[quidnunc]

.cnI redruM wrote: I think they seee themselves as the declining Elven kingdoms and Middle Earth and they see the US as The Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.

They may see themselves as the Elven kingdoms, but in reality they're more like The Shire, full of rustics intent on living a comfortable life in isolation from the outside world.

[.cnI redruM]

Poor Samwise. He bristles in outrage.

[Robert A Cook PE]

And the shire, as I recall, was attacked and destroyed by outside criminals who didn't CARE whether the shire wanted to live in a socialist dream-world or not.

[Grig]

"They may see themselves as the Elven kingdoms, but in reality they're more like The Shire, full of rustics intent on living a comfortable life in isolation from the outside world."

This is why on one hand I will love seeing Return of the King, and on the other it will really depress me.

We are not rising up to confront the 'doom of our age', we are all fighting among ourselves and there are too few honourable leaders, too few informed and honorable soldiers, to stem the tide.

Europe certainly has sprouted the seeds of it's doom, but the USA has internal threats that could lay the nation low as well. The civility is all but gone from politics here and society is polarized in so many ways (Dem vs Repub, white vs non-white, rich vs poor, pro-life vs pro-death, hetro vs homo) that the nations is a powderkeg. Nov 2000 could have easily set it off, and a similar event in the future might really do it. If/when it happens, it will be devastating on both the local and the global scale.