The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings

I've read these stories so many times.  There is so much wisdom hidden away in each page.  Everything from death, pity, and love to faith, hope, and courage is covered between the pages of these books and more.

Real emotional and intellectual conflict is portrayed in these fictional works but it reads like history that is happening now!

People who get to know me a little will recognize many tidbits of information from these stories.  I fuel my inspiration tremendously with these tales and am not certain I can see a day when I will no longer reap any benefit of inspiration from them.  Many hold the bible to be their most important book.

I hold these tales by J. R. R. Tolkien as my most important books.

Guns of the South

By the time I turned twenty-five I was reading more and more.  While I don't remember how I came across this book, I remember the effect it had on me.

For most of my younger years I held a long standing debate with my oldest and best friend.  He held the view that the War of Federal Aggression (American Civil War) was about slavery, African slavery.  I was told by my parents and my father's best friend who was a huge history buff that the war was entirely about States' Rights. 

It wouldn't be until a few years after reading this book that I would discover the truth.  This book, apart from really capturing the reader and placing him or her into the 1860s, got me so interested in looking up history that I started craving more and more information to fill in the gaps of what I thought I knew.

Eventually I came to the conclusion that both sides were wrong but if one was a lesser evil than the other then the South would be it.  They may have perpetuated the practice of African slavery but if allowed to peacefully secede then such a precedent would have been set that in a matter of just a few generations the individual might well be able to secede from even the most local of governments without packing his bags to leave in order to escape persecution and tyranny.

World of Warcraft (Lore)

While not typical all books, this lore helped me construct in an abstract way my definition of liberty.  I began to see more and more reasons why government is wrong, why people are so susceptible to fear and despair.

The story of Thrall being born and raised in a human controlled internment camp to be a gladiator for entertainment helped spin the wheels of my mine even faster.

This story was about the children of captured invading and marauding orcs that were controlled by an alien demonic deity that sought to wipe out and make dark the entirety of the universe.  The humans didn't know that Thralls parents' generation was under the influence of a wicked spell.

The humans only saw a reason to kill because they were killed so mercilessly when caught off guard.  Eventually in his early twenties, Thrall escaped with the help of a kind young human woman.  Thrall rallied a few of the others and they set out to escape the Eastern Kingdoms. 

Later it would be revealed that another alien race that shared the orcs' home world knew of this wicked spell; yet they did nothing to convince the humans that the orcs beneath the command of Thrall were not their enemies by choice.  They were the enemies of the humans because the humans persecuted them unfairly as innocent children.

These new alien allies, the Draenei, proceeded to maintain an alliance with the human kingdoms despite the fact that they brought the darkness upon the orcs by settling on their home world in an attempt to hide from the evil which afflicted the orcs.

Yet, so many people considered the orcs to be evil simply because humans said they were.  The truth is that those who make war against innocents are misguided; or evil when they do so knowing what their victims are.