President Trump is frequently accused, unfairly, of tarring all illegal aliens as criminals.  But when Obama and liberals tar all police as racists and trigger-happy extremists, there is no dissent.  As a result, many in our culture believe that the police, whose job it is to enforce the law, are the enemy.

We are starting to see the poisoned fruits of these labors in America's churches.  Some churches have announced that they will basically have nothing further to do with the police.  What will they do if they need help?  It seems they plan to learn karate and befriend criminals.

Do you think this is a joke?  Read on:

Standing on the front steps of First Congregational Church of Oakland late last month, Nichola Torbett issued a declaration.

"We can no longer tolerate the trauma inflicted on our communities by policing," Torbett, a white church volunteer, said in front of churchgoers who held photos of African Americans shot dead by law enforcement.  The church, she promised, would never call the cops again in nearly every circumstance.  Dozens of members had agreed to do the same.

They call it "divesting" from police.  The church is part of a tiny but growing movement among liberal houses of worship around the nation making similar vows.  They include another church in Oakland, one in San Jose and one in Iowa City, Iowa. 

On Facebook, dozens of people are signed up to attend a July workshop at the church. It's called "How to NOT call the PoLice (Sheriffs & Kkkorts) Ever."

Police = KKK.  Well, at least we know how they think.

At most, a few dozen people usually show up for Sunday service.  Members are largely lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer; about half are white.  Its leaders are mostly women, many of whom work in nonprofits, social work and education.

In lieu of police services, the church has secured a $10,000 grant to train its members and other community groups on de-escalation tactics and self-defense.

I wonder who paid for this grant.  I am afraid to guess.

Church leaders said they could prevent crime by forming better relationships with neighborhood residents.  Their theory, put simply: Friends won't steal from friends.  But if crime still happened, church members prayed they could make peace between victims and perpetrators directly without police or courts.

What interests me about this article is that it seems to tell the story of two different groups of socially deficient people and the dysfunctional way in which they interact with each other.

Criminals, while not largely mentally ill, nevertheless must possess a certain degree of social deficiency that renders them unsympathetic to their victims.  People who genuinely care about other people don't rob them or hit them on the head while carjacking their vehicles.

But at the same time, these church parishioners also possess a social deficit: the inability to understand what other people are thinking and feeling.  These left-wing parishioners have an inability to understand that other people do not think and empathize as they do.  Their failure to understand a basic truth about humanity, that not everyone thinks the same way, that not everyone has the same feeling of respect or community that everyone else does, is also a social deficiency that blinds them to the truth: that they can try to be the very best of friends with the local pimp, the local drug-dealer, the local liquor store-robber, or the local insane person wielding a metal bedpost sharpened into a knife, but their feelings will never, ever be reciprocated.

Perhaps that's to be expected when parishioners fall so far off the mark that they look for their God in a recycling bin rather than in the Bible.

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.