I have trouble with this one, too. I sure wouldn't have wanted my kids exposed to a constant diet of songs like "Cop Killer" when they were in their early teens and younger. My ex and I made a valiant attempt to screen the music our kids bought, but I think we eventually lost the battle by the time they got into high school. It got to the point that our attempts at screening caused more friction and ill will than the music would.
So my eldest son grew up to be a punk rocker, and his first record had a "hit" called "Letter Bomb" and a cute little calypso tune called "The Fuck of Love." He went through a phase of spouting all sorts of hateful propaganda that had little grounding in logic, and he got himself into a couple of situations where he tried to make the cops get angry at him, so he could prove his point. Oh - and he supported himself by shoplifting from "f---ing capitalists." He's settled down now, but for a couple of years, he pushed this propaganda on hundreds of kids.
So, I have the feeling that my kids got caught in a flood of hateful propaganda that was too strong for their parents to counteract. I think this would be a better world for kids without this kind of stuff, but I'm not sure how to control it. I can't accept the idea of government censorship, and I'm not even sure I like the idea of censorship by record companies and retailers. At least, though, there ought to be age restrictions on certain music.
Certainly, "Cop Killer" may have artistic merit - but it is also very powerful propaganda that can be very effective in swaying the minds of kids. I think it's important that kids are not exposed to this sort of stuff until they have the intellectual and emotional maturity to deal with it.
-Joe Offer-