Liberal and Conservative Doom


Some people wear their liberal hearts upon a sleeve,
but conservatives will often wear theirs in a part
of them that's hidden, since their liberal friends believe
that views  that  are conservative impart
to those supporting them a  character from whom
they must as they would from fiend depart,
designating him to PC doom.
Views that are not on the liberal chart
have trumped them recently, and boom.
Instead of falling from the appplecart,
they please a lot of people who consume
what liberals all reject as being far too tart.

I wish someone could find a modus viv-
endi between those with a liberal heart
and those who're cardiacly conservative,
so neither need be CPR'd.
Brain death has often been a problem from which both
have suffered but perhaps they could restart
their heartbeats, leading to their brains' regrowth,
if they were far less smug and far more smart.


Inspired by  the reference by Shai Secunda,  Jacob Neusner Associate Professor of Judaism at Bard College, to the liberal hearts of the curators of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum (“Jerusalem 1000-14000: Every People Under Heaven”) in an article in the Winter JRB  (“Bling and Beauty: Jerusalem at the Met”):

What are we to make of Jerusalem’s multitudes? Curators Barbara Drake Boehm and Melanie Holcomb wear their liberal hearts on their sleeves, imagining that the city’s crowds might yet be resurrected as a convivial medieval pluralism. There is indeed evidence of cooperation and even genuine caring across ethnic and religious borders. Muslims introduced Jewish pilgrims to some of the area’s less-known holy sites and, in an enactment of Abraham’s hospitality, dished out hot lentils from gargantuan soup pots to hungry pilgrims, regardless of persuasion. Symbols of other traditions were acknowledged and sometimes appropriated in surprisingly ecumenical ways: Christians called the Islamic Dome of the Rock “Solomon’s Temple,” Jews fittingly referred to it as Midrash Shelomo (King Solomon’s Study Hall). Even when a religious community was forcibly banned from the city, there was almost always a saving grace. Saladin’s expulsion of Christians from Jerusalem was incomplete, as he decided to allow Eastern Christians to remain. Some years later, Jerusalemites even saw a power-sharing arrangement between the two otherwise clashing faiths. And yet, the fundamental set of dynamics during the four centuries on display was one of bloody conquest, banishment, repossession, and reconstruction.

1/13/17 #17718