When government abandons its most important duty
The Democratic Party has totally failed Bloomington. They have allowed criminals to run rampant and they are destroying this city.
A couple weeks ago, a homeless convicted child molester was arrested after allegedly confronting a random person and shooting at him. This was another in a long string of crimes by homeless people in Bloomington, including rampant open drug use that has turned the historic original home of Indiana University into a total dump and another homeless man who was arrested for attempting to rape a female IU student in Dunn's Woods.
The single most important responsibility of government is to keep innocent people safe from predators. Everything else is secondary to that. Government is established to preside over a criminal justice system that protects our lives and our property from those who would do us harm, and (ideally) allows us to defend ourselves. A government that refuses to enforce law and order is a government that has totally abdicated its moral authority and does not deserve to exist.
The heart of the Gospel is forgiveness for our sins, but forgiveness by God is not in conflict with earthly consequences for crimes. Romans 13 teaches us that the civil government "beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." When he was on trial, the Apostle Paul said if he "committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die." Shedding the blood of murderers goes back to the Old Testament, where God commanded that "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man." God warns that He will judge Israel if they do not execute people who burn babies to death to sacrifice them to Molech - a sin so evil that God told the Prophet Jeremiah that it never even entered into His mind.
It is possible for a murderer to repent and be redeemed of his sins, and still be executed. He would be in Heaven worshiping Jesus the second the sword falls and ends his life. But Christians should not be so naïve, foolish, stupid and downright wicked that we refuse to allow the civil magistrate to protect the innocent by punishing the predators who have victimized them.
Should we have compassion on criminals? Yes and no. Yes, we should have compassion in that we do not implement needlessly cruel punishments such as torture, or punishments that are disproportionate to the crime. Our justice system is criminally negligent in protecting inmates from committing suicide. Our justice system is criminally negligent in protecting criminals from each other when violent rapes are rampant in our prisons.
But we should absolutely not have "compassion" when that "compassion" leads to releasing violent predators so they can rape, mutilate and murder innocent people. That is what thoroughly corrupt so-called "governor" Michael Dukakis did when he allowed convicted murderer Willie Horton out of prison to rape and mutilate innocent people. Thank God this wicked degenerate never became President! The victims of predators also deserve compassion, and the best way to show compassion for victims is to prevent predators from creating more of them. Once someone has shown himself to be a danger to society, government has an obligation to protect society from that predator.
The Democratic Party has totally failed Bloomington. They have gone so "woke" that they think it is "compassionate" to let vagrants and criminals run rampant, victimize innocent people, and openly shoot up drugs in public. Moderate Democrats need to get over their hatred for President Trump and stop putting these negligent fools into office election after election. You can think "Orange Man Bad" all you want, but President Trump is not the one trashing our quality of life here. That would be the Monroe County Democratic Party.