By: Jim O’Neill
Gulag Bound

(Gandalf) “‘Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.’  ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.  ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.  And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black.  The enemy is fast becoming very strong.'”
– J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) “The Fellowship of the Ring”  Link

“There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
– from the LOTR film trilogy “The Fellowship of the Ring”  Link

John McCain, Maureen Dowd, “The Wall Street Journal” (WSJ), and others, have taken to referring to the Tea Party, and conservative members of Congress, as “hobbits” — the wee folk from the “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (LOTR).  As Brian Wesbury notes, “This is not a term of endearment.  What the WSJ editors [et al.] mean is that Tea Partiers live in a ‘fantasy world.’”  Link

Not only are conservatives being called hobbits, but terrorists as well.  Apparently the left-wing apparatchiks fear that terrorist hobbits will bring about the end of the Nanny State and entitlement culture.  We should all be so lucky.   Link

I believe that members of the Tea Party, and patriots of all persuasions should consider the hobbit appellation an honorable one.   After all, in the LOTR trilogy it was the hobbits who were dismissed as inconsequential by the evil overlord Sauron, yet who, against all odds, ultimately defeated Sauron and overturned his villainous plans for a Middle-earth NWO.  (“Frodo rules!  Screw Sauron!  He can kiss my little-bitty hobbit butt — friggin’ wanker!”)  Link

That last bit is entirely mine.  You will look in vain to find those quotes in any of the LOTR books — more’s the pity.  In any event, the hobbit label can, and should be worn with pride.  The author of LOTR, J.R.R. Tolkein, was a conservative in the best sense of the word, and his trilogy is essentially a paean to the indomitable nature of the individual human (hobbit) spirit.  For all of the heroic men and women, elves, and Ents; the most important heroes of the trilogy are the hobbits Sam and Frodo.  Everything hinges on their success or failure, on their bravery and tenacity.

One of the books that make the list in Benjamin Wiker’s “10 Books That Every Conservative Must Read,” is the LOTR (Wiker “cheats,” and counts the trilogy as one book).  Wiker notes that “Sauron… presents the very essence of totalitarianism: the desire to override all the real wills of real persons… and reform all that is below him into one master plan.  He imposes government from the top down, crushing everything in its path as of no consequence.”

Seen in this light, LOTR is a must read for conservatives, no doubt.  I wrote an article some time back, where I compared Sauron to George Soros, but Dr. Wiker, of course, has the right of it, and Sauron is representative of totalitarianism as a whole — the doctrine of crushing freedom and individuality under the boot-heel of cookie-cutter conformity and brutally enforced Draconian laws.  Link

In Tolkien’s novels the hobbits want nothing so much as to be left in peace to live out their unspectacular lives in their beloved Shire, but mighty events beyond their understanding — in fact scarce to be believed — force the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin to leave home to face great hardship and danger.  In the end, it is these hobbits, especially Sam and Frodo, who save the world from the doom of Sauron’s rule.

“We the people” are indeed similar to hobbits, in that we love our “Shire” — America — and will fight valiantly to defend it.  We are generally peaceable and friendly, but when called upon to do so, we can be stalwart, indefatigable, and implacable foes.

Laus Deo.

Gulag Note: Now, if we could only proclaim to Congress, “You shall not pass!” their legislation, it could be much better.  Where is that Gandalf when you need him? 

Thank you to Canada Free Press for the Jimo Neelins graphic, which was originally published with this article at their site.