Debunking the "50 greatest conservative songs", part 8

12. “Neighborhood Bully” – Bob Dylan

NRO Take: A pro-Israel song released in 1983, two years after the bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, this ironic number could be a theme song for the Bush Doctrine: “He destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad / The bombs were meant for him / He was supposed to feel bad / He’s the neighborhood bully.”

DL Take: I guess it could be a theme song for the Bush Doctrine, but it’s not. “Neighborhood Bully” is a song about the struggles of Israel as a nation and how they must exercise strength in order to survive in the region. Just take the first verse:

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

I swear, if Miller was in elementary school, he would receive an award for participation but only so he doesn’t feel bad about being a loser. Let’s just say that his mother will not be putting a, “My child is an honor student…” sticker on her mini-van anytime soon.

If you are looking for a song to describe the Bush Doctrine, how about “Incompetence Indifference” by Adrian Belew?

28. “Janie’s Got A Gun” – Aerosmith

NRO Take: How the right to bear arms can protect women from sexual predators: “What did her daddy do? / It’s Janie’s last I.O.U. / She had to take him down easy / And put a bullet in his brain / She said ’cause nobody believes me / The man was such a sleaze / He ain’t never gonna be the same.”

DL Take: This is a nice story about a girl and her father. The girl seems to face some emotional issues, probably caused by her dad, who’s a dick. So what can Janie do about this? Call the police? Perhaps get a restraining order? No, none of the above. She went to the local gun and knife show and bought herself a gun and with no waiting period or background check, it was easy to obtain. So, Janie takes the thing home, shoots the man in the face and somehow carries him to some train tracks to hopefully get run over by a passing train.

The police show up looking for Janie. What did she do? She was only exercising her 2nd amendment rights. I mean, if you have the right to bear arms, you also have the right to shoot people right? Janie, confused and angry about the hypocrisy of the government runs away, RUNS AWAY from the pain, yea-yea-yea.

Much later, the police find Janie holed up in a warehouse. The police surround the building. Fox News is there to cover the incident 24 by 7. O’Reilly blames the Democrats for this happening because they are somehow associated as he puts it because they are, “soft on crime”.

Meanwhile, the man who was shot in the face is on life support and the family is torn on whether to remove him from life support or not. Bill Frist watches 5 minutes of video tape and determines that the man can follow a balloon around the room and should be kept alive. Right to lifers stand outside of the hospital protesting and Fox News demonizes the family and those, “radical” justices. Congress passes a resolution to keep the man alive and the president hops on Air Force One and heads back to Washington D.C. leaving his vacation early just to sign the resolution.

I think that’s what the song is about.

If you are looking for a song about the 2nd amendment, how about this one?

37. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” – The Band

NRO Take: Despite its sins, the American South always has been about more than racism — this song captures its pride and tradition.

DL Take: Okay, this song is about the fighting in the Civil War so if what Miller means by pride and tradition is a song about fighting for the right to own slaves, then I guess he is right. I really see a pattern in a lot of the songs that Miller chooses for his list. With this song and, “Sweet Home Alabama” I believe that he is saying that conservatives believe in racism and segregation. That’s my take on things and if he can take things out of context, then I can too.