The Patriot Post® · The Not So Good Samaritan

In a story straight out of “Two Corinthians,” a Donald Trump-supporting tow truck driver in South Carolina refused to tow the wrecked car of a woman who clearly supported Bernie Sanders. On Monday, Ken Shupe drove his tow truck from Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina — where his company Shupee Max Towing is based — to the side of Interstate-26 near Asheville, North Carolina, where a young woman’s car was disabled on the side of the road. It was obvious she “feels the Bern” — she had a bumper sticker affixed to her car, and a yard sign supporting the socialist lay in its rear window.

“Every business dealing in recent history with a socialist-minded person, I have not gotten paid,” Shupe told the local Fox News station.

He told the woman he wasn’t going to tow her because she was a socialist, and that if she wanted help, she should “call the government.” Then Shupe got in his truck and started his journey back to South Carolina without the car in tow.

“Something came over me, I think the Lord came to me, and he just said get in the truck and leave,” Shupe later recounted. “And when I got in my truck, you know, I was so proud, because I felt like I finally drew a line in the sand and stood up for what I believed.”

Sure, Shupe had a right to drive away — there’s no law against it (yet). But the stunt wasn’t cute. The woman claims she takes 18 different types of prescriptions daily to deal with her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, early stage Crohn’s disease, Fibromyalgia and Psoriatic Arthritis. And Shupe left her on the side of the highway with a disabled vehicle. She might very well be more accurately diagnosed with a bad case of “acute victimitis,” but since when do Americans applaud a man treating any woman in distress this way?

In Shupe’s efforts to teach the woman a lesson about socialism, he violated respect for basic human dignity — and he undermined the case for conservatism. Ronald Reagan’s conservatism was all about reducing regulation so that people could have the freedom do the moral thing. And whatever voice Shupe was listening to that day, it certainly wasn’t the Lord’s. When Jesus wanted to illustrate the greatest commandment, he told the story of another traveler who was stranded on the side of the road. Only one traveler followed the Lord’s voice and stopped for the man beaten and robbed on the side of the road — and it cost him more than a day’s wages.