“It’s your excuses that define you.” That should be the touchstone for “action distancing” in the New Millennium Normal. You’re not doing something bad to someone; you’re making a better future for yourself [or more hypocritically: “your family/gender/race/everyone”]. “You’re owed it” is a well that never runs dry — as long as you keep filling it.
Interestingly, every famous icon of human compassion, dignity, and equality is uncompromisingly opposed to discriminatory action in any form. This is a common thread from Confucius to Lincoln to Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King Jr. to Mother Teresa . . .
Or you can stand with those who excuse their actions and oppression: Hitler, Stalin, Mao . . .
So maybe your excuses can define you after all.