The National Review's Mission Statement

"This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak and idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means."

- Saruman the White, channelling present neo-consevative conventional wisdom.


It's no wonder Tolkien's elves grieved so unceasingly. They must have grown tired of hearing the same self-serving nonsense over and over and over again, age after age after age.