“Imagine”, by John Lennon

Written by John (the other John).

I was recently listening to a radio program that stated that the song “imagine” by John Lennon may be the best song of all time, but not just for its music, but for its message of peace and love. The radio announcer went on to say that the lyrics he sang can become true if only people were more enlightened (and less white). So I then analyzed the lyrics, and made some real world commentary based on logic, reason, and precedent (not fiction):

Lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us

Meaning:

With no God to give us ethics, and no Hell to give us punishment for evil acts, then people have complete freedom to kill, steal, rape, lie, etc… No different than if a nation has no criminal laws, then people would commit all sorts of acts that are otherwise illegal today.

Lyrics:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for

Meaning:

People only kill when there is a country is Lennon’s message. But before there were countries (or nation-States), there were empires; and before empires, there were tribes of people roaming the land, and they were killing, stealing, raping, etc... against other people. So somebody should tell John Lennon and his followers that humanity has “been there, done it” without countries, and it was an awfully violent world. In fact, we as people are so much less likely to die a violent death today than (for example) people who lived thousands (or hundreds) of years ago before there was country.

Lyrics:

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Meaning:

Human beings have existed for about 200,000 years (as have animals/reptiles/etc… for much longer than us), and all of these beings have been territorial to certain extents. John Lennon had zero historical precedent to reference that this vision of his is anything more than a drug-induced fantasy. Just look at any animal in the animal kingdom and how they defend what is theirs, and how they kill to take what belongs to another.

Lennon was a total loon (or just selling a lot of records to idiots who believe this crap). This all sounds great in theory, but then again, so did Socialism with all of this free-stuff; 100 million murders later, well..... perhaps it kind of sucks.