Thread by @Stonekettle

Nothing demonstrates the morally bankrupt wasteland of Christian conservatism in America than the Republican mass apologia surrounding the gassing of migrants on our Southern border.

1/

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1066849667835604992

Conservatives drape themselves in the heroic myth of American manifest destiny. Ask them about our history and they'll proudly tell you of ancestors who crossed oceans to reach our shores, who walked thousand of miles across prairies to forge new homes in the wilderness.

2/

Plymouth Rock. Jamestown. Roanoke. Virginia Dare. Somehow the Pioneers crossing the Great Plains with THEIR children, braving hostile territory, hostile natives, criminals of all sorts, disease, hunger, and hardship while seeking a better life is admirable, heroic, brave ...

3/

... but brown skinned people making a similar journey to those very same lands, for the very same reasons as our very own ancestors, are instead invaders, scum subhuman, worthy only of contempt and scorn, gas and bullets and a boot in the teeth.

Ironic, eh?

4/

Trump says “First of all, the tear gas is a very minor form of the tear gas itself. It’s very safe. The ones that were suffering to a certain extent were the people that were putting it out there, but it’s very safe.”

This is patent nonsense in every respect.

5/

There *IS* no "minor form" of tear gas. CS gas is not "very safe." It's considered NON-LETHAL in most cases, but it can very much be deadly to those with certain medical conditions, old people, and CHILDREN AND INFANTS. It says so, right on the manufacturer's warnings.

6/

Firing tear gas into crowds often results in panic. Children, the infirm, the elderly, mothers encumbered with infants, can and are often injured or even killed in the resulting stampede.

There is nothing "very safe" about using gas, even in comparison to lethal force.

7/

Those attempting to justify using gas against migrants have obviously never been gassed. They should be. Those of us who were trained to use gas were required to be gassed ourselves, so we would know.

Trump as CINC should face the same requirement himself. Publicly.

8/

Instead, Conservatives resort to clumsy lies and obvious hysteria to justify the gassing of children.

Not ONE immigrant "broke through the fence" let alone "thousands."

(this guy was responding to a comment from @RepBarbaraLee on my timeline, not to me directly).

9/

Then there are hundreds of comments on my timeline like this one. "Maybe you should sponser [sic] her."

Leaving aside the part where I *can't* sponsor an immigrant until they are IN THE IMMIGRATION PROCESS, which is what these people are trying to do, maybe we ALL should.

9/

Isn't that what Jesus would do?

I mean, isn't it?

I'm not a Christian, I'm certainly not a Christian conservative, but isn't taking in the poor and needy EXACTLY what Christianity teaches? Isn't that EXACTLY what Christianity requires of Christians?

10/

The question isn't why *I* am not sponsoring an immigrant, the question is: WHY AREN'T THOSE VOCAL CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVES WHO DAILY PROCLAIM THIS A CHRISTIAN NATION demanding a chance to sponsor these people?

Isn't THAT exactly what a CHRISTIAN nation would do?

11/

Then there's this.

Shoot them. Women. Children. Infants. Kill them all. They're just criminals. Invaders. Scum. Subhuman. Nits make lice, right? That's how the Nazis rationalized it, you know. That's how THEY could gas babies, children, families without remorse.

12/

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

For Christian conservatives, Christianity apparently depends on how you define "brother." Convenient, eh?

13/

The hypocritical tautologies these "Christians" tie themselves into to avoid facing their own supposed beliefs is instructive. Like the Nazis, they look at those they consider subhuman and feel only revulsion, then spin up some bizarre rationalization for that viewpoint.

14/

Trump again, “In some cases, you know, they’re not the parents. These are people, they call ’em ‘grabbers.’ They grab a child because they think they’ll have a certain status by having a child."

Look at that statement. No, really LOOK at it.

15/

There is NO proof of this happening whatsoever. The idea was created simply to justify conservative ideology.

But lets say there WAS proof, that it WAS true. Wouldn't a moral people then have a duty to take those victims in? To find their parents? To see them home?

16/

Tell me: How does Trump's "grabbers" comment justify gassing children WHO BY HIS OWN ACCOUNT ARE ALREADY VICTIMS?

If they are victims, how do we as a nation justify turning them away?

And why DOESN'T having children actually give some "status" to an immigrant? Well?

17/

If these children truly ARE kidnap victims, then how do CHRISTIAN conservatives justify GASSING them -- or stuffing them into cages, for that matter -- instead of HELPING them as their own religion commands? Are these children then not the least of us?

Well?

18/

Today, the silence, and therefore complicity, of Christian conservatives in response to Donald Trump's statements is a condemnation of everything they supposedly stand for and lays bare the hypocrisy of their loathsome religion for the world to see.

19/

The moral bankruptcy of this conservative hypocrisy is a staggering condemnation of our entire civilization and of Americans as a people and a nation.

20/20