As a socially conservative, economically libertarian, Republican, I regret the assumption that "folk = left/liberal/Democrat".

It's an odd assumption. Given that a conservative is a traditionalist, and given that folk music is traditional, it is exceedingly odd.

I certainly appreciate the work of many leftists, Pete Seeger for example, in preserving music that would otherwise have been lost, but his politics do not come from the music, nor does the music come from his politics. I appreciate everyone who, in the '60s, collected, revived, and popularized the music of an earlier time. We owe them a great debt and, without a doubt, many of them were leftists.   

Yet there is nothing INHERENTLY leftist about folk. "Barbara Allen" is not an arguement for socialized medicine, nor is "John Henry" an arguement against free trade. For every song with a "progressive" agenda, there is probably another with a socially conservative agenda. We've got "More Work in a Day" supporting traditional gender roles, "Cocaine Blues" supporting abstinence from illicit drugs, "Fair and Tender Ladies" supporting sexual abstinence, "The Young Man Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn" supporting hard work and self-reliance, "What Wondrous Love" supporting theism, and so on and on. My point is NOT that these are right-wing conservative Republican songs. They are not.

They are songs of the folk, and that is all of us.

Even us Republicans.

Kent