The Pharaoh of Olympia just a couple years ago sent out her minions to chastise we small business people of Washington State. They chastised us with whips and with scorpions. We were accused of guilt and were therefore guilty as accused. There was money to be exacted from us and when we asked them how to appeal our case they would not tell us. A $10,000 lien was put on a house due to their accusations. What was the accusation you ask? That our written contracts were worth nothing even if freely agreed upon years before by free individual men and free individual women. Even if Article I of the Washington State constitution says that they are. They were to be ripped up by Pharoahs minions with gusto and we were to be made to pay. They scorned contracts freely arrived at. But we wanted to live as free individuals in a free society under a free government where government enforces our contracts in a court of law if we were ever to get into a dispute and so far we haven’t and not abrogate them by whim of the unelected officeholders in Olympia.

What happened next? So an attorney was retained. Surrejoinders and surrebutters flew back and forth like playing cards. Very expensive playing cards. The sorrow and the pity is not the many thousands of dollars that the Pharaoh in Olympia cost me. It is the time lost in administrative hearing that could be better put to serving my customers. Worst of all is the thousands of dollars spent by the Pharaohs minions to wallow around in ignorance and vindictiveness all the while that costs you, dear reader, the tax payer, out of whose pocket the state budget is balanced. The morale of the story? Of course! The minions have sovereign immunity and so Pharaohs whippersnappers and scorpion wielders could simply slither away after losing their case and being forced to release the lien. But braver people than we in times past spent more than a few thousand dollars to defend the right of free people to freely associate – they gave a sacrifice much more dear. So I don’t mind doing my part if it only costs me mere money to defend the Washington State constitution if the Pharaoh in Olympia won’t. But I made a xerox copy of the state constitution and mailed it to Olympia just to show no hard feelings. Maybe the minions can find the time and read it.

Miles F. Holden, Kirkland