NPR and PBS "conservative" analyst David Brooks was steaming mad about anyone on Team Trump using biblical analogies about illegal immigration as they separate illegal-immigrant parents from their children after they cross the border. "Of course in the Bible it says be cruel to the refugee," sneered Brooks on NPR's All Things Considered. He called the Bible quoting "ludicrousness on stilts" on PBS.
NPR anchor Audie Cornish was asking which analyst wanted to rip into the Trump policy and proclamations first. (The idea of taxpayer-funded NPR having a pro-Trump or conservative voice on the air can't be considered for All Things Considered.)
AUDIE CORNISH: Last issue, immigration. The president has been falsely claiming that it is law to separate parents who were charged with illegal border crossing from their children. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders both attempted to invoke biblical teachings to justify this. In our last minute, who wants to jump on that?
DAVID BROOKS: Well, of course...
CORNISH: If there's a verse you want to point, let me know.
BROOKS: Of course in the Bible it says be cruel to the refugee. That's all throughout the Bible. You know, I just think...
CORNISH: I think they were talking about law, I think...
BROOKS: Right.
CORNISH: ...And governments.
BROOKS: Yeah.
CORNISH: Right.
BROOKS: I would say - just say it's what happens when you take compassion out of your policy, and you end up separating families. And it's not quite Abu Ghraib, but it does make you a little ashamed to be an American.
How generous of David. Putting kids in a converted Walmart with video games and ping-pong tables isn't a torture dungeon.
Sessions quoted Romans, chapter 13, which urges obedience to government authorities. Other Bible verses (as Brooks implies) urge charity to aliens and strangers. But secular liberals hate Bible references, and then can only interpret them in the most liberal way. They spit on them because they'd rather not argue the Bible, and think the Bible should never be used in government in any way. Whether that's animating Brooks is unknown, but he was quite animated on PBS:
Well, and then you cite the Bible on your behalf, which is ludicrousness on stilts. But they — every other administration said, it’s just not who we are. We don’t separate families. Maybe there’s a legal pretext, but we don’t do that. And that’s because there is some native compassion and empathy. And that’s been drained out of this policy. And it’s abhorrent.
Liberals (and pseudo-conservatives) don't see that all of their moral outrage demonstrates that the illegal immigrant becomes sainted in this moral scenario, and their morality is never questioned. They are victims and never victimizers. They must be protected and not prosecuted. When they commit crimes or apply for government benefits, nobody in the media wants to talk about it, because that would make a conservative point, and the "news" isn't supposed to make a conservative point.
