Ostensible Man of the Cloth Mike Huckabee spoke at a conference in Missouri over the weekend where he questioned the authenticity of the Syrian refugee crisis.
Millions of Syrians have fled their homes to neighboring countries and Europe because they don't want to die, if not at the hands of ISIS then at the hands of Bashar al-Assad. Their home country has been reduced to an uninhabitable, smoking ruin by chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and all manner of indiscriminate munitions, but Good Christian Mike Huckabee ponders if they just want to catch the next season of Game of Thrones.
"Are they really escaping tyranny, are they escaping poverty, or are they really just coming because we've got cable TV?" Huckabee asked, in an audience question-and-answer session at the conservative Eagle Forum conference in St. Louis. "I don't meant to be trite. I'm just saying: We don't know."
"This idea that we have an obligation to receive vast numbers of people ... we have a real obligation to make sure that we protect the sovereignty of the United States," said Huckabee. "That's not a lack of Christian charity. It's the essence of charity, to provide for needs, but not to put your own children at risk, if what you're importing could be people who have a nefarious purpose for wanting to be here."
Of course. Jesus famously said you should irrationally fear the needy and take care of yourself before even considering lifting a finger to help anyone else. Jesus was particularly reverent, I'm told, to the national security concerns of the Unites States, a nation that would not be created until nearly 2 millennium after his death but which he has undoubtedly blessed. After all, we have a such a great record on human rights.
Huckabee's objection to accepting Syrian refugees clearly goes beyond an irrational fear of terrorism as demonstrated by some of his other remarks.
"I just read that Saudi Arabia has offered to build 600 mosques for all of the Muslims that will come to the U.S. or to Europe," he said. "I've got a better idea: Why doesn't Saudi Arabia host them, and we will send some assistance through our charitable organizations for some hospitals and schools? We will design the curriculum for those schools. They won't be madrassas to teach terrorism."
This is actually more ridiculous than Donald Trump saying he'll build on wall on our southern border and make Mexico pay for it. Huckabee is calling for building schools in a Muslim country where the children of Syria will be indoctrinated with the teachings of Free Market Jesus; none of that fancy anti-American Advanced Placement hogwash.
Huckabee's aspirations are more colonial than missionary and his reverence for Religious liberty clear starts and stops with the Christian bible. He does not welcome the idea of Syrian refugees living in American continuing to worship as they have in the past. Huckabee appears to be implying that America is being invaded, but the number of refugees the United States is planning to accept over the next year (10,000) wouldn't even fill your average Jesus Dome in Texas.
(About the 600 mosques -- the number is actually 200 and it's for Germany, not America)
If Kim Davis were a Muslim, Huckabee would have labeled her a heretic.