[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

You can not blame the Ring for Boromir's desire as you can blame it for Frodo's ultimate physical failure.

I never did.

Boromir had never even held the Ring, yet had turned his will toward possessing it from his first glimpse of it.

That's a quality of the ring. You don't even need to hold it to have it lure you to it. Smeagol hadn't held it when Deagol first found it, yet he had an an overwhelming desire for it. He went so far as to kill, just to obtain the ring, and headn't even ouched it yet. You don't need to touch the ring. Just to see it is enough, and sometimes even to hear of it, without seeing.

Frodo bears it until the point of its making and only then gives in.

No, he gave in to it first at Weathertop. He disobeyed Gandalf and all of his advice, and he put the ring on. He does resist it very well throughout his journey and it is not until he gets to 'the point of making' that he claims it, fully giving in to it. Not to mention the fact that Boromir is "a Man, albeit of (watered down) Numenorean descent" (as The Saucepan Man put it) while Frodo is a simple minded hobbit who have a great resistance and endurance to the ring.

Boromir's failure actually is an act of free will. When I said moment, it is not a moment of duress under the Ring's temptation, just a reference to time, nothing more.

I knew what you meant, but it is not free will. His decision was distorted on behalf of the ring. The ring was using him. I believe that the ring can think or at least it acts in accordance to its own survival and the task of getting back to it's master. If it were to stay with Frodo, it would be destroyed. If it were to go with Boromir, Sauron would learn exactly of its whereabouts in a matter of time. And then he could take it. Sauron would be looking towards Minas Tirith, not in his own land.

The argument that Boromir did not know of the Ring's danger is entirely without validity.

I never said that Boromir did not know of the danger. He did not understand the dangers.

He sat through the Council of Elrond, and was repeatedly told of its dangers. He simply chose to ignore the wisdom he had been offered.

Once again, he did not understand it. He was not ignoring the advice. He listened to it and thought he knew what it meant, but he didn't. He didn't really go into depth in thinking about it, I believe, because he was too taken by the ring.

It took Frodo one talk with Gandalf to understand the danger of the Ring

Yes, but Frodo did not ahve a land and people that he was defending. Frodo had no need or want of the ring. And he had a one on one conversation with someone who I'm sure is intimidating to a little young hobbit. Frodo would believe that the sky would turn purple and green if Gandalf said so.

Boromir had plenty of time.

It doesn't matter how much time. He wanted the ring before he understood the dangers. And he tought he understood the dangers, so instead of taking that time to understand them he used it to argue and obsess over the ring.

If his guard was down when looking upon the Ring, he would have no one to blame but himself (and there was no desire for a guard to be raised) .

It wasn't his fault. If any of the wise had made sure that he understood the dangers before telling him of the ring, then his guard would have been up. If they had taken that time, it would have been up. But it is not their fault either, because they did not know that could happen. It's no one's fault.

Furthermore, Galadriel's knowledge did not put her in any special position to resist it. The character, besides Sauron, with the greatest knowledge of the Ring was Saruman, and he craved it for himself.

Her knowledge I was refering to was that of the dangers of the ring, that which she fully understood. Saruman, however, did not, and that is why he craved it for himself.