On Friday, Marine Daniel Penny was indicted in New York City on second-degree manslaughter charges for killing a man in the subway, Jordan Neely, who passengers said was menacing their car.
Since then, a GiveSendGo to support Penny reached over $2 million. GiveSendGo is a Christian fundraising site popular among the right.
Numerous conservative luminaries plugged the fundraiser, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and podcaster Tim Pool.
“We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back,” DeSantis tweeted.
In doing so, he invoked one of the oldest parables in the world, a hallmark of Christianity, the tale of the Good Samaritan, from the Gospel of Luke.
Other supporters of Penny agreed he was acting as a “Good Samaritan.”
In the story, Jesus is asked by a man about how to achieve eternal life and he offers the advice that one should love the Lord and love their neighbor.
When asked who his neighbors were, Jesus tells the tale of a man beaten by robbers and left on the side of the road. Two people ignored him until a Samaritan came and saved his life, taking him to get aid.
“Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbor to him who fell among the robbers?” Jesus then asked the man.
The man said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
“Go and do likewise,” Jesus responded.
One might notice, absent from that tale, is the Samaritan murdering the struggling person. But for fun, a number of people responding to DeSantis and others rewrote the tale such that it might work as the governor used it. It became a meme format.
“But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he put him in a chokehold until the man was dead” Luke 10:33, I guess,” wrote one.
“If Daniel Penny was really a ‘Good Samaritan’ he would’ve recognized that Jordan Neely was having a mental health episode, helped calm him down, offered him a bottle of water and worked to get him him fed, housed and treated…not choked him to death,” wrote another.
In the right-wing version of the metaphor, Penny provided comfort and succor for those on the subway, whose biggest concern, it appears, was not being houseless or in need of food and water, but being annoyed.
