I want addicts to get the help they need, but I also think we have a right to not see people shooting up when they take a walk. I don’t understand how a form of left-liberalism just became a libertarianism of do whatever you want that really functions very effectively with right-libertarianism on the economy. If the New Deal taught us anything, it’s that homelessness and drug addiction (for example) are failures of society and society needs to right those failures.

This is what I was thinking when reading David Sedaris’ account of being bitten by some fentanyl addicts dog while walking around in Portland and everyone he told it to was like “so what, that’s your problem.” That night, I had a show in the town of Salem, and, boy, did I talk about my afternoon, at least while I signed books beforehand. “You have to understand that these addicts, especially those with an opioid-use disorder, lead incredibly difficult lives,” the first person I spoke to, a woman with long, straight hair the color of spaghetti, said. “How is that an excuse?” I asked.

“Her dog bit me.” “Well, you’re still better off than she and her friends are,” the woman continued. Unfortunately, I had already finished signing her book. “I was bitten by a dog today,” I said to another woman sometime later.

“It was with these people who were smoking fentanyl and pushing a baby carriage.” “What kind of dog was it?” she asked. “Whatever Toto was in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ” I told her. “Oh,” she moaned.

“A cairn terrier. That poor thing.” “Did I leave out the part where it bit me?” I asked. “People like that aren’t in any condition to take care of their animals,” the woman said.

“That’s the really sad part.” “Is it?” I asked, pointing to the bandage on my leg. “Is that the really sad part?” The next person in line asked, “Did you get their names?” “I really don’t think they’d have given them to me,” I told him. “No,” he said.

“The names of the dogs. It might have helped the authorities rescue them.” That was when I quit talking about it. I mean, how hard should it be to get a little sympathy when an unleashed dog bites you?

What if I were a baby? I wondered. Would people side with me then? What if I were ninety or blind or Nelson Mandela?

Why is everyone so afraid of saying that drug addicts shouldn’t let their dogs bite people? Actually, I know why. We’re afraid we’ll be mistaken for Republicans, when, really, isn’t this something we should all be able to agree on?

How did allowing dogs to bite people become a Democratic point of principle? Or is it just certain people’s dogs? If a German shepherd jumped, growling, out of one of those Tesla trucks that look like an origami project and its owner, wearing a MAGA hat, yelled, “Trumper, no!!!,” then would the people in my audience be aghast?

That’s exactly correct. Tolerance does not mean not having basic common sense. And nothing about Oregon’s failed attempt to decriminalize hard drugs makes any sense at all.

That’s not to say that throwing everyone away in horrible prisons makes sense either. There are a lot of policies here in between. But this was the kind of disaster that makes people rightfully question whether some liberals are also on their own drugs since who the hell thought this was a good idea. If this makes you call me a Trumper, fine, I do not care.