Memorial Day Weekend Briefing - May 2012

Evil

A couple of nights ago, Delaney shared this link with me.  She told me the teacher in one of her classes shared it with the kids. 

I suspect many of you have seen it - the story of Dr. Randy Pausch, who died of pancreatic cancer.  Before his death, Pausch did a final lecture to his students about making the most of life.  The short presentation is worth your time, as it gives us some great ideas on how to make the most of our time here on Earth.  We owe it to God and to our fellow planetary residents to make a contribution.

The only issue I would take with Dr. Pausch's remarkable presentation is his assertion that, and I am paraphrasing, no one is pure evil.  There's some good in everyone.  Delaney seemed to agree with that, arguing that not everyone is completely bad.

I beg to differ.

Now I realize that people who may have pissed me off for one reason or another over the years weren't tools of Satan.  However, I think I can come up with a list of people for whom evil resides at their DNA level:  Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Ladin quickly come to mind.  These soulless men define evil.  I would submit any kindness they might have shown to anyone represents a calculated effort to manipulate a situation.

Evil is the absence of good.  For those people who lack any goodness in their heart, they are pure evil.  These people exist in our society and around the world.

Pure evil exists.  All around us.

Note I'm not telling you this to make your paranoid.  There's no need to be.  For as writers have aptly paraphrased Edmund Burke so long ago: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."  The antidote to evil is our resistance to it.

This Memorial Day weekend, ponder the writings of Paul in Romans 12: Don't just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.  Friends, I hate to tell you this, but most of our fellow citizens, as nice as they are, are simply too lazy or self-absorbed to resist evil or show kindness to others.  That falls to us in the preparedness community.  Take that responsibility seriously.

I will be taking the weekend off from blogging.  Look for another post on Monday night.  Have a safe weekend.  And God bless the families of those who have lost loved ones defending our great nation.