Dear Mr. Mustaine

I’d like to take just a moment to address politics. Maybe you’re a conservative, maybe you’re a liberal, maybe you’re somewhere in between, or maybe you just don’t give a shit. I think that you should give a shit but that’s just me. Whatever you think or don’t think odds are that you haven’t been able to escape the election. Metal and politics don’t usually mix and when they do the word ‘censorship’ generally rears its ugly head (remember the PMRC?) But just recently someone picked up an endorsement from someone in the metal community. Obviously that person is Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Megadeth has often been more political than most of the others in the Big Four. “Peace Sells,” “Holy Wars,” you know that songs. And like most metal bands those songs have generally tread a liberal path. But you might also remember United Abominations both the album title and the song condemned the United Nations, not exactly a liberal opinion. Now I know that Mustaine voted for Clinton and covered the Democratic Convention in 1992 but I also know that he had some serious problems with drugs and got out of it with the help of the church. That’s right, in case you didn’t know Dave Mustaine is now a self-described born-again Christian. I’m not a fan of the Church (not many metalheads are) but I have been able to overlook Mr. Mustaine’s newfound affinity for the church, I generally try not to judge. But just the other day Mustaine decided to throw his support behind none other than Rick Santorum. Now Republicans have never exactly been the party that upholds the ideals of metal but Santorum is pretty much the anti-metalhead. You can go on Wikipedia and read up on his views but let me just give you the bullet points: Christian theocracy, creationism, extremely anti-homosexual (ok so maybe metal isn’t big in the gay community but think about Rob Halford), basically the most conservative view on everything. I’m a liberal and being a metalhead that’s not all that weird. So I’ve been really torn since I heard this news. Part of me wants to stomp all over my Megadeth collection and part of me wants to just not judge. But goddamit what the fuck? This is about the most unmetal thing you could do right after cutting a song with Miley Cyrus. Maybe I wrote this because I just need to vent but I also wrote it as a political statement. I hope that Mustaine returns back to the good side but religion has powerful holds. If I were religious like Mustaine I would probably pray but since I’m not all I can do is hope.