EVIL: Today’s Cultural “Four Letter Word”

Hell and prison.  Pretty much two places none of us wants to visit.

Here’s a question, though – while we highly doubt there are weapons in hell, we know for certain at there are weapons in prison.

So if there are weapons (guns) in prison, why would anyone think for a nanosecond that a terrorist couldn’t get his hands on whatever he wanted – whenever he wanted – and wherever he wanted, regardless of any law?It’s a mindset that we quite literally can’t wrap our heads around.

Prisons are the single-most highly controlled, heavily regulated, monitored environment on the planet.  It’s a place where buddies from the “outside” don’t get to bring in a cake without it being examined for – say, a file or a knife. Visitors can’t just waltz in without being searched from head to toe, but that hasn’t stopped all manner of weapons from being smuggled in, right under the proverbial nose of countless correctional officers.

If someone can put their hands on a functioning firearm while sitting in a cinder-block cell behind bars – whether crafted on the inside or smuggled from the outside, what’s to stop a radical Islamist terrorist from getting a gun? Absolutely nothing.

Terrorists, by their very nature, are zealous in their hatred; thus, they are profoundly committed to an ideology of destruction.  And they are enormously patient.  They will never let reason nor compassion deter a murderous act, and they certainly won’t let some silly, ineffective laws keep them from fulfilling their jihadist goal.  And do they really give a rat’s rear end about whether we are black, white, brown, Jew, Christian, atheist, straight or gay?  Their actions are literally screaming at us that if we don’t share their fanatical views, we deserve a violent end.

An office Christmas party in Riverside, a café in Paris, a hotel in Mali, a train station in Brussels – and now a slaughter at a nightclub in Orlando.  Our collective hearts are broken at the sheer devastation of this tragedy.

If we listen to politicians, the talking heads in the media and the entertainment community, this is all about guns. The blame is being deflected to things and yes, even people that bear no responsibility whatsoever for the act of a terrorist.  This ugliness has nothing to do with guns.  This has everything to do with evil.

Sadly, evil is today’s cultural “four-letter word” that makes a lot of folks very uncomfortable – especially our state/federal political leaders and policy makers.  They may have a fear of being too “judgmental” – they certainly have a fear of being labeled “politically incorrect.”  We must, however, move past the initial, devastating crush of emotions that threaten to overwhelm our souls.   Unless we can have an honest and sincere dialogue about the real enemy – the fingers that pull the trigger, the hands that yank the cord to the suicide vest, or the feet that accelerates a car bomb into a building – the horror will continue.

As will our tears.