Evil: Part II

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

--Albert Einstein

The question becomes: what should we do about it?

America as a country has vacillated between enjoying our island status and watching the world move precariously to the edge and then jumping headlong into the fray--World War II is an example there. One could rightly ask: why were so many people allowed to be exterminated before we stopped it?

There are protectionists out there who feel we should have never entered WWII. That is unthinkable to me. Longterm, those who got saved from themselves--the Germans and Austrians--don't seem particularly taken with being saved. Only those countries who were being persecuted, Poland comes to mind and Estonia also comes to mind and England comes to mind, seem to be willing to join a fight that technically isn't theirs. Although, they seem to note the reality that should America fall, a lot of other countries will suffer.

While the protectionist argument makes sense to me--all resources can't be spent saving the world can they? It disturbs me that thousands of people are being wiped out in Darfur simply because their skin is too black. It disturbed me that over a million were allowed to die in Rwanda due to economic diffences and the shape of a nose or how tall.

Should China encroach on Taiwan will we defend her? What about Japan? What about Nepal?

But this argument is also personal and individual. Every day crimes are committed which victims allow or don't press charges or it is more harmful to the victim to go forward or the crime is difficult to capture. People whose purse was taken, victims of abuse, victims of sexual assault, people whose identity has been stolen--many of these people just want their life back. Justice is a distant dream, one that includes considerable pain for themselves should it be sought.

Can turning the other cheek be cowardice? Some crimes seem so huge, so unthinkable that justice can never really be served. How do you get a million people back alive? How do you find justice for a man who saw his whole family shot in front of him? What sort of punishment suffices? Should every helpless victim who died at the hands of a Nazi get justice? Almost a whole generation of a whole people would be wiped out--so pervasive was the callous disregard that allowed a common person view another person as no more than a physical possession.

I think many sex abuse victims feel this way, too. How is justice possible when something so fundamentally human, the sexual experience, gets warped and associated with helplessness, fear and domination? The ramifications of such actions are so far-reaching and pervasive in another person's life that anything less than death for the aggressor can seem like a light sentence. The victim receives a life sentence no matter the result for the perpetrator--and only 10% of them receive any sort of penalty at all.

Gandalf, in The Lord of the Rings says, "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be so eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." J.R.R. Tolkien

Dealing with evil requires judgement. Judgement requires knowledge of laws--moral laws--ultimate right and wrong. Only then can mercy be given wisely.

We know that vengeance belongs to God. We know that God, if you believe the Bible is His book, did not condemn the Roman Centurian nor did he recommend through Paul that he change professions. A state has a right to defend herself and defend her friends. And even an evil state must be respected--Caesar was not a kind master in Jesus' time, yet respect was encouraged of His followers.

My concern, these days, isn't that there is too much justice for those who hurt the innocent. My concern is that in an effort to claim "love" people turn the other way in the face of the severe difficulty of meeting evil head-on. Finding justice too difficult they wear a cloak of kindness but it only covers cowardice.

Justice lost over and over breeds helplessness and futility. Civility quickly is lost to convenience and expedience. It seems to me, that our country is deciding this issue right now.