Are We Evil ?

That's an overly broad questions so I'll narrow it down a bit.

Let's try this: Does the Federal Government of the United States adopt policies with evil effects?

Well that question requires a definition of what are evil effects. After all, how can we sort out all the policies with real world effects into evil effects and good effects?

And, since the USA probably has thousands of individual policies, some of them may very well have evil effects - policies that actively harm people.

And, of course, some policies that are good for the country may harm individual people. All we can ask is that the policy designer has considered the trade offs before implementing the policy.

We need a sorting mechanism to separate any policies with evil effects from the policies with good effects. 

Luckily we can draw on the experience at Nuremburg trials of Nazi's after WW II. 

Captain G. M. Gilbert, US Army psychologist was assigned to watching the Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg Trails. 

"In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil, and now I think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

[https://sluggerotoole.com/2018/06/19/evil-i-think-is-the-absence-of-empathy/]

If he is right, then it is likely that policies created with no concern for the effects of the policy on Americans or other people can be considered evil.

I think we prefer that United States governmental polices are designed with empathy for the people affected by the policy.