I saw a meme the other day that cracked me up. It had a picture of an angry monkey holding a pistol and said, “When it’s time to fight, you fight like you’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark … and brother it’s startin’ to rain.”
I don’t care who you are; that’s funny. Unless of course, you’re a liberal, in which case you would probably assess that simple meme through the layered lenses of grievance and victim-oriented dogma. “How dare you call it a monkey! How dare you suggest a fight! How dare you invoke the Bible by mentioning Noah’s Ark!” Meanwhile, the rest of us just laugh because it’s really funny.
Liberals seem to have lost their sense of humor, or perhaps more aptly, they’ve just lost their sense of reality.
Case in point: Like many of you, I recently saw a music video of country music artist Jason Aldean playing live in front of the historic Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn., just south of Nashville. The video also plays a constant stream of images featuring riots, Antifa thuggery, BLM protests, robberies and looting, and general mayhem. All the footage is real and much of it was taken in just the last few years. Why would anyone want to showcase all that madness?
It's a fair question, and the answer is simple when you realize that the song is called “Try That In A Small Town,” with lyrics like:
"Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya likeCuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're toughWell, try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town"
The song has been out since mid-May, but the video was just released. Both began playing in strong rotation with the video hyped on Country Music Television (CMT) for several days. Hitting a strong note with listeners, it was listed as the most downloaded country music song on the iTunes Top 100 list at the time of this writing. What’s not to like?
Americans have watched the news in frustration and disbelief as “largely peaceful protests” burned American cities, tore down statues, and demanded the defunding of police. TV news replays security footage of innocent old men being stabbed as they run their bodega, old ladies being punched from behind on a dare, thugs on subways, Pride parade nudity ... the list goes on and on. Then along comes Jason Aldean and puts our feelings to music, laying out a dare to try that in a small town.
But as salt-of-the-earth country music fans enjoy Aldean’s latest hit, liberal heads are exploding everywhere like cheap fireworks. Caving to angry progressives, CMT pulled the video without comment. One gun control activist from the national organization “Moms Demand Action” claimed that Jason Aldean, of all people, should know better, conflating this song with the fact that Aldean was present at the 2017 Las Vegas shooting which killed 60 and wounded 400. In reality, Aldean has earned the right to sing loudly about being fed up with rampant violent crime. He lived through it and he knows the pain.
Another national “police reform” activist claimed that the song was … wait for it … racist, saying it was “just a racist dog whistle invoking urban crimes that we better not do in ‘his’ (sundown) town.” I had to look that one up. “Sundown town” is apparently slang for all-white municipalities or neighborhoods that practice racial segregation via discriminatory local laws, intimidation, or violence.
Race-baiters say that the site of the video’s live performance is in front of a courthouse where a lynching took place nearly a century ago. Never mind that it’s also the site of a Hannah Montana film and a 2022 Christmas movie. By that measure, I shouldn’t have attended a play in Ford’s Theatre since Abraham Lincoln was shot there.
This is typical liberal tripe. Attack the common man’s view but never once acknowledge that the underlying message is simply that people want criminal acts to stop. Is it asking too much for some of these same activists to realize for just one minute that real lives and livelihoods have been attacked over and over? Good people, innocent people, just trying to live and let live. But time and again, if you dare to be a Christian conservative, you’re the downfall of Western society and need to be dealt with before any more lives are destroyed by your very existence.
Jason Aldean is just singing what we feel. It’s really that simple. The average Joe and Jane want to be left alone, but the average Joe and Jane are also fed up. We know we are not racist. We know we are not oppressors. And we know that we don’t have privilege. We like guns, but we don’t plan to shoot people. We love our God, our families, and our country. We work hard, we play hard, and we step lightly because lashing out at folks is not what we do.
But push too far, threaten our family, malign our God, or burn our flag, and brother, you just became the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark, and you’d better learn to swim because you ain’t gettin’ on this boat.
To contact Phil or request him for a speaking engagement, go to www.rightsideradio.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
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