When the true evil is our lack of compassion....

Finding objects of evil seems to have always been part and parcel of human nature whether the witch-hunts of centuries past or the vigilantes of the Wild West taking things into their own hands.

But such recourse outside of law is always problematic because it is law which protects each and every one of us, however much of an ass it might be at times.

When people decide they can determine good and evil and particularly when they do not differentiate the act from the individual, we enter dangerous territory. There is no doubt that some people do terrible things, but a compassionate position would condemn the act and not the individual, believing that such individuals are mentally ill and while needing to be charged, taken to trial and allotted punishment, they are also deserving of compassion.

For when a society becomes selective about who is deserving of compassion, it debases the best it might be. The rage, fear and fervour about paedophiles is a case in point. Research shows many, if not most, were also sexually abused as children and yet in the 'repetition' of the crime committed against them, as so often happens with terrible psychological trauma experienced in childhood, many would have them as the most evil of people and in fact, less than human, when the very destruction caused by their wounds means they were and are probably amongst the most sensitive - too human in fact to survive what was done to them as children.

A civilized society condemns the act and not the individual.

Excerpt: Paedophilia has become the most obvious focus of vigilante activity in Britain since the turn of the century, with fears about child abuse heightened by tabloid newspaper campaigns and action made easier by technological innovation. The News of the World’s campaign in 2000 to allow the public to access information about paedophiles in their communities led to several attacks on individuals. Most infamously, a paediatrician in Gwent was forced to flee her home after her professional role was bizarrely mistaken as an indicator of sexual proclivities.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/paedophile-hunter-the-psychology-of-vigilantism-9770175.html