Imagine There's No Socialists. I Wonder If You Can.

Welcome! Glad you’re here. Grab a coffee and a doughnut. It is Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. We’ve got things to talk about. But first, as always…

Today in History:

1984: A gas leak from a Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in the city of Bhopal, India, killed over 2,000 people and affected thousands of others. It is said to have been the world's worst industrial disaster.

1979: Ayatollah Khomeini takes office. Thanks, Jimmy.

1927: Laurel and Hardy release their first flick.

1910: Neon Lights were first demonstrated.

Birthdays today: Actress Amanda Seyfried, Author Joseph Conrad, and George B. McClellan, general and governor of New Jersey.

=-=-=

We are fast approaching the anniversary of John Lennon's assassination on Dec. 8, 1980, some 45 years ago.

I remember that night very well. I was on my way home from my night shift at the Brockport, N.Y., radio station. A rather nasty weather night it was, too, snowing and blowing to beat everything. I stopped into a Wegmans grocery store in the wee hours of the morning. The store had just started staying open 24-7.

I was busy sipping coffee a buddy on the night crew had gotten for me from somewhere and checking out the magazine rack, when the rock station on the house speakers suddenly went silent. After much wheezing and clicking, the station joined what was obviously a hastily arranged network feed from their sister station in New York City, which was breathlessly reporting the story.

I suppose I felt rather detached as I listened to the feed. But I do recall thinking, as I walked out into the fresh snow, that the Christmas decorations were rather incongruous with my mood.

I suspected I wasn’t alone.

I spent a lot of the remaining drive home making a mental list of any Beatles records I had on hand, or those by Lennon alone, for my radio show the next day, wondering if I’d ever feel quite the same way about the music again.

What sparked this column today is a half-written piece I found in my archives, which got me thinking about this event again. In the snippet, there was this 2019 quote from Intellectual Takeout, where Grayson Quay gave voice to something I have been thinking for 30 years. His article had me going over all this again in my mind.

What the former Beatle failed to realize is that a world with “nothing to kill or die for” is a world with nothing to live for. He would have us subordinate our individual creeds to an amorphous “brotherhood of man,” but that concept is not as simple as it seems. First we must ask things like, “Why is human life valuable?” and “What does human flourishing look like?” Surely these are theological questions that can only be answered by some sort of transcendent ideal—call it “heaven” if you want—that is, by definition, more valuable than any human life. A belief for which one is unwilling to either kill or die is a belief too weak to provide the vital energy necessary to sustain civilization. One commentator insightfully calls the song “the antithesis of a call to arms.” How long does Lennon imagine his utopia would last if none of its citizens were willing to take up arms and risk their lives to defend it?

I'm afraid that my thoughts on this are going to be a little unpopular now. Brace yourself. I am firmly convinced that anyone singing John Lennon's "Imagine" should be locked for life in a soundproofed cell and subjected to recordings of Yoko Ono 24-7 played at volume 11.

I consider that Lennon (who, in truth, was never the brightest bulb in the circuit) never took the time to think these matters through to their logical conclusion. Instead, like most leftists, he leaned heavily on emotion, not logic. Blame it on Yoko, blame it on the drugs, or a combination thereof; I don’t care.

Lennon stated at one point (I believe in an interview with Playboy Magazine’s David Sheff in 1980) that "Imagine" is virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though he was fairly quick to qualify the statement, saying he wasn't a Communist and didn't belong to any movement. Then why write the tune with those lyrics?

There is perhaps an undercurrent in all of this that deserves mentioning.

If there is no belief in the transcendent, as Lennon encouraged, nothing hard and fast in terms of the value of human life, then perhaps that’s why the starry-eyed left is so blasé about the taking of human life in the abortion mills of Planned Parenthood?

And why do so many who are ostensibly capitalists mindlessly praise this song and its lyrics? I suppose it is a testament to Lennon's talent as a songwriter that he was able to so completely fold the concept of socialism into an infectious song that, if they considered it, most would find abhorrent.

Ironically, it's likely that, if "Imagine" were released today, things would be quite different. I can't help but think that if not for Lennon getting shot, the single would have fallen into the "oldies that never get played" category.

As it is, consider the times: It was less than a decade after the Beatles broke up, a period where people were still in love with the band to the point that anything any of them recorded would have been met with unqualified love and support. We were also less than a decade past the end of the war in Vietnam. Anything that promoted an anti-war sentiment had a leg up to begin with, regardless of who recorded it.

I submit that without those two factors, the record would have gone nowhere in a hurry. Indeed, it would have ended up being shunned by the very people who adore it today.

I openly admit my dislike of the tune is pretty much totally based on its being essentially a musical promotion of communism, the ideology that has literally killed so many. Like so many millionaire socialists, Lennon didn't see the inherent conflicts involved with being a wealthy man with his own recording studio, in a mansion, singing, "Imagine no possessions." There's something emblematic about that disconnect.

Let's not forget the other huge disconnect in the number of the oh-so-very peaceful leftist assassins we've seen in the news recently. What, I wonder, would Lennon's reaction to Charlie Kirk's murder have been?

What are your thoughts? If you're a VIP member, you can comment below.

Take care of yourselves today. Let's plan on getting together here tomorrow.

Time to go VIP! Save 60% on your subscription fees by using the promo code FIGHT.