Evil

Evil American rhetoric (under construction.)

Axis of Evil

George W. Bush, defining three vectors of terrorism:

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

George W. Bush, State of the Union, Jan 29, 2002
www.whitehouse.gov

Plainly, Bush was evoking comparisons to the rearmament, alliances, and territorial ambitions of the WWII aggressor states, as well as their global geometry. Bush's director of speechwriting, Mike Gerson, an evangelical Christian, began his career ghost-writing a book for Nixon's former aid Chuck Colson. He later wrote for US News and World Report, and was an aid to Indiana Senator Dan Coats.

Gollum and the Evil One

Coincidence?

It seemed that the evil power in Mirkwood had been driven out by the White Council only to reappear in greater strength in the old strongholds of Mordor. The Dark Tower had been rebuilt, it was said.


'And so a great evil of this world will be removed. Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary.

J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings"

Twas in the Darkest depths of Mordor
I met a girl so fair,
But Gollum and the Evil One
Crept up and slipped away with her.

Ramble On, Page/Plant, Led Zeppelin II, 1969
www.allmusic.com

Aftermath

Plans for aiding Afghanistan in the aftermath of the winter 2001-2002 military action outlined in this US congressional bill include land mine removal, democracy and human rights initiatives, and other humanitarian assistance:

The President in his radio address to the Nation on October 6, 2001, urged Congress to make funds available to the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan, recognizing that assisting people in this fashion 'is also a central part of the American tradition', stated that 'even as we fight evil regimes we are generous to the people they oppress', and further stated that 'following World War II, America fed and rebuilt Japan and Germany, and their people became some of our closest friends in the world'. ....

Current estimates of the costs of assisting Afghanistan range from $5,000,000,000 over 5 years to $40,000,000,000 over a decade.

Afghanistan Freedom and Reconstruction Act of 2001
thomas.loc.gov

Evil Empire

Reagan, in the last throes of the Cold War, shooting from the hip with a George Lucas metaphor in case C.S. Lewis doesn't ring a bell with the evangelical audience:

It was C. S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable "Screwtape Letters," wrote: "The greatest evil is not done now in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice."

Well, because these "quiet men" do not "raise their voices," because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they're always making "their final territorial demand," some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I've always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride -- the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Annual Convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, March 8, 1983
www.reagan.utexas.edu

A later speech to the British House of Commons is more often cited as the source of the "evil empire" tag, but Reagan (and later George W. Bush) often vetted policy statements before Christian audiences in the South.

According to biographer Edmund Morris, Reagan's speechwriter, Tony Dolan, borrowed "evil empire" from Alexandre de Marenches, chief of French intelligence, who reviled the Soviet Union as "l'empire du mal". De Marenches was author of "The Fourth World War: Diplomacy and Espionage in the Age of Terrorism".

Soviet-Cuban-Nicaraguan Axis

Reagan vectors communist expansionism:

...we must realize that our friends cannot be expected to stand unarmed against insurgents who've been armed to the teeth by the Soviet-Cuban-Nicaraguan axis. Any excuse for not providing our friends the weapons they need to defend themselves is a prescription for disaster. And again, those who advocate ignoring the legitimate defense needs of those under attack will be held accountable if our national security is put in jeopardy.

Ronald Reagan, Remarks at a Cuban Independence Day Celebration in Miami, Florida, May 20, 1983
www.reagan.utexas.edu

We must not listen to those who would disarm our friends and allow Central America to be turned into a string of anti-American Marxist dictatorships. The result could be a tidal wave of refugees. And this time, they'll be "feet people" and not "boat people" swarming into our country, seeking a safe haven from Communist repression to our south. We cannot permit the Soviet-Cuban-Nicaraguan axis to take over Central America.

Remarks at a Mississippi Republican Party Fundraising Dinner in Jackson, June 20, 1983
www.reagan.utexas.edu

Extreme Evil

What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.

Robert F. Kennedy, 1964

Evil Commies

We sense with all our faculties that forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history.

Dwight Eisenhower, First Inagural Address, 1953

Axis Powers

After a successful meeting with Hitler in 1936, Mussolini announced in Milan:

...these agreements, which have been included in special statements and duly signed - this vertical line between Rome and Berlin is not a partition, but rather an axis around which all the European states animated by the will to collaboration and peace can also collaborate. .... With the agreement of 11 July [1936] there disappeared any element of dissension between Berlin and Rome, and I may remind you that even before the Berlin meeting Germany had practically recognized the Empire of Rome.

www-mcnair.berkeley.edu/2000journal/Law/Law.html

Social Evil

The most serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families. The most immoral practice of the day is breeding too many children.
....
Comstock has passed out of public notice. His body has been entombed but the evil that he did lives after him. His dead hand still reaches forth to keep the subject of prevention of conception where he placed it-in the same legal category with things unclean and vile.

Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, 1920

We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the man of capital than evil in the man of no capital.

Theodore Roosevelt, The Man with the Muck Rake (speech), 1906
PBS - The American Experience - The Presidents

Koranic Evil

As for evildoers, for them awaits a painful chastisement;
but for those who believe, and do deeds
of righteousness, they shall be admitted
to gardens underneath which rivers flow,
therein dwelling forever,
by the leave of their Lord, their greeting
therein: "Peace!"

translation by Arthur J. Arberry, 1955
Columbia World of Quotations, 1996
www.bartleby.com

Biblical Evil

Genesis 2:9
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Psalm 37:1-2
The Insecurity of the Wicked
Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

Revelations 2:2
I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars.

Holy Bible, King James Version
www.hti.umich.edu/k/kjv/

Definition of Evil

axis (noun)
Etymology: Latin, axis, axle; akin to Old English eax axis, axle, 
Greek axOn, Lithuanian asis, Sanskrit aksa
Date: 14th century
1 a : a straight line about which a body or a geometric figure 
      rotates or may be supposed to rotate 
  b : a straight line with respect to which a body or figure is 
      symmetrical -- called also axis of symmetry 
  c : a straight line that bisects at right angles a system of 
      parallel chords of a curve and divides the curve into two 
      symmetrical parts d : one of the reference lines of a 
      coordinate system
2 a : the second vertebra of the neck on which the head and first 
      vertebra turn as on a pivot 
  b : any of various central, fundamental, or axial parts
3 : a plant stem
4 : one of several imaginary lines assumed in describing the 
    positions of the planes by which a crystal is bounded and the 
    positions of atoms in the structure of the crystal
5 : a main line of direction, motion, growth, or extension
6 a : an implied line in painting or sculpture through a composition 
      to which elements in the composition are referred 
  b : a line actually drawn and used as the basis of measurements 
      in an architectural or other working drawing
7 : any of three fixed lines of reference in an aircraft that run 
    in the longitudinal, lateral, and vertical directions, are 
    mutually perpendicular, and usually pass through the aircraft's 
    center of gravity
8 : PARTNERSHIP, ALLIANCE 

Axis (adjective)
Date: 1938
of or relating to the three powers Germany, Italy, and Japan engaged 
against the Allied nations in World War II

evil (adjective)
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English yfel; akin to 
Old High German ubil evil
Date: before 12th century
1 a : morally reprehensible : SINFUL, WICKED [an evil impulse]
  b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct 
      [a man of evil reputation]
2 a archaic : INFERIOR 
  b : causing discomfort or repulsion : OFFENSIVE [an evil odor] 
  c : DISAGREEABLE [woke late and in an evil temper]
3 a : causing harm : PERNICIOUS [the evil institution of slavery] 
  b : marked by misfortune : UNLUCKY

evil (noun)
Date: before 12th century
1 a : the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing 
  b : a cosmic evil force
2 : something that brings sorrow, distress, or calamity

www.m-w.com

Sources of Evil

Texas A & M Program in Presidential Rhetoric

www.m-w.com - Merriam-Webster Dictionary

www.google.com/search?q=evil - search for "evil"

www.google.com/search?q="axis of evil" - search for "axis of evil"

www.google.com/search?q=evil+president - search for "evil" + "president"

Reagan speeches

© Bob Stahl | Home