I dunno, Embo, somehow that doesn't make me think of him as a worthy heir to Hank Senior...Junior's usual subjects are partying, getting laid ("by women I never had"), and right wing philosophy. True, violent criminals sometimes don't get all they deserve, but sometimes also the innocent are convicted (and the Supreme Court refused to stop an execution in Texas: Renquist, writing the opinion for the majority, said something to the effect that at that stage in the proceedings evidence of innocence was irrelevant. The prisons are full of non-violent criminals, the courts and prosecutors and public defenders are all overworked--often, pleas to lesser offenses are accepted just because there's no way for the system to function without them.

And tougher laws often have consequences very different from those intended by lawmakers or voters: "Use a gun, go to jail" laws end up meaning that a man who beats his wife to death spends far less time than a woman who, out of fear for her life, shoots her husband.

That's my problem with songs like Junior's Mr. Lincoln...they vastly oversimplify issues--from the point of view of those in power (folk songs generally represent the view of the downtrodden).

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