[alatar]

Note that if I appear overly grumpy, it's not personal, but more likely due to the morning paper being late due to snow.

Originally Posted by Selador

But for me - well, let's just say that I imagine that I wouldn't have any worries about money anymore. A bit of a moral dilemma, true, but along the lines of what The Might has written, I think it would be easy for me to justify just how underserving some of the wealthy are. I would be carefully selective in my victims, I think, but I would have few qualms about playing Robin Hood.

How quickly it would take a hold of you. You already have started to justify theft. Note that I don't buy into the idea that taking from those that have and giving it to those without is a virtue. The rich learn nothing, the thief is still stealing and contributing nothing, and the poor need more than just a handout.

Plus whose to say who is deserving, and who is deserving of your redistribution services? Bet that there's some on the streets of Calcutta that would find you undeserving in your present state.

The ring would make it a lot easier. And I would be generous. I'm quite sure of that. Truth is, besides a few creature comforts, I don't really want for much. But Robin does have to eat.

So, is it really about helping the poor, or just a good excuse to take what isn't the fruit of one's labor and to give some of that away in order to appease one's conscious, which surely is starting to have doubts. And by being 'generous,' isn't that just the desire to hear the applause of the crowd...pride perhaps?

And if the train is already going across country anyway - or if the airplane is already flying off to venice - who am I really hurting by slipping into the empty seat, right?

Just the people owning the businesses who expend the extra fuel to move the vehicle plus the added (though unaccounted for) weight. Nothing's free, and isn't this attitude one you despise seemingly in the sweet 16ers?

And it would be nice to smite all my enemies. Well, maybe not smite, but at least embarrass the really jerky ones who totally deserve it.

Some of my 'enemies' I've learned are some of the saddest people on earth. I would like to pity them, but part of me is still human.

What really got me thinking of this was that I was trying to get into Sméagol's head. How evil was he to begin with?

Wasn't Smeagol a murderer before he got hold of the Ring?

How much did the Ring warp him? Should we pity him or condemn him?

If it were just the Ring, as you say below, I think we'd all fall and Smeagol would just be first among many. But he did murder first, and purportedly he ate babies after the Ring left him, so I'm having a real hard time pitying him.

And when I put myself in his shoes, I suddenly realized that - if I'm honest - I have to admit that I would use the ring in many of the same ways he did - or in wicked ways of my own, justifying them with my own rationalizations. I'm not proud of that, but I didn't think I would be the only one, and it made me wonder if perhaps Gollum is too harshly demonized for motivations that are more common than many suspect.

Agreed. There go I but for the help of Sam. And I appreciate your candor, and I hope that I've not come off as being harsh, as that's not my intent.

Though...we need a new metaphor when speaking of hobbit kind, as, well, they never wore shoes...