour) that you cannot afford to hire charity cases. You cannot allow people to use your vacant building or lot.
To bad a great number of people never learned arithmetic (instead there were hammered with calculus) else everyone would see how bad the minimum wage was.
I used to work security patrols, and we'd charge $5000/month to drive around a factory 3 times a night.
I remember thinking how they'd be better off hiring a homeless guy as a night watchman.
Small utility room with a cot, fridge, TV, bottle of scotch every now and then. He'd be on site 24/7 and would cost a fraction of security patrols.
The union would find out and get the law involved, though.
but homeless guys don't want to be security guards.
meh, they purge themselves. If they wanted to be security guards they would be security guards.
Unions are fine, as long as they're voluntary.
Depends on the source of the distress.
If it's coercion, then its involuntary and I have a problem with it.