Monday, October 17, 2005

The Devil in Disguise: A Prince William County, Virginia, school official has decided the marching band must stop playing a rendition of Charlie Daniel's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" because of the song's controversial subject matter.

After the devil went down to Georgia, it seems, he got censored in Prince William County.

When I first read that, I assumed that it must be another goddamn right-wing Christian do-gooder trying to save us from even the mention of anything salacious or evil. But that's not the case.

This time it's a godless left-wing PC nut who believes the song violates the separation of church and state. He wrote a letter saying as much, and the band director immediately took the song out of the music lineup.

In this case, it's nearly unanimous that the lone dissenting voice shouldn't be taken seriously, and the school official overreacted badly. Even the guy who wrote the letter says things got carried away.

Still, isn't it funny how easy it is to confuse the extreme Right and the extreme Left? Their tactics and their goals blend imperceptibly into one big mess.