Page 26 - Liberating Liberals V2

The Mental Prison Break
Bleeding hearts coagulate
One of liberalism’s most effective freethinking tools is compasssion. Taunted as the “bleeding heart syndrome” by conservatives, practical compassion helps us find reasons why people hurt the community or themselves rather than settle for conservative knee-jerk condemnation. One of the main sources of liberal compassion is Jesus. He said:
Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy...Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God...But whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also...Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you...Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.9
These passages make me, and I think most liberals, weak in the knees. Life has at least that meaning: helping other people, relieving suffering, trying to avoid war. As even atheistic satirist Kurt Vonnegut saw it: “We’re here to help each other
get through this thing, whatever it is.”10 The early twentieth-century labor leader Eugene Debs described an even more specific compassion. He wrote:
As long as there’s a lower class I’m in it. As long as there’s a criminal element I’m of it. As long as there’s a soul in prison, I am not free.11
In addition, Jesus frees us by declaring: “Father
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