Well, folks, it’s another day, another story out of some corner of the globe that makes you scratch your head and wonder what on earth is going on. This time it’s Kenya, where a fellow named Paul Mackenzie and his, shall we say, *church* have been found guilty of something truly horrifying: starving 190 children and one adult to death. One hundred and ninety children. Just let that sink in for a minute.
This wasn’t some accident, mind you. This was a deliberate act, born from a twisted ideology that convinced people to abandon food, abandon their most basic human instincts, all for some warped notion of salvation. And what’s more, the wire service tells us this is "one of the world’s worst cult-related disasters in recent history." One of the worst. It begs the question: what kind of recent history have we been living through?
Now, I'm just a plainspoken fellow from the Midwest, not some ivory tower academic. But when I read something like this, my mind goes to a few places. First, the sheer evil of it all. Not just misguided, not just a 'difference of opinion,' but outright, undeniable evil. It’s the kind of thing Edmund Burke, a man who understood the slow, steady building of civilization and the ever-present threat of its unraveling, would have recognized instantly. The idea that someone could amass such power over others, to the point of commanding them to extinguish the lives of their own flesh and blood, is a chilling reminder of the dark side of human nature when unchecked.
And that brings me to my second point: the curious silence on such matters from certain corners of our own society. We hear endless hand-wringing from the coastal elites about every imaginable grievance, every perceived slight, every shifting nuance of identity. We’re told the gravest sins of our time are, what, a wrong pronoun, a historical statue, or not being sufficiently "woke"? Yet, when genuine, undeniable depravity like this Kenyan cult leader comes to light, the sort of evil that slashes at the very fabric of human dignity and family, it often gets a quick nod before we're back to dissecting the latest Twitter spat.
It makes you wonder about priorities, doesn't it? While some folks are busy inventing new victim categories and tearing down the traditions that have held societies together for centuries, actual, blood-curdling barbarism is happening elsewhere. And sometimes, it’s allowed to fester precisely because the foundational principles of stable governance, rule of law, and basic moral understanding have been eroded or never properly established.
This isn't about pointing fingers at Kenya, mind you. This is about recognizing a universal truth: without a strong moral compass, without institutions that uphold justice, and without a healthy skepticism of those who promise easy answers or ultimate enlightenment, humanity is vulnerable to the worst kinds of abuses. The courts in Kenya, to their credit, have delivered justice in this horrific case, bringing an end to Mackenzie’s reign of terror. That’s a testament to the enduring need for legal structures and common-sense morality.
Perhaps it’s time for some of our more, shall we say, *enlightened* thinkers back home to take a long, hard look at what true evil looks like. It’s not always subtle, it’s not always complex, and it’s rarely about hurt feelings. Sometimes, it’s just pure, unadulterated wickedness, dressed up in a false prophet’s robes, leading hundreds of innocents to their deaths. And recognizing that, without equivocation, might just be the first step towards defending our own civilization from its various, insidious threats.