The hook that Loconte uses in his article is the image of the Shadow taking shape and growing in The Lord of the Rings. He says that in our day the shadow is, Sauron-like, the rise of Islamo-fascism. He rightly observes that all kinds of people, who should know better, appear to be unconcerned about this. We ought not to look at total fire-power available. I am willing to bet there was more explosive power in one American bomb than in all the suicide bombs put together. But Mark Steyn has shrewdly observed that suicide bombing is not a potent tactic . . . unless it deployed against a suicide culture.
But Tolkien was wiser than to buy into false dichotomies. Not only was Sauron gathering his forces, but the Shadow was also growing from within. Saruman was one who once stood against evil, and was corrupted in the process. Our oaths of office are frequently wiser than we are. The Constitution has enemies both foreign and domestic. Why is it that those who see the threat of radical Islam frequently cannot see the threat of a secularist American empire? Why is it that those who see the threat of a swollen American empire cannot see the threat of radical Islam? Is it allowable for us to think that the Patriot Act would have had Patrick Henry running to his gun cabinet . . . without praising Hamas as a humanitarian group similar to Rotary? Is it permissible to think that Ahmadinejad is a terrible man without thinking that presidents get to declare war whenever they feel like it?
Read the rest of The Fox News Jesus or the CNN Jesus?
