Part of me feels like Jason Aldean has already gotten enough attention for his song, “Try That In A Small Town,” which details how small-town vigilantes will shoot you for any number of infractions up to and including cussing at a cop or burning the flag.

But another, pushier part of me feels like there’s more to be said.

I mean, honestly, Aldean must be reveling in the publicity, laughing himself sick as he watches his downloads shoot up with every angry tweet, op-ed and TikTok. It’s been politicized at this point, and when country music stars get attacked by anyone or anything considered liberal, the target enjoys a resulting influx of conservative street cred.

“The ole Woke Police have got their claws in Aldean,” Republicans say to themselves as they send more money to a filthy rich musician who’s never lived in — heck, probably ever even visited — a small town.

It’s all an effective illusion — this down-homey identity Alden (or, more likely, his team) has created.

Musicians are real people, but rest assured that their songs will reflect only the part of their identity that they want you to see. If it sells more albums to be the kind of dude who uses his granddad’s gun to dispense frontier justice to sidewalk sucker-punchers, then that’s what he’ll sing about.

Honestly, I’d never even heard of the “controversy” until Aldean himself tweeted about it.

“I’m so sick of people talking about this fire!” he seemed to say, pouring gasoline on it.

Now Americans are bickering about the ultimate culture conflict: small town vs. big city.

Well, I’ve lived in both, and, let me tell you, they both have advantages and disadvantages.

There’s something comforting about being surrounded by people who know you — who know your parents and grandparents, who know where you went to high school and what kind of clothes you wore and the hairstyle you sported while you were there.

There’s also something really creepy about it. The weight of the past can be oppressive, and it’s hard to escape old judgments and expectations in a small town. Just by being different, you can wind up isolated and lonely.

But the big city isn’t wall-to-wall awesomeness, either. There’s callousness in anonymity, in being surrounded by so many who have no reason to care for you. I’ve watched folks literally step over a man lying out on the sidewalk. He might have been sick or, yes, he might have been drunk, but ultimately, those big-city people just had better things to do than get involved.

On the other hand, getting involved in a stranger’s business doesn’t always yield positive results. And with the sheer magnitude of souls in a big city, being weird isn’t as, well, weird as it is in a small town. There’s freedom, and opportunity, in the metropolis. And that’s to say nothing of the restaurants.

Ultimately, though, this is just manufactured controversy.

Because no one thinks carjacking old ladies is fine, neither Aldean nor any of his GOP defenders have ever actually seen a real-life flag burning, and if you spit in a cop’s face, you’re getting arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer, regardless of the population size of the town for which the officer works.

The debate is fruitless: You either live in a small town or you don’t. If you come from one, your experience there was good, bad or indifferent. No one’s changing anyone’s mind.

It’s like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: Even if we find the right answer, so what?

Like so many skirmishes in the culture war, it’s just a distraction from anything that counts, anything that can truly help or hurt us.

It’s entertainment, in a way, and if the cage match of small town versus big city doesn’t entertain you, I say it’s perfectly fine to see your way out.

From here on out, that’s what I’m doing, anyway.

Now that I’ve had the luxury of having my say.