The song itself has great merits just AS a song that illustrates something useful about issues like social inequality, prejudiced courts, and injustice...as well as a smug sense of righteousness on the part of many people who have never actually exerted any real effort on their own behalf to redress injustices. It challenges each and every one of us to be far more honest and to strive harder.

As such, it's a very effective song about moral principle, regardless of whether it exaggerated the "evil" of the specific man, William Zantzinger.

Slag, I think you probably meant to type

"as a Christian" unforgiveness is not an option"

, didn't you? The message of the New Testament is that it is incumbent upon all individuals to learn to forgive others if they are to expect themselves to BE forgiven. Looks to me like you made a typo in that one line, judging by the rest of your post...

I'll say this from my own experience: the LEAST forgiving people in this world are without question the least pleasant, the unhappiest, the meanest, the cruelest, and the most negative people to be around. And...they're also the most dangerous. So it appears to me that the real Christian message...that one should forgive others...is right on the mark. Vengeance is the pastime of fools....and oppressive governments of all kinds. (It's also a staple of popular Hollywood films! Why? Well, it's very dramatic, that's why. It produces violent action and suspense. And it appeals to people's baser instincts in a marvelously effective way. Thus...almost every action movie you've ever seen...hell, what would Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson have done without vengeance?????? They allowed the general public to vicariously process their unexpressed rage.)

I'm willing to forgive others for a difference of opinion.    Definitely. I do it all the time here. And I've forgiven them for far worse than that. ;-) But if they are unwilling to forgive me, merely over some trivial difference of opinion about something...then that's the private hell they have decided to live in, and I can't do much about it except just focus on other matters instead and not worry about it. (Which is probably what they should do too, if they wanted a bit more peace of mind...) Someone who is addicted to feeling his own anger, though, can't understand that. He needs someone to hate, someone to attack, and he'll keep coming back for one more fix. It never ends.