Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Now wait a minute. Now wait a minute.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: It is once again time. We must make the long journey, leave our comfortable homes, travel far across the land so that we may cast our votes into the fire of Mount Doom, so that democracy can once again be safe for another thousand years. I am going, of course, talking about the fact that it's time for the most important election of our lives. And it's time to vote this election, which will be, I do truly believe, the most important election of our lifetime.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: This is the most important election of our lifetime.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: This is the most important election.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Don't you you hear that? This is the most important election in our lifetime.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: I certainly think it's the most important.
[00:00:54] Speaker D: Election of my life.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: Now, this is the most important election of our Politicians say every time.
[00:01:01] Speaker D: This is the most important election. This one's really that important. I can't believe this is the way.
[00:01:06] Speaker C: That we vote, but I do it every, every day I go to the.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: House, throw your vote into the lava, that it must be meaningless, right? But I assure you it's not.
[00:01:17] Speaker D: No matter how long the line is, wait in line, no matter how bad your options are, simply choose one. No matter how many, go ahead, be suppressed.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Don't let the evil villains get in your way. Go fight them and cast your vote into the mountain.
[00:01:39] Speaker D: No matter how many people tell you that you are, you know, enforcing the retrograde and the old fashioned, just ignore them and just keep reinforcing the way that things are right now. It's the best in human history. All you've got to do, all the hard choices have been made, so you've only got to do the easy choices and they even wrote those choices down for you. So look at the choices that have been written down for you. Think about them and choose one. It's the easiest thing that's ever happened in all of human history.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: If you're in the mud that the orcs get pulled out of, stay in the mud.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: I just want to say this podcast has ruined me because there is an election. The 2025 election is coming up for my county and there's actually something on the ballot I want to vote for. But every time I think about it, I'm just like the stupid thing we always do.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: You got to vote.
Joining us in the voting booth, we've got a wonderful guest. We've got Jacob from the socialist shelf. What's up, bud? Hey, hey.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: Happy to be here, you know, coming from the Shire, which is a safe blue district, but going to do, going to do my best to you Know, call around, call to Gondor. We've got to win over our Gondorian relatives. We've got to win over those swing voters in Minnesota, you know, all over the place.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: What would you coastal liberals in the Shire know about the problems of Gondor? All right, I just want to ask you that right off the bat.
[00:03:21] Speaker D: I appreciate that they're even talking to Gondor. Most of them, you know, they sit in the sh. They stick their nose up. They want to see who you voted for before they have any opinion. The idea that they're even talking to Gondor instead of sticking their nose in the air, it just turns out that the hobbits, even the Hobbits can get tired of losing. So it's positive for the entire, you know, civilization.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: I mean, I was informed that they're going to try and take our, like, universal second Breakfast Breakfast programs. And I am concerned about that a little bit. So we got to. We got to intervene. We got to do the work.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: We need to move to the center. We need to move to the center now. Give me my consulting fee.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Center of Middle Earth. We need to move to the center of Middle Earth and throw the ring into Mount Doom.
Lord of the Rings.
[00:04:16] Speaker A: What.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: What made you choose. What made you choose to want to talk about this today, Jacob? I mean, I know you're a books person. I've been on your show about books. It's quite lovely with you and Lenore.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So for me, Lord of the Rings, you know, despite all its very interesting sort of contradictions, was something that, as sort of a young person, really got me fired up about reading and even writing and thinking about, like, what worlds could be and kind of other ways of existing. I was very much raised in a very super evangelical home. So most of the fiction I was reading was, like, direct Christian allegory. And Lord of the Rings is direct Christian allegory, but it's also got cool shit in it.
And so I was like, it was a little bit of a step up for me, and I was able to think about other things and I was able to really appreciate some of the prose.
And so it was kind of an elevation over, like, the books I had read. So it really, for me, stuck with me very deeply. And even as I've gotten older, I've always greatly appreciated with it, even as I've come to understand some of the contradictions and problematic elements in the text and the films and Tolan's own life. And we did a Tolkien miniseries not too long ago on the social shelf where we get into the life of Tolkien, we get into the politics, we get into all of that, all the questions and stuff like that. So fresh on the mind. I figured, why not, why not cast our ballots in Middle Earth? You know, I, I, you know, Aragorn and Denor, they're both up. I don't know, there's, there's all kinds of questions of who's going to win the primaries for, for, for Rohan, etc.
[00:05:56] Speaker D: I think with the realm of Lord of the Rings, I think that whenever you think about this property, you think to yourself, is this reactionary? And you think about Lord of the Rings being sort of a godfather of the fantasy genre and that a lot of the storytelling styles and tropes that you saw in that series, of course you saw in pulp fiction and fantasy novels for like, like 40 to 50 years, is a highly influential series.
So it gives us a good opportunity to talk about origins and what does it all mean and what is it all about.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: How origins can be complex.
And we'll be getting more into that as we go, but in the short term here, let's just keep the focus on Lord of the Rings for a little longer. And I love that Lord of the Rings was the topic that you chose because it's definitely a story that I find interesting and it's one that I come back to. I've read this book a couple of times, which is high praise for me because I don't revisit the same pieces of media a lot.
And it's definitely very interesting. And I think it has some stuff to say in it that in some ways can be appealing on an almost universal level about morality, which is part of why it's been so popular for so long, but on other levels it's not universal at all. And it's quite English.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Oh yeah. I mean, not to mention that Tolkien is this very, you know, intellectual professor type guy who identifies as an anarcho monarchist. You know, just a very weird figure. This guy who's like, politics are shaped by fighting in World War I and then like wanting to believe there is some hope. So, like putting his faith in the Catholic Church, but like, maybe not even literally believing in the truth of the Catholic Church, just in the traditions of it, but also like really hating reactionaries in his own society and like calling Churchill a far right thug and hating Nazis and also was born in South Africa. There's a lot of going on with this guy.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: A lot of contradictions in this man, no doubt.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: And they don't get resolved in his life. I'll tell you that. He just kind of just dies with them.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: No. And a lot of them don't get resolved in his books either.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: No, not remotely. Not remotely.
But I. I think there's something to just the. The very. There is, like, a lot of beauty in the prose itself, the text itself. Obviously, people love the films, but, you know, you have this sort of obviously, like this English thing. You have this kind of through line of like, elves and whatnot being described in a very, you know, traditional Nordic, whatever fashion that feels very, you know, echoes of, like, white supremacy. You have, like, you know, evil races like the orcs and the trolls. That, as much as Tolkien insists, isn't a real life allegory. Certainly reactionaries have, like, glommed onto it. And you even have, like, literally 100.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Meant to represent race, which arguable. Yeah, it seems inarguable that they aren't tied to class.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: 100. 100. And not to mention, you have the west and the east as the rival forces in this thing. Like, and Tolkien says it's not a metaphor, but, like. Okay, well, you're writing that in the 40s and the 50s. Yeah, it is.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Right.
And in some ways, I think, you know, although not all of his takes were good, there were things that he said that were kind of. In some ways, like, they're even more relevant now than they ever were. Like his distrust of industrialization. Right.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah. There are strong ecological themes in Tolkien that come heavily from his hometown being basically destroyed by industry. A lot of that having to do with World War I after he gets back from it, and fighting in the S and seeing that environmental destruction now. I don't think he comes to great conclusions about it because, you know, he just ends up being like, well, we should all, like, live like farmers. But then, like, he doesn't live like a farmer. So, you know.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Questions about the actual efficacy of it.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd like to ask him a couple questions about that, too.
But, you know, I do think that there is something interesting to that, especially because I feel like ecologicalism is something that has been dropped in a lot of the imitations. You know, we talked about how this is, like, set the template for a lot of fantasy to come later. But it feels like the ecological ism is usually just sort of thrown by the wayside in a lot of more modern fantasy. And he did at least truly believe in it on some level.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: One thing I do relate to in Lord of the Rings, though, I wish it need not have happened in My time.
In my time, everybody.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that's some real shit right there.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Oh, don't we all feel that way?
And. Yeah, I don't know. It's. It's complicated.
And also a lot of the. The other thing about Tolkien that is good and bad is he left a lot of things just murky. He left a lot of details just sort of loose in such a way that you can read into it whatever you want. Like, what are the politics of the Shire?
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Anarcho feudalism. Like, it's unclear what's going on in the Shire. There's rich and poor people.
But we do know there's a point in the books that they cut out of the film where, like, the Shire gets conquered from the outside, but then restoring to the status quo is just kind of driving out the bad people. Who are the humans with the swords? There is no answer beyond, like, everybody was sort of minding their own business.
[00:11:53] Speaker D: It's a little interesting that. And, you know, I am saying this in a little bit of a passive aggressive, isn't it interesting that kind of way, but because, you know, what does this all mean for the story? It could just depend. But there are not, to my knowledge, any democracies in Middle Earth. There's a lot of. There are councils, there are communes, there are monarchies, there are. There's feudalist stuff.
There does not seem to be.
And maybe Tolkien just didn't find it interesting, but it just doesn't seem to be a thing that exists in his stories.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Having read the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and the Lost Tales, I don't think the word democracy appears at any point, nor any analog to it.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I hate to say this on this show of all shows, but I. I don't think they vote. I don't think there's any voting anywhere.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Not to my knowledge.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: Stay at home, don't vote.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:57] Speaker D: You know, in the Shire, there's a mayor and there are cops, but the cops are not. They're not, you know, they're just a community group. It does seem like certain.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Certain cousins just decide to be cops and they just start doing it and you just go, okay.
[00:13:17] Speaker D: The ints have a sort of direct democracy. The trees all gather together and talk endlessly and it takes forever for anything to happen. That's about as close to democracy as they get.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Antish horizontalism.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And the ants are actually lit. But Tolkien's goal was to present them as like, oh, look, they're too slow to make a decision with their democratic process.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: And he was also just making fun of his friend C.S. lewis, who was supposed to be Treebeard, which Lewis gets back at him by having Tolkien as a character that gets beaten to death and out of the Silent Planet.
[00:13:58] Speaker C: That's. That's equal. That's equal.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: It's like, you're a tree. It's like, oh, that's cool. You're a guy who gets beaten to death by my stand in character. And I'm not kidding.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: Yeah, the numbers check out. There's an equal sign there.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: These two were great friends. Great friends. Oh, yeah, Great friends. The best of friends.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: What do you.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: What about the economics of Middle Earth? Do they make sense? They don't seem to make sense.
[00:14:22] Speaker A: Everybody is either an adventurer or a. Like a small yeoman farmer or a king, basically, or Tom Bombadil. Yeah, he's kind of all of those.
So, yeah, you just kind of have this vision of like, I guess there's a lot of farmers that we're, like, not thinking about. But yeah, there's not a whole lot of economy going on. You. You know, there is gold. There is, like, Lake Town where they say there's merchants, but you don't really spend time with the merchants. I just don't think Tolkien found them very interesting.
[00:14:55] Speaker D: You've got to remember that more than anything else, Tolkien hated industrialization.
You know, Mordor. You know, the visuals of Mordor, you can just find in almost any American city that has a few smokestacks put together.
I think Tolkien didn't talk a lot about modern economy because he didn't like it. He just didn't. He just didn't like the vibe of the modern economy. And the. The aesthetics and world and setting of Middle Earth was created almost intentionally to get away from discussions of the economy, which is.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: We know that because he was like a fancy lad writing books, which is like, man, nobody's trading you a sheep for your book. I'm sorry.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: True, we know that the Dwarves dived. Dived too deep and too greedily, but we don't know what the alternative to continuing to mine downward was actually supposed to be.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And. And it's unclear what accomplishments exactly we're still counting on that were created during that time of diving greedily, indeed, to some extent. But it is clear that we are relying on some of the accomplishments of that time of industrial progress that the Dwarves spearheaded. Like, if nothing else.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: We're using those roads regularly and things of that nature in these stories were wearing their armor. Yeah.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Getting stabbed like Five times a movie I went. When I showed my. My grandmother the Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, she seemed to be under the impression the whole film took place over the course of a day. Because, like, Frodo gets stabbed for like the third time in the movie, and she's like, he's just having a bad afternoon. And I lost my mind laughing at that. Love her to death.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah. The Lord of the Rings as an episode of 24, all continuous shots.
Wait, somebody make that, you know. So the Lord of the Rings. It's this thing with murky politics, good and bad. In some ways there's hope, there's appeal, there's a desire to uplift the common person in some ways. And in some ways there's also a desire to maintain the status quo, oppress certain people, not listen to certain groups of people, things of that nature, all present within the Lord of the Rings. It's. It is a complex story of new beginnings and how things could be different. Much like the founding of the United States, which is why today we'll also be talking about the Founding Fathers.
Some guys who also had murky politics, did things that were questionable but seemed to be kind of on the side of the people at times. Definitely a lot of them had weird views on industrialization.
So, yeah, Founding Fathers. What do you know about them, Jacob?
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Well, my understanding is they made the Constitution, which is the only thing that's better than Lord of the Ring. No, I, you know, founders of the United States doing. Doing some kind of their. Their sort of blend of early capitalism slash feudalists. Police wrote this Constitution that I don't think they themselves expected us to be using this far in advance. Weird contradictions, right? Weird set of contradictions. Very much like, you know, slave owners, most of them, all this different stuff. But at the same time, you know, there was genuinely progressive elements and things like the Bill of Rights, which just shows how weird things that come out of revolutionary moments, whether they be, you know, people's revolutions or not, which the American Revolution wasn't, can be very, very strange and has led us now to having to litigate endlessly what these, like, fucking guys thought. As if that matters to me at all. You know, George Washington didn't know what a dinosaur was, just didn't know what a germ was. You know, but at the same time, you know, I think they would have killed it in Middle Earth, I think. I think George Washington would have been, like, great at the Battle of Pellenor Fields.
[00:19:13] Speaker C: One thing I will say, the concept of Our Founding Fathers is actually relatively newer than we think of. The first time we could see the phrase Founding Fathers being used by a key politician is, you guessed it, Warren G. Harding. Everybody would have guessed that one in his presidential inauguration. And it kind of got it floated around. But the one president who used it again in his inaugurations and where it really comes up again is blame it on Ronald Reagan. You can blame everything on Ronald Reagan. So our concept of the Founding Fathers as these great, amazing figures just blame it on Reagan.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: I was informed that they were pretty good at rapping, though. I've heard from. From recent. My God, how was that allowed? How was Hamilton allowed?
[00:20:06] Speaker B: Oh, how was Hamilton allowed?
[00:20:10] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm just not sure. They just started, you know, there. You know, you can't stop art. You know, you get a bunch of these guys in a room, and they start flowing.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: I just want to remind everybody that it used to be nobody. A big running joke in American societies. Nobody knew who was on the doll bill. They even had a joke on Gravity Falls about how nobody knew who that is. Like, there was a time nobody knew who the guy. $10 bill was.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: And now, like, there's entire, you know, sections of the Internet devoted to writing fan fiction about him. It's crazy how we move and just. It just gets worse.
[00:20:48] Speaker D: If you didn't know who Alexander Hamilton was, you probably didn't get good grades in high school, which is completely valid if you needed Lin Manuel Miranda to sing you a song to know about all this.
[00:21:02] Speaker C: I have never watched Hamilton in my life.
[00:21:05] Speaker D: Neither have I. And I'm just waiting.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: And I know she's going to try to get me to watch it soon.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: Well, you know, I'm just waiting for, like. It's not the sort of thing that I'd watch for free. If there's some sort of, like. If a patron, you know, in the Patreon world donates or if there's some some sort of entertaining product that's going to come out of it.
But Lin Manuel Miranda rapping just doesn't do it for me, that I'm gonna really seek it out.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: You know, I have to say, I was given a free ticket to Hamilton. Whole story here in Atlanta when it was here. So I went, you know, all my knowledge of the politics aside, I was like, okay, I'm gonna go see. This is like a $200 ticket.
It was the day after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and there is a line in there that says, how does a ragtag volunteer army in need of a shower somehow defeated Defeat the global superpower. And I'm not kidding. It's supposed to be a laugh line. And the room was dead silent. One of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Wow. Dude.
[00:22:10] Speaker D: What, Jacob, what location were you at for this? Was that. Was this at the Fox?
[00:22:16] Speaker A: This was at the Fox, Yeah.
[00:22:17] Speaker D: Yeah. All right. I'm giving a little bit of an extra visual Easter egg to Atlanta listeners.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I had to buy a $12 beer if I wanted anything to drink. Absurd.
[00:22:29] Speaker D: Yeah, that sounds. Right, Hamilton.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: That sounds believable.
Yeah. So the Founding Fathers. There's a whole bunch of these guys that signed the thing. Like, there's a few we usually talk about, but there's, like, a shit ton more of them. And I'm not saying this podcast is going to educate you on a bunch. We're not.
[00:22:46] Speaker D: No.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: There's so many more guys than you realize.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Like, we're talking about one document, but there's actually three documents total over the years, and if you signed any of them, your Founding father, Declaration of Independence, Founding Father, Articles of Confederation, Founding Father, the Constitution of the United States, AKA toilet paper. Nowadays, I guess. Founding Father.
[00:23:11] Speaker D: Lots of guys are starting revolutions these days.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah. The fact that, like, Francis Lewis or, like, you know, James McHenry has to matter to me is. Is absurd.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Like, what can y'all tell me about Richard Henry Lee?
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, you know I know my shit.
[00:23:28] Speaker C: About Richard Henry, Right. This is a guess. He had slaves.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: You get.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: You're just guessing. I know. You're just guessing.
[00:23:37] Speaker C: I know. And the fact that you're responding that way says I'm right.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Yeah. The problem is.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:45] Speaker D: I'm listening to the tone in your voice. As you say you're just guessing.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: I literally admitted I was guessing. Yes.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: The three names is pretty damning. I think, in that period, you've got money. If you're Richard Henry Lee, there's something going on there. They all had money. What am I saying?
[00:24:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, he was from a family that was already politically influential before, like, way before the revolution. So what does that mean?
So we're gonna mash up these complicated figures, people with challenging moralities, and see how they.
[00:24:23] Speaker D: These storybook characters. Yes.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so with that in mind, my first question for all of you. Which of the Fellowship would have owned slaves?
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Oh, jeez.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: I mean, I. There's like, almost an objective answer for this one.
I mean, Sam calls Froto Master. Through the books.
He. Sam was basically an indentured servant to Frodo. He Lived on it near his property. His father.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Hold on, hold on, hold on. This may have been a kink thing.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Oh, it is a kink thing. 100%.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: But that, that means it's okay. Yeah, it's a.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: But, but, but, but. Sam's father worked for Bilbo. You know, there is an ongoing thing. You know, it's not weird that Sam's.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Father works for Bilbo and then Sam works. I agree with that, actually. That is weird.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: I think that, you know, the closest thing we see to slavery in Middle Earth done by the good guys is whatever's going on there with the Shires. Non exploitative system. Non exploitative in kind of quotes.
Boromir is pretty sus as well, I'm gonna say on that front. I'm just. He doesn't give me the vibe of anyone who's ever done his own, like laundry or something.
[00:25:41] Speaker D: You know, Boromir and Legolas are both in the same category of are we sure these guys will do their own laundry? And I think you said that really well.
Other people who are kind of dark horses that you wouldn't think of being pro slavery. But when you think Mary and Pippin.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: Pippin. Just asking questions.
[00:26:04] Speaker B: They do seem like the vibe of people that want food to just show up on the table and not like there's not a discussion about where it came from.
[00:26:13] Speaker D: They're not doing their own laundry, that's for sure.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Also, I'm gonna throw. I'm gonna throw a hot one at y'all, which is. I think you're gonna say, wow. A lot of them. Well, you know, it's a lot like the Founding Fathers. A lot of the Founding fathers. High percentage of them. So it's going to be that same with the Fellowship, I think, unfortunately. I think Aragorn would wring his hands about it and own less slaves than Legolas or Boromir.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: But would still have slaves.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Aragorn. Or is the George Washington of the situation where he's like, this is really bad. I feel so bad about this. But he like kind of does it. Yeah, I think. I think you're onto something there.
[00:26:53] Speaker C: Oh yeah. There's an entire Wikipedia page, a nice sized one about George Washington's feelings towards slaves. And it's basically, basically, wow. As he got older. Wow. He felt so bad. But he couldn't. He just had to keep them. So sad.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:08] Speaker D: I think in terms of his. Well, in terms of his role in the story and we kind of talked about this, that a lot of fantasy tropes are based on, you know, when the king is right and just the people prosper. So if we wanted to let Aragorn out of the slavery discussion based on the fact that Tolkien considers him to be a rightful king and the author himself likely would not, have, would not have supported slavery. And Aragorn is his fanfic character, you know, and also he, he was a ranger, so he definitely had to do his own laundry in Ranger world. But also if you say that someone is an ideal medieval king.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: You know.
[00:28:03] Speaker D: If you say, if you say medieval ruler, philosopher, king, there might be a slave in that mix who can say.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: Or maybe there's for sure. Maybe there's just a very loyal, a very loyal servant that is just on that borderline edge of like, are you really paying this guy enough? Is this guy works like 247 for you? Like, what's the deal?
[00:28:29] Speaker D: You know, Darby's my friend. He loves to clean my socks.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: What do you mean, go away on the.
Someone that I'm going to say is exonerated. In my opinion, though, I'm going to say. I don't think, I don't think Gandalf is interested in that kind of thing. I don't even think that he's going to intervene to stop it. But I just think that he's focused on his vision. He likes being by himself. He doesn't want to have anything but his staff and his pipe. I think again, Gandalf is, is, is pure just by the fact that he has no real material possessions. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:06] Speaker D: You could also put Sam in that category of no material possessions. Doesn't really want anything. Slavery would not appeal to Samwise at all, of course.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Much more likely to be the. He is sort of an indentured servant as it is.
[00:29:21] Speaker D: He is sort of an indentured servant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Also give me a true working class hero.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Gimli does come from like labor, aristocracy family. Like, glowing's not one of the leaders. He's. He's the professional managerial class dwarf. And so he's gotten his hands dirty and now he's kind of getting a management position, but he still counts as the working class.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: I always felt like the vibe of Gimli's family was like, they're like union boss family.
[00:29:50] Speaker D: Yeah, Gimli, Gimli's definitely, Gimli's definitely a capitalist, but he's, he's a craftsman. He, he works for a living. I don't, I don't see him. I don't think slavery would be at the Top of his mind. I'll put it like that.
[00:30:06] Speaker A: The. The. The dwarf unions, they kind of have some shady tactics, but, like, they do get the goods for their workers. And at the end of the day.
[00:30:14] Speaker C: With results, nobody tosses a dwarf union.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: And actually, I'm gonna give Frodo the benefit of the doubt also and put him on the. On the fence in terms of Bilbo clearly a slaver, but I think if anyone was gonna break that cycle in the Baggins family, it might be Frodo.
[00:30:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, the whole thing was they can only trust him because he just wanted a simple life.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: I mean, a simple life not having a job. But, like. Yeah, yeah.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: He does seem to reject a lot of societal, though. So I don't know, I want to put it. I want to at least give him the benefit of that. There's at least a little. There's a little shadow of doubt that you can cast on to him. But. But Marion Pippen.
No chance. Boromir and Legolas also completely no chance.
All right.
[00:31:08] Speaker D: Like, Legolas, I would say, very sus. Legolas has got a. Legolas has got to prove to me that he's not into slavery.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: He be looking to put together all.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: The time, right into the camera at all times, just. Just ready to. Ready to spout those opinions, and you don't want to hear them.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: Do you think something like the Stamp act would be enough to motivate the Fellowship? When we talk about the things that motivated the American Revolution, they're actually kind of not as big as you might think in your mind. In some ways. Like, when people imagine the Boston Massacre that are poorly educated on history, they tend to imagine something much bigger than it was. Three people died, and that was still considered to be a big deal at that time. It was still like, what the fuck, man? They killed three people at a protest.
[00:32:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Would call that a Boston pretty darn bad. Not a Boston Massacre.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: Yeah, we've got a Boston Massacre. Like, what, like, every 16 hours in the United States now. Like, you know, like, I'm sorry to make light of it. I'm really not trying to, in some ways, because it's a very dark subject, but I'm just saying, like, what. What? You know, like, we're just saying.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Were you saying the colonial. The colonies, they need to get tougher? They need to toughen up.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Oh, no, I'm just saying, like, it's interesting how, like, you know, those people got fired up over that. Like, you know, because people will sometimes. Oh, what would the Founding Fathers say if they saw these BLM protests and it's like they would just side with the protesters like, like as much as these guys sucked and had like questionable beliefs, if they saw protests that big, they would just march with them because they just understood populism.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Benjamin Franklin never saw a riot he didn't like. That is, that is true.
[00:33:02] Speaker C: Like when George Washington was president in the Whiskey Riots, the first real riots to overthrow this, the second attempt at America happened, he pardoned the people in charge of the riots because he fucking understood it was popular and he didn't want to make the martyrs. So it was like, yeah, go home free. You tried to take over, whatever. It's no big deal.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: The, the Stamp act, though, in Middle Earth is an interesting question.
Which entity is enforcing the Stamp Act? Is this Gondor? Is this like a victorious Mordor? Is this Rivendell? What are we thinking in this situation?
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Definitely Rivendell.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:33:40] Speaker D: I was assuming that the shire was being taxed by Gondor.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: And in that.
[00:33:45] Speaker D: But in that situation, of course, you know, your, your, your, your, your hobbits would be up in arms a little bit.
You know, Mary and Pippin would be pissed off. You know, they'd be, they'd probably do some sort of semi illegal action. I don't really see them going right to the front, but you know, they just become smugglers. They'd find just some sort of quasi legal way to cheat on this, the whole situation.
And maybe Boromir would also join a tax rebellion. This kind of seems like his vibe.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: But not the original. Not the Boston Tea Party. Boromir is in the 2010 Tea Party 100.
[00:34:30] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:34:34] Speaker D: He's right on the edge of both. Which Tea Party he joins. The who can sell.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: No. Yeah. The founding fathers loved property damage. There's no doubt about that. That is in the tradition, that is in the grand American tradition of destroying the stuff of rich people. America, we would love to do that.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: And I could see, I could, I will say that I could definitely see most or maybe even all of the fellowship getting into the Boston Tea Party. You know, getting into throwing some tea into the harbor and saying, you, no.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Mary and Pippin are doing that. And then like later they didn't realize that that was like for a political purpose like they were having.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: They thought it was for the other side of that political cause.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah, they don't care. And then they're not worried about it. They got to throw tea in the harbor. That was what they're there for.
[00:35:21] Speaker C: I did, I Didn't invade the capital January 6th. The doors were open. I just kind of wandered in, wanted to see what was happening.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: I feel like Gimley would definitely be a staunch protester.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Yeah, Gimley's like the guy who shows up and he's like, got his. He's got a medical kit. He's got, like. He's. He's trained, he's ready. He's got. He's got what? What? An affinity group of.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: Don't you dare say to Gimley that you have to be sober at a protest.
[00:35:47] Speaker D: I think Gim. Gimley. I don't see Gimley at a picket line. You know, he'll. No way Gimli's gonna do stuff. You said union boss. The union bosses ain't at the picket lines that often.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: No, I feel like he'd be one of the ones that would show up, pal around, give a speech, stay for half the time, and then get out of there.
[00:36:13] Speaker A: He's wearing a hard hat. Yeah. It looks weird.
[00:36:16] Speaker D: Yeah. Dimly will be there, Gimli, if in that kind of situation, he might show up just long enough to take a picture and then leave. And his.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: He.
[00:36:26] Speaker D: He'll be more behind the scenes, I think.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Enough that he would. He would be the type that. He'd march for an hour or two and then. But then he'd take off. I think Legos condemns violence once the temperature drops. What do you say about Legolas, though?
[00:36:39] Speaker A: I think he condemns violence on both sides. I think he's.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: He's.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: He's looking around and, you know, he. He's willing, of course, to shoot the arrows, but he's like, you know, we have to come to the table and have a conversation.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: Conversation also, I'm telling y'all, I think the Stamp act comes from the elves. I think it comes from Rivendell in my mind, because I. I feel like this is something where it's like the elves, you know, call up all the kingdoms of Men and all the Hobbits and everybody, and they're like, all right, listen, dude, we came up with this complex structure of taxation of goods that should be enforced. And everyone's like, dude, what the Are you talking about? Like, Like, Jesse, what the. I feel like only the elves. Only the elves could even hit everyone with that much math.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: You know, there is, you know, if you read like the Silmarillion or some of his stuff about the older times when the elves were at full power, they were pulling like that. Like when they had gondolin, they Had a city with seven gates and every gate was a different type of metal. And it was increasingly precious metals. You know, they had to tax somebody to get that.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: Why would they do that?
[00:37:45] Speaker D: Well, you know, if the Elves are the ones doing this tax then I can see Gimli being more pissed off.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There's something else motivating.
[00:37:55] Speaker D: He's not paying that.
[00:37:57] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: If it's the Elf tax now. Yeah. Before we were having a debate about it. But if it's the Elf tax, Gimli's got a tent.
[00:38:04] Speaker D: He is.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: He is out there overnight.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Middle Earth. Blair Mountain. Yeah, Mountain. But they're like. With axes this time. You know, the Elves are trying to be the. Trying to be the company in this case. Whole situation. Imagine all these like black, like black and white pictures of like the Dwarves posted up with pickaxes and stuff. Be sick. Somebody needs to get on that.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: What if. What if our constitution had been written by the Fellowship?
[00:38:32] Speaker A: Oh, God.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: What would that be like? How different would that be? Or would it be. Or would it kind of be the same?
[00:38:37] Speaker A: No voting. There's not going to be voting. I'm gonna tell you, there's no voting.
[00:38:42] Speaker C: Stay at home, don't vote.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: There's no voting. But gay marriage is legal from the beginning.
It's actually mandatory.
That was that. That was that Frodo provision he slipped in there at the last minute. Now it's. It's gonna. It's gonna talk about equality between all the. All the. It feels weird to call them races, species really.
But it's also going to be like their equality under the king who has absolute power. But the king's got to be good. If the king's not good, the, like, weather will be bad or something. Basically.
[00:39:17] Speaker D: Yeah. You're definitely, you. You're definitely going to have a constitution with a monarchy. There will definitely not be a president for sure. And they will have some council that. That can. That can advise the king or whatever.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: It's going to look a lot like.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: The council can straight up kill the king if they want.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: It's going to look a lot like the Duma in Under the Tsar. I think it's going to be like an advisory body to an absolute monarch.
[00:39:46] Speaker D: Yeah, that sounds. That sounds like it exactly. No voting.
Gay marriage is allowed. There's. There's kind of some. Some liberal trade policies and it would just be its own. It would just be its own country. Very different from the United States. The politics, the. I mean, it's just. It's so different that It'd be just totally different.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: And if you do anything that creates more smoke than a campfire, you're executed like there are no smokestacks. They're already writing that in even before anyone's thought of combustion of any kind. Like we are having no factories, nothing more complicated than like a mill.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that sounds believable. Okay, so we, we touched on this very, a tiny bit. And just in terms of it getting mentioned, but how does everyone feel about the fellowship faring in 1776 warfare?
[00:40:39] Speaker D: Tolkien believes they'd fucking wreck job.
Tolkien believes those guys are way op.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: I'm just asking, do we all, do we think that they all just are badasses on any battlefield in any period, or do you think that there's some differences in skill level? Now, obviously, Gandalf just kicks ass, no questions asked.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Gonna say Post, like post 1800, the fellowship starts to slow down in capacity, but when you still have single shot rifles, the speed of Legolas's bow is, is much more impressive. It's actually the case that George Washington and Nathaniel Green investigated the viability of longbows because it took them so long to reload. Right. They ended up deciding it was a bad idea for a number of reasons. But the fact that was even discussed, Legless's Yubo is dominating the battlefield. I think 100% though, it's going to be a disappointment to not have Boromir's death in such a cool way. Musket balls, a little less cool than arrows, but you know, it's still going to be dramatic and interesting.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Maybe he could get like blown up by a ship cannon.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: Oh, dang.
[00:41:45] Speaker D: Wow. Cool.
I'm glad you were able to make that death cool again asap. Kennedy, way to go.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: That's impossible. Yeah, of course.
[00:41:55] Speaker D: And in terms of, of, of, of these people, you know, Tolkien thinks highly of their combat prowess. So just based on the, the, the, the, the nerd category of power leveling or power scaling, that's the phrase I wanted to use. Based on power scaling.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Pippin.
[00:42:19] Speaker D: Oh, I don't know what they do, but the main, the main, the main people on the team should be able to shred ass in the Revolutionary War. They should just be handling business.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: It's like, also worth. I mean, I watched a documentary recently, Mel Gibson's the Patriot, and in that with a tomahawk, he's very easily able to defeat his enemies. So if you can do, if Mel Gibson can do that with a tomahawk, then like, you know, Aragorn is going to be just Fine.
[00:42:47] Speaker D: They should be doing Dynasty Warrior. They should be air juggling Red coats.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we're on the same wavelength here. 100.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: You know, fair enough. I can't debate. I can't argue with this. Okay. Who from the Fellowship would be made president after the revolution where. These are our founding fathers.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: I mean, it's Aragorn, right? That's.
[00:43:11] Speaker D: Yeah, he's president guy. That's his role in the.
[00:43:16] Speaker B: What if you can't pick Aragorn?
[00:43:18] Speaker D: Yeah, let's. Let's remove Aragorn for the sake of having a conversation.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: It should be Boromir. The musket ball didn't kill him, so he's in play if you want. I don't know, you probably won't. Wouldn't want him. Although, I mean, I do think actually he would appeal to the American center.
[00:43:35] Speaker D: I think would be popular with Americans. Yeah, one of those two. They seem to both be the kind of guys that America would go for.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Sam is in the race in the primaries in a sort of Mike Gravel type thing, but he loses pretty early.
So it is Boromir versus Gandalf, I think, in the. In the general election. And that debate is. Is wild. I mean, they're up in each other's faces and off is reciting like, you know, ancient spells at this man. It's. It's a whole time and a half. Bormir is just flexing at one point.
[00:44:09] Speaker D: Yeah.
Is America ready for a hobbit president at what year in American democracy?
[00:44:16] Speaker A: John Adams. It was our second one.
[00:44:18] Speaker B: I was going to say. I think America at 7076 is totally ready for a Hobbit. And I think the dark horse here that could actually sweep it is Pippin.
[00:44:28] Speaker D: I see the vision.
[00:44:30] Speaker B: He's just going to get up there and start talking economy and lunchtime.
[00:44:34] Speaker C: Oh, God. I'm voting. I'm okay.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: That's a pretty. That's pretty persuasive. Gandalf having a really cool stick.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Marion doesn't have the head for politics, but Pippin could probably just barely take it seriously in like a Pete Buttigieg edge or kind of OSS off kind of way, you know?
Yeah.
[00:44:55] Speaker D: They give him like four sentences to say, and he memorizes them and he knows what context to use them in and he goes from there.
[00:45:04] Speaker A: I. I have to tell you, because he was. He was mentioned Kennedy. I was at a rally, a political rally in Atlanta because I was involved in a disruption of Joe Biden during the invasion of Rafa and Pete or. Yeah, Ossoff spoke And he literally said the words, vote your OSS off. And I, like, almost passed out on the spot, like, just. Just couldn't. Couldn't handle myself. It was. It was the. One of the worst. One of the worst moments of my life.
[00:45:32] Speaker B: What an, I don't know, revolution in America. Would love a little guy that just talked about lunch.
[00:45:39] Speaker C: Little guy.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: There's something to lunchtime. A second breakfast on every table.
[00:45:45] Speaker C: I'm totally voting for Pippin. Sorry.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Well, this has been a pretty. A pretty lively discussion so far, but now I want to get into some stuff that I think will perhaps stump us even a bit further.
What if we were to reverse the positions here? Now it's the Founding Fathers who must stand up to the world of the Lord of the Rings.
Which. Which of the Founding Fathers? Now, again, we know that species, or whatever you want to call it in the Lord of the Rings, in a lot of ways, represents class, philosophy, and to some extent, race.
Which of the Founding Fathers, if you put them into the world of the Lord of the Rings and they get translated into something there. Are all of them humans or do some of them get turned into elves or orcs or dwarves or hobbits or wizards, in your opinion?
[00:46:43] Speaker C: Okay, Ben Franklin's a wizard.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: That's true. I think.
[00:46:46] Speaker B: I think. I agree with that.
[00:46:48] Speaker D: My. My feeling is that Ben Franklin is a wizard. However, no other changes.
[00:46:53] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fair.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: I've got another change, actually.
I'm actually 100. Sure. And this might have also been true in real life, but I can't prove that Thomas Jefferson would be an orc.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: You make a good point there.
John Adams has hobbit vibes. He does in a lot of ways.
[00:47:14] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:47:15] Speaker B: John Adams is a hobbit, y'all. Come on.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: Samuel Adams, too. All he wanted to do was run his, like, bar and then, like, plot and drink. I think that has Dwarvish and hobbit ish vibes, but most of them are just gonna be pretty, like, boss, look.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: At pictures of these two. They're hobbits. The Adams is straight from the Shire.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Yep.
But, yeah, no, like, some of them are Rohan humans, some of them are Gondor humans. But there's a lot of. There's still a lot walking around.
But I. I agree with you, Thomas. Thomas has definitely some Orcish stuff going on or. Or maybe even. Maybe even a Ring Wraith, actually.
[00:48:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Actually, maybe. Maybe that's on the money.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: He's like the mouth of Sauron that, like, comes out.
[00:48:09] Speaker C: It's worth noting to your Mental image that Thomas Jefferson fa had a very, very, very nasty lesson. He was considered to be a great writer, but a terrible speech maker. Just. Just imagine that. A nasty lisp.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Ring Wraith. We're going Ring wraith.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Alexander Hamilton would fit right in in the Lin Manuel Miranda version, though because in the books people love to just like, break out into little ditties. He would do great.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that's probably fair. This is a bit of an odd take, maybe, but I think John Hancock would be a dwarf if you gave him the chance.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: I think I could see that.
[00:48:48] Speaker C: I could see that, like the whole I wrote my name so big thing is so angry and spiteful. I could see that being a Lord of the Rings dwarf thing, it was.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: You know, or Amir would do the same thing. But, you know, there's definitely, there's definitely gimli and glowing and, and, and. And those, those fellas, they, they. They would behave in such a manner. The, the, the group that went to the mountain. Mountain of Erebor and fought Smaug. Pretty much anybody in that crew is behaving that way, except maybe Ballin.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: Fair enough.
All right. You've gotta pick three Founding Fathers to hold it down at Helm's Deep. They're leading the battle of Helm's Deep in place of some of our original heroes.
Which three Founding Fathers are you betting on for this?
[00:49:41] Speaker A: I gotta think about this one. I mean, the obvious one is. Is Washington. Washington's got to be there.
He's not actually a very good battlefield general, but he is a very. He's very good at retreating tactical retreats, historically speaking. And I don't even, like, mean that as, like, an insult. That's actually very useful when you're in a smaller army fighting a bigger army. That's why they were able to win. They held out to the French God there, which is literally what happened at Helms Deep. Right? They just had to hold out until reinforcements got there. Which is basically the story of the American Revolution. They just had to hold out until the French rolled up.
So Washington's the easy one.
The other two, it's. It's a little tougher because, like, people like Benjamin Franklin and like Thomas Adams, like, they, they weren't very useful in battle, like, not even remotely.
[00:50:31] Speaker B: You'll.
[00:50:31] Speaker D: You'll definitely want Hamilton to be your second pick.
[00:50:36] Speaker C: Alexander Hamilton, he's up against orcs.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: Can you do, like, a devastating rhyme about orcs?
[00:50:44] Speaker C: He would destroy their morale, the rhyme.
[00:50:46] Speaker A: Orcs and dorks and sword and Gondor and. And it's over.
[00:50:51] Speaker C: Oh, no.
[00:50:54] Speaker A: I've got it. I've got an outside one for my third, though.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Daniel of St. Thomas Jennifer is my, My outside pick. If you look up a picture of him, he's one of the wildest looking guys ever.
And I'll tell you why. It's because he was able to hold on to Maryland as. As governor there at a time where it was very difficult to hold on to Maryland politically. So I think he could really, like, hold down this sort of. Sort of morale among the people. He also just like, looks like a guy from Rohan from the movies. Like, just like one of the weird guys. Daniel of St. Thomas, Jennifer, this is a real guy. Look him up. He looks like one of the. He looks like an extra in a Lord of the Rings movie. That's my, like, honestly, my main reason.
[00:51:36] Speaker D: And in a Helm's Deep situation, I think I'd rather have almost any person that was just a general during that time period more than any of the people that, like, signed the document or whatever, like, you can think of. Like, I, I don't have a lot of generals off the top of my head, but, like, Daniel Morgan was a general in the Revolutionary War. Just find someone that's got some stripes and made it through the war and get them in there more than you need Thomas Jefferson to, like, I'm gonna write letters.
[00:52:14] Speaker C: I'm gonna write a sternly warded letter.
[00:52:17] Speaker A: I would.
[00:52:17] Speaker B: I've got a Thomas Johnson.
[00:52:19] Speaker A: I just shove him off the wall. I'm sorry I interrupted you there, Kennedy.
[00:52:22] Speaker B: No, you're good. You're good. Here's my. Here's my outside picks here. First of all, Aaron Burr. All right. Known to kill a man.
[00:52:32] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Also, but even, even more compelling than this. Now here's a guy that we should have thought of sooner, but he is kind of an outside founding father. He sort of counts. But he didn't sign some of the most important documents, but he did make some important decisions that still affect this country. James Monroe, the Monroe Doctrine man himself. Sure, he was an accomplished military. Military person, if you think about implemented one of the fiercest, nastiest diplomatic strategies in all of world history. So he probably would have come up with some kind of way to do something horrible, some kind of outrageous war crime atrocity at Helm's Deep that would have bought them a crazy amount of time, but would have made them all feel weird for the rest of their lives.
[00:53:28] Speaker A: The what? If you think about what Gondor was up to in the early fourth age, we Find that it kind of ruled over all the lands and let the other lands have their regional governments. But we all know who was in charge. That's very Monroe esque. There was, you know, directly colonizing your, the land around you, seizing Mordor from your enemies and then letting the shire being run by puppet governments. There's, there's a lot of overlap there. You're onto something.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: I really think we shouldn't sleep on Aaron Burr though.
[00:54:00] Speaker D: I think Aaron Burr is a good addition. Like he did, he did fight. Yeah, just so many of the, the guys that come to my mind were governors or they were authors or they were, they were solely political figures. But Burr was, I mean he got, he did something, he got some commendation for courage during the war.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: He was known to be resolute and like spirited even at hard times during the war.
[00:54:31] Speaker D: And Burr was anti slavery the whole time. Way to go.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, you could, you could take Burr as your, your guy. I, I, look, I just take a grab bag of generals from that time period as my third guy. But Aaron Burr is also a good choice.
[00:54:50] Speaker A: Nathaniel Green doesn't actually, isn't actually one of the guys who signed the documents, but he was one of the original leaders and he's a pretty strong choice too. He had the Green Mountain Boys and they were, they were pretty impressive.
[00:55:02] Speaker D: Yeah, that's the class of people I'm thinking about. Like just, just bring me another guy that fought during that time period and I'll trust him.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Marquis de Lafayette just yelling at, in French at the Oruks.
[00:55:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Burr, I didn't know. I'm, I'm looking this up right now to be clear, but this, I had put this in my list of facts but not actually read it yet, but Aaron Burr, on July 5th of 1779, he had already resigned from the army at this point because he had been in the army for years and it was taking a toll on him or at least had.
I think he had resigned by this point. But he, he rallied a group of college students and just like random people to help fight the British. When they showed up near town where he was, he like, even after he had retired from the army, he was like, oh man, the British are nearby. Fuck that, let's get some guns. Like that's, that's pretty hardcore. That's somebody I think that was throw down in Middle Earth and do. Okay, all right, we've got one question left and it's, it's a stumper.
[00:56:17] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: We know that most of the founding fathers, if Given the one ring would keep that shit booms amongst the founding fathers we truly believe would cast it into the flames.
[00:56:32] Speaker D: I think obviously Benjamin Franklin with no hesitation.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, he's the easy choice. That's like saying, would Gandalf throw the ring into the flames? Right.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: I think that's a, I think that's kind of a trick question there though, because Gandalf can't carry the ring. He's too powerful and it tempts him too much. I actually, I think Benjamin Franklin, despite having some good opinions he had, he was, he was very egotistical in a type of way that the ring might have spoken to him. You know, I'm gonna say I can.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: Prove to you with facts that Benjamin Franklin would not put the ring on ever.
[00:57:08] Speaker D: The ring would definitely tempt him because I mean, you know, the ring could say, hey, you put this thing on, I'll show you wi fi. You know, just the idea of knowledge and the future and all that other stuff. I, I can see the, you know, because it's sentient and it's going to try to argue with you in the way that you yourself would find persuasive. But I ultimately think Ben Franklin doesn't.
[00:57:35] Speaker A: Go for it if he's got a permanent debate partner in the ring. He loves that. I don't know.
[00:57:41] Speaker B: I think. Here's the thing, okay. If the ring could help you get laid, I think that you'd have to cut it off his hand. But canonically the ring turns you into an incel, you know, only if you're weak.
[00:57:59] Speaker A: Only if you're weak like Gollum though. Only.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Only if you're weak. Nobody ever puts the weak the ring on and becomes more at any time in the text.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: Look, you, you, you, you don't know how I feel about Gollum. You don't know how I feel about Gollum on.
[00:58:13] Speaker B: But it's also like when, when Frodo puts the ring on, he starts saying like, you know, 80 of women are attracted to just 20 of men. And I, I think I, you know, and you're just like, whoa, where did this come from, man? You don't normally talk like this.
[00:58:30] Speaker A: He starts talking about numenorean jawlines and. Yeah, no, I mean, George Washington did turn down a kingship, you know, he did turn down the offer to basically make him George the first of America. So there's something there. But he's also like anybody that does that close to military power, you also have to be skeptical of. In its own way, I'll say The one I want to have it the least is Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson cannot be allowed to touch that.
[00:58:59] Speaker B: He can't be. He can't be allowed within 100ft of it.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Yeah, no, no chance. You're not letting Arthur Middleton touch that shit. That would be terrible. If you look up a picture of Arthur Middleton, he looks like a guy who like, is just like a minor evil character and like a Tolkien story. You can't let God, John Hancock. No way. He, he, he's going to use it to like sign his name even bigger. It's going to be a huge problem. Yeah.
Franklin and Washington, you're going to be your go tos on this one.
[00:59:29] Speaker B: I think, I think there's one more.
Oh God. Wait, go ahead. Sorry, Brandon, you go first.
[00:59:34] Speaker D: No, go ahead. I was going to. Is there anybody else you think would make it? I was thinking maybe Sam Adams.
I don't know, you tell me. Who do you have as your one last name?
[00:59:47] Speaker B: I mean, Sam Adams is kind of.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: Hobbity, as we agreed, and his name.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: Sam did just want to get back to the Shire and make beer. That's like all he ever said during the revolution. I bet.
When can I get back to the Shire and start making beer again? They're like, sam, load the rifle.
[01:00:04] Speaker A: That's the modern equivalent of just wanting to grill. Yeah, yeah.
[01:00:10] Speaker B: I think we're sleeping on one obvious choice. Although he's a bit of a. Bit of a lesser founding father to some extent a bit of a minor character compared to some of these others in some ways, but Thomas Payne.
[01:00:25] Speaker D: Well, I thought you were gonna say Patrick Henry. Thomas Paine's a good choice though, is.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: He counters. Did he sign one of the documents? I'm. He should have, but did he. Let me look. Actually, I don't know.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: I don't think he actually signed any of the documents. But he wrote Common Sense, which was one of the most important revolutionary pamphlets that got people.
[01:00:46] Speaker A: Common Sense is unironically still good.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: It's actually fire.
[01:00:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, Common Sense is still good. No, I'll give Thomas Paine. I don't know anything about him as a guy. I've just read Common Sense. But you know, based on that I kind of have some, some faith in him, at least more than he was.
[01:01:04] Speaker B: A guy that they would just bring into the room a lot when they were doing stuff because he had written this thing and he was cool and he said cool stuff. But then he'd be like, he'd be like saying radical ass and they'd be like, hey, man, tone that down. He'd be like, man, these guys. So that's kind of how it went down.
[01:01:23] Speaker A: I feel like I'm gonna do, like.
[01:01:25] Speaker C: Looks like he's considered a founding father. Despite not doing any of the documents, he gets an honorary pass.
[01:01:32] Speaker A: The founding uncle. Yeah. I'm gonna do the cool youth pastor turnaround. Like, you know who wrote the first viral post? It was Thomas Paine with his. His viral pamphlet.
[01:01:45] Speaker D: Excuse me. You know who really wrote the first viral post? Jesus.
[01:01:52] Speaker B: Oh, damn it. You went too far back. Because I was gonna. Do you know who had the first tweet thread? Martin Luther.
[01:01:59] Speaker A: That's true. That was the first. Yeah. Complaint to the mods.
[01:02:07] Speaker D: Yeah. That's great. So with that said, thanks for listening to our great episode. This was so much fun.
[01:02:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:02:15] Speaker D: We love it.
[01:02:16] Speaker B: We voted.
[01:02:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:02:19] Speaker B: It's always great to vote with all of you.
[01:02:21] Speaker C: I thought the point of this is we couldn't vote in the Lord of the Rings universe, but okay, we did it anyway.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, we did it anyway.
[01:02:28] Speaker D: We brought voting to their universe.
They experienced democracy for the first time.
[01:02:36] Speaker A: I don't think the elves would like voting, but I think they would really like the, like, charts and polls and. You know what I mean? They would like the New York Times needle.
[01:02:44] Speaker C: Wait a second. Am I an elf?
[01:02:46] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: You've elfed yourself. Yeah.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
All right, well, folks out there, remember, keep voting all the time. And while you're voting, vote for Jacob's show, the Socialist Shelf. Jacob, you want to talk about that for a second?
[01:03:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I am the host of a podcast with Lenore Olson. We make the Socialist Shelf. It is a book where we talk about mostly fiction and organizing. We talk about novels, talking about short stories, graphic novels. Now and again. We talk about it from a socialist lens. We're both socialist organizers here in Atlanta, so we talk about all kinds of different stuff. We talk about the historical context of the writers and. And where they're coming from. We try to make it fun, try to make it so if you haven't read the book, you're still going to enjoy it. You can maybe pretend like you've read it, sounds smart, and front of your friends, do the work for you, or maybe you'll even read the book. You know, I've had some people email, like, I read the book because a book because of this, and I'm like, hell, yeah.
[01:03:47] Speaker D: To sound smart in front of your friends is one of the main reasons that we record content as well. So I definitely appreciate that.
[01:03:55] Speaker A: It's one of the main reasons people probably signed the Declaration of Independence for for all we know, you know or read common sense. It moves history forward.
I've also got later this year a novel coming out. They called Her Rebel. It's fantasy novel about people, power, late stage capitalism and queer love. If you like the concept of a lesbian sorceress who can throw lasers from her hands then this is probably a book for you.
It's not available for pre order yet but if you like follow me on or follow socialist shelf you'll I won't shut up about it once the pre order links up. So you know also dropping that but check one or both of those things out. Yeah.
[01:04:36] Speaker B: All right. And don't forget to come back and vote with us again next time. And until then we'll see you later. Bye bye.
[01:04:44] Speaker C: Take care.
[01:04:45] Speaker D: Bye bye.
[01:04:51] Speaker C: Thanks for listening.
