OK, here's another angle.

Is folk the music of the people?

Al and Jack B both seem to think that it is, as long as you don't define folk as 'traditional'. English traditional songs are the property of a small number of enthusiasts and have nothing to do with the people in general, and this is a bad thing.

Jim, I think, believes that traditional folk songs were the music of the people and that new songs 'in the tradition' could be again - but that this isn't happening very much now.

Personally I think that (traditional) folk songs were the music of the people at one time, but that time is long gone. Like Al, I think that traditional songs are the property of a small number of enthusiasts and have nothing to do with the people in general. Unlike Al, I'm not bothered - everything else that I'm into is a minority taste, why should folk be any different?

(As for Musket, he just keeps repeating "folk is folk is folk" - and he gets angry if you disturb him, so I say we leave him to it.)