Good and Evil Revisited, Part II

Evil does not obey laws. Only the Good do. I have been thinking about this after rereading the book of Daniel (chapter 6) in the Hebrew Bible and after watching the Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign play out. Following the letter of the law is normal behavior for people who are basically good. It can also be a weapon in the hands of Evil, a trap set for the Good.

A current example: a candidate for CIA director is under scrutiny because she followed the law as it stood at the time regarding the interrogation and torture of terrorists after 9/11, an attack that killed thousands of Americans. She did her job and operated within the rules then in force, promoting Good over Evil, and that very compliance is now being turned into a reason to block her well-qualified nomination.

Daniel's story runs along the same lines. He worshiped his God openly, three times a day. People who disliked him and everything he stood for maneuvered the king, a man who liked Daniel and had promoted him, into decreeing that for a month no one could be worshiped except the king himself. Once the decree existed, the king had no way out. He was forced to throw Daniel into the lion's den, and the crime was nothing more than praying to God instead of to the throne.

So the law becomes a device for tripping up the Good. Evil reads law as an opening, a way to arrange events so that wealth, power, fame, and victory over the Good all land on their side. Think of the uranium deal that moved forward while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and the way money shifted so that the Clintons and their foundation came out ahead. That deal put both our nuclear defense and our nuclear medicine resources at risk.

The Good carry a heavier burden. They must obey the laws that exist, and beyond that they are sometimes asked to keep higher standards that no statute spells out, standards that keep Good alive in the world. One such standard today might be refusing to criticize others or to covet the wealth, fame, power, and possessions other people have piled up. Coveting burns time you could spend on something better. It sours your mood, breeds a negative outlook, and fixes your attention on things that leave you angry or resentful in the end.

That restraint is difficult to practice given how modern advertising works and what the media chooses to cover. The genuinely good get overlooked. So do the people who pour themselves into what actually matters: good deeds, happiness, sharing what they have, being a source of light and love. Ask yourself how useful gold really is. You cannot eat it, breathe it, or shelter under it unless you own a great deal of it. Ask how useful fame is, given how quickly it evaporates. Kanye West admitted he voted for Trump, and plenty of listeners dropped his music on the spot.

Even those who hold power, which can put nearly everything within reach, keep their grip only until some coup pulls them down. God, the force of good in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrated repeatedly how easily that could happen. Regime after regime collapsed, and history bears this out. Through prophets, visions, and appearances, God announced that many of those governments would rise and fall even while they felt certain of their permanence. It is a shaky place to stand.

Which would you choose? Being Good is hard work. Ask yourself what Evil ever truly earns.

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