Good or Evil

by John Galt

Due to the recent upsurge of divisive racism in the media resulting from the deaths of black Americans by police officers, I tried to understand what is causing these issues that are creating such outrage and dividing the American public.  My thoughts went beyond racial discord to the subjects whipped to a frenzy by politicians and the media.  Topics in today’s headlines are gay rights, wealthy capitalists, racial and gender inequality, and so many more subjects that divide the American public.  We live in a time of crime, poverty, drug use, terrorism, unemployment, and hopelessness.

Long story short, I decided our situation isn’t an issue of race, wealth, gender, sexual orientation, age, or political orientation, but instead issues of good versus evil.  There are good people, those with the moral and ethical bias to do the right thing, make the right choices, and shoulder their responsibilities.  There are evil people, those that take advantage of, blame, slander, hate, and brutalize others for their own gain.  In reality, most people are not perfect, they are a mixture, of varying degrees of both good and evil.  We all sin, rich, poor, gay, straight, men, women, black, white and all shades in between.

But I’m not talking about sinners cheating at bingo.  I‘m talking about the evil that we can recognize once we look at the facts without our biases of color, gender, or wealth.  My son asked me if someone that stole to feed their family sinned, well, yes, but they are not evil.  You can do wrong and not be evil.  But the person that kills another out of jealousy is evil.  Evil is done in the absence of soul or conscience.

In a society that expounds on the evil in man’s heart every day in the news headlines, we have to recognize that good people doing the right thing are hardly ever mentioned in the headlines.  There are people that will do the right thing regardless of the circumstances.  There are others that will usually do the right thing unless they think they can get away with it or they feel the circumstances are justifiable.  There are others that will do the evil thing, just because they want to.  Don’t you agree?  Notice that I didn’t differentiate on race, wealth, social standing, gender or religion.  There are good people and there are bad people.

Historically, differences of economic standing, race, religion, wealth and opinion have led to violence.  Anything that can differentiate groups of people has created discord.  Some people perform evil acts in the name of religion.  Politicians slander their competition for political gain.  People kill and maim because they feel slighted by another person.  Greed has long been a motivation for evil.  In all of those media stories, it is easy to see who perpetuated the evil.  In others, we fixate on the outcome of the scenario and we don’t consider the events or actions that led up to the final moments of the story.

What if every media story wasn’t colored with adjectives of race, political association, age, gender or wealth?  It matters less that a white or black person died than that a life was taken.  We shouldn’t feel more loss if a rich person dies than a poor person.  If two people get married, let’s not wonder if anyone wore a white dress.  It isn't really the headlines that define our society, it is the individual players, their motivation and their actions. 

All I ask of you is to scrutinize the next media story by using only the facts.  Don’t join in on a mob mentality inspiring hate.  Assess the entire situation, not just the outcome.  Beware of hearsay.  Who are the players in the story?  Walk in their shoes for a minute and decide if you would have made the same choices.  For example, did the officer draw his gun to serve and protect or out of fear for his life?  Who is the aggressor?  Who is the victim?  Who could have changed the outcome and why didn’t they?  Take the time to form your own opinion.