James, it’s a funny quote (surely we can track down who invented it this soon after its invention, can’t we?) — but it rings true, and for good reason. Tolkein was spinning a story about the fight between good and evil, a fight left to the average Hobbit in the street more often than the wizards. The ability of the Hobbit to form a coalition — and lasting bonds of friendship — with elves, dwarves, ents, and a few wizards, make that coalition stick together, and sacrifice for the greater good. It’s a story of life, and it is true whether applied to lives common Hobbits lead in the Shire, or when applied to galactic causes, especially those that involve the direct enslavement and oppression of others.

John Galt fights . . . um, not poverty, not slavery, not oppression, not ignorance . . .

Frodo Baggins’s fight is much closer to that of George Washington’s, or Abraham Lincoln’s, or Dwight Eisenhower’s. John Galt’s fight is closer to Ty Cobb’s, or Bobby Fischer’s.

Be careful the myths we subscribe to.

Want to read for liberty, to advance the cause of liberty? You’d be better off to pick a banned book at random, than to pick Ayn Rand’s.

(::scurrying off to check to see whether Atlas Shrugged has ever been banned in America; ironic if it hasn’t::)

*No..I’m not actually saying that book should be banned but to borrow a quote: There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.