One Tin Soldier

I'm not much a pacifist, but I do believe wars are asinine, especially for totally wrong reasons and such. However, having said that, I do believe humans are inherently selfish and horrible (evolutionary, really). This means we can't really get away from fighting as long as people are people and everyone is different. I was listening to my iPod earlier, and I listened to a song that I haven't heard in a while. It was "One Tin Soldier" covered by Me First and Gimme Gimmes. Here are the lyrics:

Listen children to a story
that was written long ago
Bout a kingdom on a mountain
and the valley far below
On the mountain was a treasure,
buried deep beneath the stone
And the valley people swore
they'd have it for their own.

So go ahead and hate your neighbor,
go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven,
you can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing,
come the judgment day
But on the bloody morning after,
one tin soldier rides away.

So the people from the valley
sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure,
tons of gold for which they'd kill
Came an answer from the kingdom,
"with our brothers we will share
All the secrets of the mountain,
all the riches buried there."

Now the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses, draw your swords"
And they killed the mountain people,
so they won their just rewards
Now they stood beside the treasure,
on the mountain, dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it,
"Peace on earth" was all it said.

So go ahead and hate your neighbor,
go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven,
you can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing,
come the judgment day
But on the bloody morning after,
one tin soldier rides away.

I feel the split in ideologies that exist in the world today, conservatism vs. liberalism, match these lyrics exactly. I'm not going to say who is who, because it could really go either way for anybody that looks at it. It is seriously too bad that people are willing to go to any means getting what they want. Again, it all reeks of evolutionary undertones, the whole survival of the fittest thing, but for a world that is getting smaller and smaller, we don't seem to be getting over that.

It's unfortunate, but what are you going to do? The song is a good lesson in hypocrisy and sharing. We'll see if it gets any credence in the future.