“[Tolkien’s] Middle-Earth mythology, he hoped, would serve as a wake-up call for the West, to return it to its pre-statist, pre-imperialist, pre-materialist phase. ” – Tolkien vs. Jackson
Like Tolkien, who hated “statism in every form” we Christian Libertarians may be the ultimate reactionaries. It is why I shudder at George Bush’s call to move “forward”, and my first reaction is to ask, forward to what? How is his call to progress any better, or for that matter, any different, than that of the progressives who have brought us so much forcible servitude and slaughter over the last century?
“I look East, West, North, South, and I do not see Sauron. But I see that Saruman has many descendants. We Hobbits have against them no magic weapons. Yet, my gentle hobbits, I give you this toast: To the Hobbits. May they outlast the Sarumans and see spring again in the trees.” – JRR Tolkien, 1958.
In today’s column, I compared George Bush to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The comparison is an apt one. But if the One Ring can be reasonably compared to the State in all its power, there can be little doubt that the president is one of Tolkien’s Sarumans, and that the Republican Party, like those who attempt to wield the One Ring in an attempt to do good, have been corrupted by its power and will be destroyed because of their decision to embrace it.
To the Hobbits, who against all worldly logic, wait for the return of the King.