Speaking of "can of worms" I'm about to open a philosophical can of worms, but I can't resist.

I believe in evil. For me, evil is the abuse of power. Under this definition, deforestation, Hiroshima, child abuse, and 9/11 are all acts of evil. But even more evil than the deliberate destruction of 9/11 was the Lie at the core of the psychological operation. The Lie presented the Perpetrator as the Righteous Protector. It presented the REAL evil-doers as the champions of Good. It presented the innocent future victims of Imperial Terror as less-than-human. And it was all done in FULL CONSCIOUSNESS. This, to me, is evil.

Now, how to ascribe culpability to the various operatives involved is another question. Are the people who planted the explosives as culpable as their masters who directed them? I'm not Dante and it's not my job to determine which ring of Hell they each belong in, even if I believed in Eternal Damnation, which I don't. But Im quite certain that each individual involved that had knowledge of the consequences of their acts has a profoundly darkened heart in need of radical redemption.

For me, the Kosmos is a moral Kosmos. As such, I need a compass that can say, "This is right" and "This is wrong." But I must also be able to recognize, as Kate suggests, that sometimes it's a struggle to know which is which, and clear answers are not always evident. One thing, however, is absolutely clear to me. History is filled with hypocritical fear-mongering self-righteous holier-than-thou finger-pointers ready to bind heavy burdens on people for exercising autonomy over their own bodies, while they massage the shoulders of the war-mongers and profiteers of misery. They, in my opinion, are the most evil of all.