Troubling
Watched a trial the last couple of days. A man was convicted of five counts because he was an illegal alien who had re-entered the country, got caught with a gun and with cocaine a few minutes after he pointed his gun at a car. All this happened around 3:30 AM one night last summer, over in the neighborhood near the Stratosphere.
On the one hand, I'm all for people doing dangerous, stupid, and illegal things getting the "book thrown at them." Makes me feel safer at night.
On the other hand, I've seen far too may people from the "wrong neighborhoods" get convicted this summer. We have social problems in our cities that need addressed. If you live in an econcomically depressed part of town, your chances of getting in big time trouble are really high compared to many of the rest of us.
I'm not smart enough to have solutions to all of this. I am just becoming convicted that if we want to serve the poor and needy of the world, we can find them right in the city we live in. We don't have to go around the globe. And if we don't do something to change the way things are, huge slices of certain demographic groups will keep getting up chained up in federal pens. I've seen it happen all summer.
