Evil must never win ..…

We do everything we can to look for the best in people, but there are times when we have to accept that in this world there are those who are and will be evil no matter what.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to look far in this age of instant communication to see them.

Look at ISIS and their counterparts throughout the world. They’re proud of their crimes and seem to make an effort to find ways to do things as outrageously as possible.

The New Orleans murderer piloted a rented Ford electric truck with an ISIS flag mounted on the trailer hitch as he tore through the New Years Day morning crowds. Investigators have turned up all kinds of social media activity by the man that indicates he was an “ISIS convert.”

Ironically, the Las Vegas Cybertruck that exploded outside a Trump hotel hours later had been rented by someone later identified as a former soldier, like the New Orleans killer, and both trucks were rented from the same company.

Police are investigating any possible connection between the two, and it does seem likely, doesn’t it?

People who are supposedly experts in the field have spent lifetimes trying to figure out what makes a person evil, and typically their research boils down to a conclusion that most of these folks were born that way or were in some bizarre way “influenced” by terrorists.

Some of those researchers have come up with a formula of sorts that translates, statistically, into an estimate that 4 percent of all people are evil. That’s one in 25 people, and it’s disturbing, to say the least.

Think about it: if you’re in a room of, say, a hundred folks, these psychological experts figure at least four of those around you might be evil.

Kinda makes you want to stay away from parties and movie theaters, doesn’t it?

Also, based on that calculation, there are millions ?of evil people in the world. I guess if you’d add up all the terrorist groups, most of North Korea and all the current occupants of the Kremlin, that would seem possible.

But it also means we good folks outnumber them at least 25 to one.

And, believe it or not, there are dozens of handbooks, manuals if you will, available today providing instruction on how to deal with terrorism and the evil that drives it.

The prophet Isaiah told us in the Old Testament “there is no peace for the wicked.”

If so many of them exist, though, does that mean there’s also not much chance for peace for the rest of us?

I would say ‘no’.

Understand this: we won’t surrender, bad guys. We won’t give up until the last of you is gone.

You can take that to the bank.

You’ll notice in all the news pictures from New Orleans and Las Vegas that, within seconds of the horrible actions, there were police officers running toward the chaos and scores of people were doing what they could for victims.

Everything you’ve seen in the wake of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina shows hundreds of good people rushing to the aid of the stricken.

Good outnumbers bad by a very long shot and, in this first week of the new year, you can bet that will continue.

Like the police said in a press conference comment directed at suspected bad guys who may have helped the Bourbon Street maniac, “we will find you.”

And you will pay.