I just heard the old Kenny Rogers cornball “Coward of the County” on the radio, and the message sounded so familiar: peaceful fella mindin’ his own bidness, painfully meek, suffering outrage after outrage until finally an unspeakable assault spurs him onto vengeance–and my, what vengeance! In the final chorus, the protagonist speaks to his dearly departed pappy, who died in prison after years of raising hell and warned the boy to always “turn the other cheek”:
- I promised you dad not to do the things you’ve done
I’ll walk away from trouble when I can
Now please don’t think I’m weak
I couldn’t turn the other cheek
Papa, I sure hope you understand
Sometimes you gotta fight when you’re a man.
Whence this sense of deja vu? Oh yes, Ariel Sharon is a man of peace, George Bush is a man of peace, but doggone it, sometimes you can just push a man too far! What did they ever do to them Ay-rabs? Etc., etc., etc. To think that neoconservatism, such a highborn philosophy, has transmogrified the public discourse into a Kenny Rogers song. Unintended consequences and all that…