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2005
Soap Box Archives Asinine 11/18/05 There was recently a situation in a Virginia school where the marching band had worked very hard on a rendition of our song; The Devil Went Down to Georgia, to perform at halftime at a bowl game. A gentleman
wrote a letter to the local paper, by no means denigrating the song,
but asking the perfectly rational question, After reading the letter the band director decided, with good reason from his point of view I’m sure, to drop the song and perform something else at the bowl game. I spoke with the gentleman who wrote the letter and he was actually a fan and had no intention of stopping the band from playing the song. I tried to talk with the band director and get his take on the situation but I was unable to reach him, so I have to give you my rationale for his actions without the benefit of his opinion. Let me say right here that I have absolutely no animosity towards the gentleman for not allowing the band to play The Devil Went Down To Georgia. It’s his job to decide what’s good for them. I just think it’s a shame for the kids to have worked so hard on the song and the routine and not get to perform it. But that all
said, let me give you my opinion of what went wrong. I believe that the school was afraid of a lawsuit. It’s as simple as that and certainly not all that far-fetched. Lawsuits have been brought against schools for more frivolous things. What makes this such an asinine situation is that The Devil Went Down To Georgia is not a spiritual song. As a born again Christian I would never do a song that would glorify the devil or suggest that he was anything other than the evil being that he is. The devil loses badly in this song and I can guarantee you that he will never win in any song I write. Actually the point I wanted to make in all this is this: it is absolutely silly not to issue school vouchers so the children can go to a school which will be out of the reach of the A.C.L.U. and the federal courts. They keep hammering the fact that we’re such a diverse society, let’s start acting like it. This “one size fits all” approach to public education has caused more unnecessary divisiveness in this country than any other educational issue since the abolition of the Jim Crow laws. As it stands now, a single Muslim or atheist can play havoc with a school’s curriculum taking away any mention of God or Jesus Christ, even changing the name of Christmas to some ridiculous secular name that has nothing to do with the holiday at all. It is insane to continue along this path when the answer is so simple. Let Christians go to Christian schools, let Jews go to Jewish schools, let Muslims go to Muslim schools and let those who so choose continue to go to public schools. There is a common misconception that the non public schools are much more expensive than public schools but if you’ll check you will find out that in most cases, excepting some exclusive institutes, the private schools are cheaper than the public schools. In the private schools there is discipline, more individual attention and a much higher rate of learning. It’s so
simple, all the federal government has to do is give us the In this case the minorities are on board and with good reason. Why should they have to, in many cases, send their children to run down, drug infested, unruly schools when, with vouchers they could send them to clean, disciplined, motivating schools where they will receive a much better education and their spiritual beliefs can be honored at the same time. In my opinion the politicians in Washington should stop kowtowing to the national education association and put the education of the children they’re supposed to be taking care of first.
Pray for our troops. What do you think? God Bless America Charlie Daniels
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