The newest holy figure in the religion of leftism was laid to rest yesterday with one of its high priests taking a cheap shot at a political opponent.
Friday was the funeral of Jordan Neely, the career criminal who died after being placed in a chokehold on a New York City subway by Marine veteran Daniel Penny.
Despite witness accounts of Neely's erratic and aggressive behavior toward other passengers, the Manhattan DA still chose to file criminal charges against Penny.
Meanwhile, despite Neely's extensive criminal history, which includes over 40 arrests, the left is trying to turn him into yet another social justice martyr, just like they did with George Floyd.
To that end, America's chief race-baiter, Rev. Al Sharpton, was invited to give a eulogy at the funeral and took the occasion to snipe at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The governor had called Penny a "good Samaritan" and urged Americans to stand up to activist, Soros-funded DAs. That did not sit too well with Sharpton.
"I know, Gov. DeSantis, that you're putting black history, and LGBTQ and Latino out of the school, but I have a Bible to put in the governor's office," Sharpton said before explaining how the good Samaritan in the Bible helped a man who had been robbed and beaten.
First off, Sharpton's comments about DeSantis' education policies are simply untrue. DeSantis is not removing black or Latino history from schools; he is merely preventing schools from teaching leftist ideology in the form of critical race theory to children.
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True, DeSantis is removing LGBT content from school bookshelves, but that is because that material tends to be sexually explicit and often outright pornographic.
More to the point, however, Sharpton's comments about the parable of the good Samaritan are also absurd. The bruised and beaten man helped by the good Samaritan was an innocent man who was attacked by highway robbers, not a crazed criminal who was threatening other travelers.
If anything, Neely was more like the robbers than the wounded man on the side of the road -- and his fellow subway passengers could have paid the price if Penny had not stepped in.
The left seems to have a thing for making heroes and victims out of violent criminals. No wonder crime is plaguing leftist-run cities.
Instead of working to address the actual issues that are leading to sad cases like that of Jordan Neely, Sharpton and the left seem more interested in exploiting them to score political points.
Meanwhile, criminals are still running amok in the streets because progressive DAs refuse to do their jobs.
It is time to end this valorization of criminals and return America to the rule of law and order.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
