Are you tired of watching the bad guys get away with it, whatever "it" is? #MeToo.
The invention of the internet has given us many gifts, but the monkey-paw-like issue with it is that it has cursed us with awareness of just how fallen our world is, which can be a real bummer. What's more, thanks to ideals such as globalization, we've been subjected to hearing constantly about the results of two-tiered justice systems and horrific events that many world leaders or authorities shrug at because their moral compass is pointed somewhere other than north while they cosplay as the most moral people in the room.
This is how you get bad actors, criminals, antagonistic countries, and international gangs riding roughshod over everyone. They know they'll get away with it because a sentiment that went global through institutions with skewed ideas of morality will run defense for them, either through publicity, legal avenues, or both.
Evil doesn't spread overtly. It's a lot like water in that it has to seep through cracks in the rock that it can then erode further to spread more. This little metaphor is realized in the phrase "All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." So long as these evil people are allowed to operate, the evil they do will only get worse and become more pervasive.
The fun thing is, it takes evil a long time to make these cracks in our civilization wider. It takes all of the span of an afternoon to set evil back decades if action is taken.
There's been an interesting drama unfolding in El Salvador that demonstrates this very thing. President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador had developed a deep beef with a Haitian gang that had kidnapped four of his air force technicians. Obviously, he wanted them back, and he let the Haitian kidnappers know that he had experience destroying gangs, having done that with the ones that had infected his own country. Needless to say, the Haitian gang didn't take him very seriously, so Bukele began demonstrating his severity.
He began hunting the Haitian gang and, what's funny is that he recruited the help of the people of X to help find their HQ. Soon enough, someone did find it, and Bukele asked for the location of the building directly on X, saying he'd destroy it posthaste, which X users gladly provided. Due to policy, X had to delete the post providing the building's location, but Bukele got the info he needed.
Kote kay sa a ye? Ban nou adrès egzak la, n ap detwi l.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) November 6, 2026
Bukele then sent 2,000 troops to Haiti and destroyed the place, as he said he would. Posting on X in Haitian Creole, Bukele provided a video of his troops destroying the building, then called the Haitian gang members "cowards" for running away and not even trying to put up a fight.
Nou kenbe pwomès nou… Nou detwi kay Lanmò San Jou ak katye jeneral gang 400 Mawozo a. Pifò ladan yo kouri ale san yo pa menm eseye goumen. Ala lach yo lach! 🥲 https://t.co/0AVIOJRKhn
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) November 10, 2026
What's fascinating about Bukele's approach is that he's not just demonstrating his willingness to fight the gangs himself; he's attempting to empower the Haitian people to resist and destroy these gangs themselves in order to free their country from their grasp. He's not just lobbing rockets and bullets; he's waging a PR campaign against the Haitian gangs to expose them as far weaker than the power they project.
Bukele is following the Machiavellian principle: "If an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."
Given a free hand, I'm sure Bukele would completely wipe the Haitian gangs off the map for daring to be so bold as to touch his people, and that does a few things. For starters, it makes it clear to criminals that they're one mistake away from being destroyed, which forces them to think twice about doing anything stupid. Make a man choose between a crime and his life, and nine times out of ten, he'll choose his life.
But it also develops a kind of trust among his own people that turns into boldness. They know that if a criminal or group of criminals rears their ugly heads, then they'll have the backing of their own government should they need to handle it themselves. They won't be punished for destroying or harming evil. There will be no Daniel Penny situations. Goodness is free to stop evil.
Peace through strength.
