I took u/martksn's comment to be that the State needs to behave morally as much as it can. The State is composed of and run by people -- people who are imperfect, of course, who make mistakes, are corrupted, or even outright evil.

We can only try to make the State consist of institutions that keep it mostly moral. Doing so, and mostly succeeding, gives us the moral high ground even when there are some failures.

But when those institutions fail to keep the State mostly moral, watch out, because then we're in trouble.