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I am not sure when I began to see the difference between good and evil. As a life long Star Wars fan my initial exposure to the two was the struggle between the light and dark side of the force. Until twenty minutes ago I could never fully understand why the dark side had the advantage.

While walking to my car I was wondering why evil always seem to have the underhand. Naturally my thoughts turned to the struggle between the Jedi and the Sith. I remember Yoda saying that the dark side was not more powerful, however, I was still lost to why the “good side” of the force was no match for the “dark side.”

My thoughts then drifted to more earthly representations of good and evil. I then had an epiphany, good offers restraint where as evil did not.

In a parallel illustration we will look at the approach two different forces of equal strength would take while attempting to take and maintain control of the city of Chicago.

The two forces will be representation of good and evil.¹The two forces are completely equal in strength. There is little doubt that the evil force could take control far quicker than that of the good force. The evil force would also spend far less energy and resources in maintain control of the city.

The advantage that evil has is that there is no restraint in evil, which is a classic separation between evil and good. Good would take into account the civilians of the city. Though good needs to take control of the city this should not come at the expense of the people that reside inside it. The good force needs to spend far more time in calculating its strikes as to not occur casualties of the cities inhabitants. When controlling the city the force would need to squash any uprisings. To address any uprising the evil force can oppress the citizens, make public examples in the form of torture or executions, and withholding vital necessities such as food and medicine. This is something that a good force could not do. Since the good force operates within the constraints of caring for the people as their own arbitrary executions are seen as an act of murder and deemed a war crime. Withholding food and medicine is seen as a human rights violation and therefor cannot be used as weponds in the struggle for control.

While good needs to prefect the aim of their weapons the evil force can focus on effectiveness. The side of good must adhere to internationally agreed upon rules which limits the type of weapons that are available for use. Deploying chemical weapons would be an ideal tactic in urban warfare, however, conflicts with the contraints of good. If the goal is to control the city and there is no need for the inhabitents of the city it would be far easier for the forces of evil to develop wepondry to exterminate the population than it would to develop wepons to spare the population.

“good is restraint”

A chief separation between good and evil is that good operates within the context of rules. While there is no pure good the same is true for pure evil.

Within the war of terror you can see a once noble calling corrupted by the forces of evil. The best illustration of this is that of suspending the US constitution in order to gain the upper hand in the fight. When the United States abandons her most sacred principles the noble aspect of her calling begins to be corrupt by the evil she is fighting to destroy.

Winning the war would be far easier if it were not for the moral constraints imposed on the side of the United States. Strategically the best way to remove the threat the west faces from fundamental Islam is to neutralize it. The United States has the weaponry to remove this threat from the planet while maintaining access to vital resources if it completely disregards the people and structures around it.

The main distinction between the United States and its enemies is the Constitution. The United States has set down a set of principles in which in theory, she must adhere to. When concessions are made within that doctrine the restraint that it provides begins to weakened and the principles of good begin to be corrupted by the lawlessness of evil.

When Anakin Skywalker was asked to tell the differences between the Jedi and the Sith he remarked that the Sith only think inwards about themselves where as the Jedi were selfless thinking of others. The Jedi looked towards the bigger picture between in the struggle while the Sith looked solely at the objective at handed and adopt the “at all costs” motto. The Jedi, to a fault, bared little credence to “acceptable losses”

This is why during Episode Two’s battle between the Jedi Yoda and the Sith Trantis (Doo Koo) the Sith Lord was able to flee the battle and was not destroyed. The Sith Lord threatened the lives of a Jedi and his apprentice knowing that his adversary would then focus on saving them giving him the opportunity to flee. This say tactic would not have worked on a Sith lord since the Sith Lord would have had no qualms in sacrificing for the sake of victory. ³

The limits on the Jedi powers are the same as the limits on the forces that must answer to the edict of human rights. These are not actual limitations of power, but constraints of that power. Though the force of good is equal to that of evil, the rules in which it must operate diminish the effectiveness of that power.

- Vincent Clark