One of the most powerful lines ever employed in cultural discourse simply asked, “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

It was directed at predatory men who force themselves upon unwilling, resistant women and what made it devastatingly effective was that there was nothing coy about it — no play on words, no double-entendres, no obfuscation.

Even a dolt could understand it. So, presumably, could a defense attorney.

Well, it’s been echoing here this week after watching Elizabeth Warren, a shameless opportunist, exploit traumatized kids languishing along our southern border in order to take another bite from the anti-Trump apple.

While the ruthless slaying of 20-year-old Iowa coed Mollie Tibbetts by an allegedly illegal immigrant was forcing horrified Americans to again contemplate the importance of vetting who we allow into this country, as Kate Steinle’s killing did three summers ago, our ambitious senator rode the coattails of the tragedy to resume her badmouthing of the White House.

“I’m sorry for the family,” she condescendingly allowed before immediately transitioning to a mawkish account of pathos at our border.

“I went down and saw where children had been taken away from their mothers,” she said. “We need immigration laws that focus on people who pose a real threat; I don’t think mamas and babies are the place that we should be spending our resources. Separating a mama from her baby does not make this country safer.”

That begs a question: Senator, what part of “illegal” don’t you understand?

We are not a heartless country; far from it. But we are a nation of laws and, truth be told, those babies were brought to those border locations by parents intent upon thumbing their noses at our laws.

Senator, please, the tears of those children, like the tears now being shed by Mollie Tibbetts’ loved ones, need to be viewed in a context larger than your own ambitions.

To simply use them for your own personal gain is cheap.

The context makes a difference.

In courtrooms you can find kids sobbing as Dad is led off to prison.

In airports you can find them weeping as Dad heads off to war.

Those tears are real and understandable, but so are the reasons that caused them to flow.

That’s why, no matter how much those kids you describe touch our hearts, we can’t scrub laws or alter policies because of them, and we surely shouldn’t be using them as props to advance our own agendas.

Seriously, senator, it’s not complicated, not if you understand what illegal really means.