The Evil That Men Do

Pastor William Ramsey in his 1856 article "Spiritualism, Satanic Delusion,  and A Sign of the Times" had this to say: 

One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist: another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with them, if they get into true silence.

But, as Mike McDaniel notes, normal Americans recognize evil, and the power behind evil. In his post at the American Thinker entitled Evil is as evil does McDaniel illustrates not only the power of evil, but the consequences of not fighting against it wherever it raises its ugly head

Evil. Normal Americans know it exists and walks among them. Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, they know it when they see it. They know Satan is evil’s father and acts that violate God’s law, and many that violate man’s law, are clearly evil.

...snip...

We establish criminal law to restrain evil, to punish it, perhaps to deter it. And because we recognize the truly evil must be removed from existence, we ordain the death penalty, which is imposed only for the demonic acts of a few. This power comes from God who gives us the unalienable right to self-defense. We loan this power, on condition of good, moral, sane behavior, to the police, prosecutors and courts. But because they are human, they sometimes embrace and aid evil.

Take the case of Daniel Penny who any reasonable person would understand saved lives on a New York subway car. For that exercise of legitimate power against evil, he faced years in prison. DA Alvin Bragg aligned himself with evil in that prosecution. Intelligent enough to know prosecuting legitimate self-defense can only encourage greater evil and prevent the good from using their power to combat it lest Bragg’s evil be visited on them, Bragg chose evil.

I have lately been reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet most associated with predicting the coming Messiah and the character of His being. He is variously characterized as a lamb for the slaughter, and as a servant of the people, but also as a King who would rule with true justice, unlike the human rulers who gathered wealth to themselves and to hell with the people. And, of course Jesus did give power and authority for mere men to cast out demons in His name. And so we must.

As McDaniel points out, most of the time we do this by through law and the courts. When the courts become corrupted, evil abounds, justice becomes corrupted, and the things Isaiah prophesies happen to us.

One can argue such people aren’t truly evil, that they’re merely caught up in self-righteous political delusions. Surely not everyone whose political beliefs do harm is evil, but those who would knowingly destroy the lives of others, who would enact policies that can only do harm, that would terrify the good into allowing evil, that would excuse and enable the most demonic among us, have earned that title. If the self-imaged elite are truly morally and intellectually superior, where’s their excuse for the evil they encourage, unleash and inflict?

Evil exists. We see it here and around the world. We are given the opportunity to recognize and oppose it and in so doing to define ourselves. That opposition begins with calling it what it is and not shying away from identifying its human actors and their enablers.

Exactly so.