As a Texan and as an American, I think it was bad form for Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, to go overseas and trash-talk President Bush. I'll defend her right to sound like an idiot, but that doesn't mean I have to listen to her music or buy her records, and in the almost four years since, I haven't.
Until now.
My boycott of the Dixie Chicks is over.
I still think Maines was wrong, and I'll defend the right of anyone who wants to express their disgust with her by boycotting her music. Yes, speech is free, but that doesn't mean it always is free of consequences.
However, my "protest," such as it was, is over. My heart was never in it, and as I thought about it recently, I realized that I previously was a Dixie Chicks fan not because of Natalie Maines' politics but because of her music. And if I was to continue to "punish" her, I would be holding her to a much different standard than, say, Willie Nelson, whose politics are much more radical than Maines' but who has never been barred from my playlist.
In the end, my love affair with the Dixie Chicks is only about the music.
Here is one of the best songs off their latest CD, which you can now find in my collection:
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