Destroying The Ring of Power: The Evil of Violent & Coercive Control That Has Enslaved Mankind
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Governmental authority is like the Ring of Power. It is a creation of evil meant to corrupt and enslave mankind.
It cannot be wielded, no matter how noble the intentions. No individual or group has the right to hold governmental power, to possess the ability and the believed legitimacy to violently control other beings – and only darkness and ruin follow its use.
That Ring of Power must be destroyed. It must be cast into the fire and melted down so that no one can ever wield it again.
We must end all centralized control, the existence of a State that exists only through violence, theft, and coercion.
Only then will the realm be free of the tyrannical forces of darkness.
Only then will true individual sovereignty and flourishing be possible.
”One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
The Lord of the Rings is one of our time’s most enduring, popular, and deeply impactful stories. Its success is because it is no ordinary story; rather, it is a profoundly significant Myth that speaks to many of the fundamental challenges and opportunities of our lives in the modern world.
At the center of the story is the One Ring, a symbol of absolute power created by the evil dark lord Sauron. The myth teaches us that attempting to wield that power over others – even for the best of intentions – can only lead to personal ruin and great evil darkness for the world.
What The Ring Represents
Tolkien famously despised the simplistic use of allegory. Still, the symbolism and nature of what the Ring represents is deep and fundamental to the human experience when the story was written and still today.
The One Ring is a physical symbol of power. It is not the natural inner power that comes from within the individual and from the divine. The power of force comes from that which is dark and evil. And the Ring shows that no being can wield that power without destroying themselves and their world, except for the Dark Lord who created it and is its master.
Tolkien himself described the primary symbolism of the Ring as “the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies.” (Letter 131)
What better description for the current state of our governments and institutions? The “will to mere power seeking to make itself objective through the use of force and lies.” This is the modus operandi of our current State. A State that is not just the government but includes all of its attendant apparatus of the media, corporations, intelligence agencies, and many more major institutions.
We currently have an authoritarian, tyrannical State, a Machine, a monster that has grown to encompass all aspects of our social and private lives. It is the manifestation of this “will to mere power” that holds a monopoly on violence and exists in the modern world primarily through lies and control of the narrative.
This governmental structure and its attendant institutions attract power-hungry individuals who see The State and state-affiliated organizations as the means of their ascendency, as the mafia that they can rise to the top of.
The Source of the Evil
To say that it is “government” that is the evil is not exactly correct.
Government is merely the external representation and physical institution and entity that exists in our society. The consciousness and energy behind government is the true evil.
It is that consciousness of coercive control, violent force, secret manipulation, totalitarian domination, and authoritarian subjugation. And this is the evil that the Dark Lord Sauron represents and that the Ring that he created and poured his own essence into contains.
Government (as we have created it to be) is fundamentally immoral and evil because it is based on fundamental violations of Natural Law and Universal Morality – it is violent, coercive, thieving, and dominating. In short, it does not honor free will and individual human sovereignty.
It is this violent, coercive, authoritarian power that is at the heart of the evil Sauron and of the institution of government.
Governmental power and perceived legitimate authority is this same seductive, deadly, and dangerous weapon that must be destroyed completely if humanity wishes to be truly free and untouched by evil.
What entity has more power and control than the government in our world?
What individual has more power and ability to lord over others than he who holds some high governmental position or who has the ability to influence government agencies to do their bidding?
Evil Means Cannot Lead To Good Ends
“You can make the Ring an allegory of our own time, if you like, an allegory of the inevitable fate that awaits all attempts to defeat evil power by power.”
– Letter to his publisher (31 July 1947); published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), Letter 109
The Ring has its own will, it wants to be used, and it seduces people to attempt to use it.
Government itself is that Ring of Power, that tool created to overpower and subdue others. You cannot use The Ring of government to defeat evil because the very methods of The State are that of violence, coercion, theft, and secrecy.
People believe that through government, we will defeat evil and solve all of our problems. And they do not see that government is the primary vehicle for evil to gain power and control over our world and that government does not solve the problems it says it is trying to fix. It only makes them worse and creates even more.
We must understand that no one should attempt to wield that power, and no one can. It is always fundamentally immoral and leads to the ruin of both the wielder of it and those subjugated to unlawful power.
It is fundamentally wrong to engage in violence, theft, or coercion. These things do not become moral and good if they are done in the name of “the greater good.”
Even if you size the totalitarian power of the State to attempt to do good things, you will end up causing even more harm. The history of Marxism and Communism shows us very clearly that good intentions do not matter. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
There is no political solution to our problems.
Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, or Donald Trump promising “a political revolution,” “change,” or “to make America great again” will never lead to any fundamental transformations.
It’s not “different this time.”
No. Government itself, and people’s belief in its legitimacy, is the problem.
The wisest beings in Middle-Earth, Gandalf and Elrond, knew that you can’t use the ring to destroy and defeat Sauron. The ends don’t justify the means.
You can’t use the instrument and methods of evil to defeat it – you would only then replace that evil yourself.
Even if Gandalf had tried to bear the ring to protect it, he says: “the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end”.
The ends never justify the means, for the means are the ends. The quality and consciousness in which you live determine the fruits of your actions.
Good can never come from acts of ego and selfishness.
Nothing good can ever come from violence.
The Creation of the Ring
Human beings invented political authority and created governments in an attempt to wield power. Perhaps some had noble goals to organize society and allow for more harmony and flourishing for all. But others had nefarious goals to keep ruling from the shadows under the auspices of the people ruling themselves through participation in voting and “democracy.”
Just like the nine kings of men who Sauron gave rings of power, those who have been conferred with the authority to rule have succumbed to the influence of ego with its accompanying greed, fear, desire to control, and other deadly sins.
From the very beginnings of the State, it has existed to serve the interests of those who hold positions of power in society. In days of old, it was the royal and the priest class. Today it is the owners of the banks, corporations, and the generationally wealthy.
The idea that our governments exist “by, for, and of the people” is a nice idea, but it is not a reality. “Democracy” has always been the few ruling under the pretense of equality and collectivism.
Government Itself is The Ring of Power
“Is it not a strange fate that we should suffer so much fear and doubt for so small a thing?”
― Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring
The intelligent founders created the United States to be a very limited, smallest-as-possible government that exists to protect individual rights and liberties. It has now grown to be the biggest and most sprawling empire the world has ever seen.
You cannot expect that a government will relinquish power. It is simply not in its nature to roll itself back, as the State requires ever more fuel to feed its engines.
The longer it goes on, the more unelected bureaucrats create more departments to hire more unelected bureaucrats.
It is in the very nature of the State to always be seeking to extend and amplify itself. It is not in the nature of Governments to scale themselves back – and no high-minded words written on a piece of paper are sufficient to curtail its expansion. (i.e., a constitution)
Governments currently have some measure of power but not total control. And The State will not rest until it has complete domination, for that is its very nature. The State has a never-ending hunger to gobble up more and more power and control.
“This is the Master-ring, the One Ring to rule them all. This is the One Ring that he lost many ages ago, to the great weakening of his power. He greatly desires it — but he must not get it.”
– Gandalf, From The Fellowship of the Ring
The Ring and The State seem to have a mind of their own. They seek out and call to individuals who desire glory, and they seduce those who desire power over others.
Those who seek power are attracted to the place where they can obtain it and wield it in a societally sanctioned way. Therefore it is no wonder that our governments are full of immoral narcissists and psychopaths.
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
“You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?”
“No!” cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.” His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. “Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength.
– The Fellowship of the Ring
Everyone thinks that if they had the power, they would use it wisely and beneficially. But even the best intentions are poisoned by the individual’s own ignorance and by the seductive call of power.
Once you seize power, you will set out to create a utopia and instead create a dystopian nightmare. If you are forcing others to live by your ideology and by your rules – you are being violent, and nothing beautiful grows from violence.
“It is of little relevance whether the people trying to restrict your freedom are acting in good faith.”
– Michael Malice
A healthy society can only grow into being naturally as the individuals in that society are allowed their innate rights and freedoms. It can never come about through top-down control and violent suppression “for the greater good.”
You think you could resist the ego’s pull, and you think you could use force in service of the good. You are wrong, and you are both ignorant and arrogant.
You must allow all beings their sovereignty and respect their natural rights.
Only then can a harmonious and moral society grow naturally.
The Ringwraiths & Gollum: Those Who Succumbed to the Rings
The black-hooded Ringwraiths in the story are those once kings of men who became totally seduced by the siren song of power and totally succumbed to their addiction to it. They show us the fate of those who totally fall to the desire for power.
Yes, if the Ring overcomes you, you yourself become permanently invisible—and it is a horrible cold feeling. Everything becomes very faint like grey ghost pictures against the black background in which you live; but you can smell more clearly than you can hear or see. You have no power however like a Ring of making other things invisible: you are a ringwraith. You can wear clothes. But you are under the command of the Lord of the Rings. (The Return of the Shadow, 75)
Looking at our politicians, royal families, corporate media personalities, and corporate CEOs, you can see their wraithlike qualities. You can see how their frenzied lust for prestige has turned them into something inhuman. They have lost their soul.
Gollum shows us the torment of one who has possessed the ring but then lost it. One who is hopelessly addicted to it and has nothing else to live for.
“He hated it and loved it, as he hated and loved himself. He could not get rid of it. He had no will left in the matter.”
– Gandalf talking about Gollum
Ironically, it was only that wretched, pitiful creature Gollum and his own greed and lust for power that brought the downfall of the Dark Lord’s empire. It was he who attempted to steal the ring from Frodo and fell into Mount Doom.
Evil always undoes itself in the end. And we are seeing in our world today how the pitiful, wretched creatures who have wielded Governmental and acted as deranged addicts for power are being undone by their own depravity and greed.
Concerning Hobbits
In the Lord of the Rings, the simple, humble Hobbits Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam are the only characters who are able to bear the ring and not succumb to its temptation to use it.
This demonstrates that great power can only be held temporarily by those who are “pure in heart and poor in spirit” and by those who have no wish to have it but do what needs to be done out of love and service to all.
Wise and powerful characters such as Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel know that they cannot wield the ring or terrible things will happen.
Frodo volunteers to bear the ring only as a last resort because he knows that someone must take the ring to be destroyed and that he is really the only one who can.
This is the attitude that we should all have towards power. We should not seek it, and if it falls into our hands, we temporarily bear it as well as we can while seeking to remove the need for it.
Decentralization of Power
“My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs). The most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
– 1943 letter From Tolkien to his son
As we attempt to meet this problem of the inevitable corruption that external power brings, the only wise thing to do is for no person and no group to have ANY power over any others.
The only solution is to utterly decentralize power and put it only into the hands of individuals to make their own sovereign choices about how they choose to live their lives.
This is such a simple and seemingly obvious solution. Yet, we have been indoctrinated into the belief that we need a ruling class, that we require government, and that we must control the actions of our neighbors.
We have been brainwashed to believe that we must all give our allegiance and obedience to the government. We have been taught that freedom is selfish and dangerous and that anarchy is chaos and violence.
Each individual is meant to be empowered from within, not hold external power and wield it over others.
Each individual has the immutable right to do what they will, so as long as they do not aggress against others.
In other words, the only sane and moral society is an anarchistic one. The only truly free society is one where no individual or group wields the power of violence over anyone else. Where no person or group can wield government power because there is no government that exists for people to wield as a club to control their fellow human beings
“Anarchism is not a location. Anarchism is a relationship, one in which none of the parties has authority over the other.”
– Michael Malice, The Anarchists Handbook
The only thing to do is to destroy the One Ring, abolish the idea of legitimatized authority and permissible violent force, and remove all institutionalized governmental power so no one can ever hold it and use it against their fellow human beings.
Destroy forever the ability for any one person or any group of people to hold power over others and for that to be “legal” and seen as legitimate by the populace.
Doing this would not eradicate evil and violence from our society, but it would only allow it to exist on the individual level. No more will there exist a One Ring of Power that the worst people and institutions can use to their own benefit and ends.
Melting Down and Unmaking That Which Never Should Have Been Created
(Just like Amazon’s atrocity of a streaming series), The Ring of Power should never have been created.
It was forged in secret by The Deceiver, and deeply flawed Man was quickly seduced by its illusion of power.
“You cannot wield it. None of us can. The One Ring answers to Sauron(Evil) alone. It has no other master.”
– Aragorn
External illegitimate power is a creation of evil and the Dark. It can never be used for the purpose of the Good.
“He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.”
– Gandalf, The Two Towers
Now that this One Ring of government power and authority has been created, nearly everyone accepts it as inevitable and necessary and therefore tries to seize control of it to have it serve themselves and their vision of the world.
Ever since governmental power was created and given legitimacy, individuals and groups have sought to capture it and wield it to achieve their desired ends.
As long as people fight over governmental power, as long as we see the “other side” of the political-ideological spectrum as our enemies – the game will continue, and power and control will continue to be monopolized by those who profit off of our ignorance and division.
Almost no one considers that perhaps we should not try to seize governmental might to remake society according to our own image.
Almost no one understands that governmental authority should never have been created in the first place and that its existence is the biggest obstacle to creating a free, safe, and moral society.
Those who have ruled our world from the shadows cannot conceive that awakened and inwardly liberated human beings would not try to seize governmental power in order to wield it against others but would rather choose to relinquish it and allow it to be unmade entirely.
And it is this seemingly radical action that is our only hope.
Breaking The Ring
Interestingly, the Ring is an apt symbol, as it signifies going around and around in a circle but never being able to escape the loop. As an ouroboros, it represents eternity.
It also can signify being wedded to something and unable to break free of that bond. And we have been in an abusive relationship with government.
We have been wedded into an abusive relationship with a gaslighting, manipulative, violent, narcissistic spouse.
In recent years, the idea of a “National Divorce” is becoming more and more mainstream. Individuals are realizing that we live under the thumb of an inept, corrupt, and evil governmental Machine and are now seriously talking about walking away from it rather than trying to vote in the right people who can fix it.
This national divorce is merely the beginning of a much-needed decentralization of government and a shift to the empowerment of the individual and local communities.
It is the population finally waking up to the truth that they have been in an abusive relationship with their own government, with authority, and realizing that they need to take off the ring and get a divorce.
Evolving Beyond Obsession and Belief in Governmental Power
“Let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.”
– Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring
In the Lord of the Rings books, Tom Bombadil is unique in his indifference to the One Ring. He doesn’t even care about the ring and the power it contains. He is indifferent to it and it doesn’t affect him. He is an otherworldly being who simply lives in the deep forest with his beautiful wife. He walks in nature and sings silly songs.
When Frodo tries to give him the ring, he simply doesn’t care about it one way or another – he is neither attracted nor repelled by it. He neither loves it nor hates it.
To him, it is just a simple ring.
“Hey there! Hey! Come Frodo, there! Where be you a-going? Old Tom Bombadil’s not as blind as that yet. Take off your golden ring! Your hand’s more fair without it. Come back! Leave your game and sit down beside me! We must talk a while more, and think about the morning. Tom must teach the right road, and keep your feet from wandering.”
– Tom Bombadil, From The Fellowship of the Ring
This is the future of the awakened and liberated human being’s relationship with governmental power – complete indifference and inability to be affected.
The human being of the near future will be too connected to spirit, to nature, to inner empowerment to care at all about silly things like seizing external governmental power so that they can compensate for their own inner emptiness.
We must become ungovernable. No longer trying to fight to gain control of government for “our side.” Just simply living one’s life in sovereignty and freedom. Knowing and seeing governmental actors, politicians, the media, and academics as very mediocre and pathetic people and not even caring enough about them to fight against them, they are so irrelevant.
Casting Your Ego Into The Flames
“It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came! One of you must do this.”
– Gandalf
Only WE can cast the Ring of Power back into the fires and therefore unmake it.
We do not do this through voting and political activism. We do not do this by attempting to destroy those with a different political ideology than us.
We do not do this by participating in any way with the current political system or by protesting against it.
We do this by firstly ceasing to violently wield power over others in our individual lives. And we do this by creating new paradigms and systems in our society that do not require centralized power and authority.
We can take the One Ring that cannot be wielded by anyone and melt it down in the fires. We can break down the structures of power and control into their primordial constituents.
We can break the ring-pass-not, end the cycle, and escape the trap. But it requires a totally new paradigm and way of thinking.
Power Over Others & Power Within Oneself
Power itself is not wrong, only when it is wielded over others.
Power OVER others is the problem.
Rulership itself is not evil, only when every man is not his own King and every woman her own Queen.
We could then reforge a unique ring for the hand of each man, woman, and child. A ring of personal responsibility and inner empowerment. A ring that represents our eternal devotion to true inner sovereignty that symbolizes our marriage to each person we share this world with and our responsibility to honor their free will choice.
We destroy the ring. We end the cycle. We break the curse.
Will you give up your need to control others?
Will you cease to petition your illegitimate government to act on your behalf to control others for you?
Will you journey into the domain of evil and cast that heavy weight of the lust for power and seductive shackle of obedience to authority you bear into the fire?
If you can do this, then you do it for all of humanity.
“You are a ring-bearer, Frodo. To bear a ring of power is to be alone. This task was appointed to you. And if you do not find a way, no one will.”
– Galadriel
You are Frodo, the simple Hobbit plucked out of your ordinary life, sent on a great adventure, and given the opportunity to be The Hero who redeems the realm.
You are called to act from love and destroy all lust for egoic power from within your heart.
The ending of illegitimate use of force, participating and sanctioning governments to dominate individuals – it is your responsibility.
Together we can throw that ring that has wedded us to violent authority into the fires so that a new Age of liberty can commence.
This task is appointed to you.
And if you do not find a way, no one will.
I am a philosopher-poet who shares liberating insight and inspirational guidance in our human journey to wake up, re-member ourselves, end the illusion of separation, and return to our innate nature as divinely powerful creator beings.
My Quest is to awaken myself and set myself totally free while contributing to the awakening and liberation of humanity from all illusions, limitations, darkness, and ignorance.
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