Glenn Beck - The Eye of Moloch

The boy didn’t speak for a while, and then he said, “I’m sorry.”

Even as he’d said them Hollis knew his last words were too harsh, and he hadn’t meant them to come out as they had. All in all, it seemed best to change the subject.

“Well, if you’re going to hang around, would you give me a hand with something?”

“Why not? I guess there’s nothing better to do at the crack of dawn,” Tyler said.

The two carried the assembled drawer over to the bachelor’s chest it had been made to repair. With some delicate maneuvering they worked it onto the slides and eased it home until it came to rest at the cushioned stops in back. Hollis ran his thumb over each junction to test the fit, and then stood and took a step back to receive the full effect. Once the finish was matched and perfectly weathered it would take a big-city appraiser to ever tell the new parts from the old.

“Looks like somebody’s been slacking off,” Tyler said.

“Hmm?”

“There’s a ton of stuff to do here.”

“Do you want to see what your folks have been dealing with, instead of doing this work and looking after their business?” Hollis leaned to the side, picked up a fat file from the nearby desk, and slid it over in front of the boy. “What’s been taking up their time is right in there. I don’t think they’d mind if you knew about it.”

Tyler opened the folder and began to leaf through the many regulatory letters, writs, notices, citations, affidavits, audits, and notarized decrees inside. As Hollis worked the boy stopped occasionally to read various items more carefully.

“Dude, this is messed up,” Tyler said.

“It sure is.”

About a year before, an odd couple had visited the ranch for a week’s stay. They seemed to be allergic to almost everything and kept to themselves most of the time, but they’d asked a lot of questions.

Shortly thereafter the first of many official registered letters had arrived.

Hundreds of supposed violations had been reported to an army of bureaucrats, boards, and commissions. Fresh raw milk was being served to guests who requested it, along with ungraded butter and eggs. Wild horses and “feral” animals were alleged to be present, perhaps to be bred and raised on the property. Child labor laws were being flagrantly sidestepped. Dinner menus lacked the required nutritional data. The trumped-up charges and obscure technicalities went on and on.

As a result, multiple licenses and permits were under review or in the process of revocation. Retroactive taxes, fees, and fines were being assessed, and several cease-and-desist orders had been served. All these charges were baseless and most were trivial, but some were dead serious. One of the Merrick brothers traveled the gun-show circuit with hand-tuned and legally augmented high-end firearms; his inventory was actually being named in a preliminary injunction as an illegal cache of assault weapons.

“What does this one mean?” Tyler asked.

“They’re accusing your aunt Mary of diverting storm water.”

“Wait, what? You mean the stuff that falls from the sky?”

“Yeah. She’s got a sixty-gallon rain barrel out by the vegetable garden.”

“How can that be against the law?”

“Those paper-pushers made a mistake because it’s not against the law yet here in Wyoming, but it is in more states than you’d think. Doesn’t matter, though. It still takes time and lawyers to answer it all.”

Tyler put the paper back with the others and closed the folder. “This is just, I don’t know . . .”

“Harassment?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s un-American, is what it is,” Hollis said. “Intimidation by regulation, and selective enforcement against a hit list of political enemies. Now don’t get me wrong, government’s not all bad. Once you let these corrupt control freaks get their hooks into office, though, they never stop. It just grows and grows. This is the kind of nonsense they thrive on.”

The next few hours passed quickly as honest work gradually replaced the conversation. At the start what this boy knew about carpentry wouldn’t pack a thimble, but he picked things up with ease and he seemed to like to learn. It was almost eleven when Tyler’s mother dropped by to bring her son a ham-and-egg sandwich and to let Hollis know that Molly’s meeting was about to begin.

“My mom’s been talking about you,” Tyler said, when she’d left.

“Is that a fact?”

“Yup. I think she’s smitten, as grossed-out as I am to say it.”

“There’s a compliment in there somewhere,” Hollis said, “and by George I’ll take it.”

“Can I ask you something else?”

“I guess there’s no stopping you.”

“It’s not because anyone’s including me in all the secret talk around here, but I’ve picked up a little in the past couple of days on what you and your friends are all about.”

“Okay. What do you want to ask?”

“Now don’t take this the wrong way,” Tyler said, “but you’re sitting in here fixing old drawers and bitching and moaning about regulations and bureaucrats and stuff.”

“So what?”

“So if you’re all on this great mission, shouldn’t you be out there saving the country instead of sitting here?”

From the mouths of babes, Hollis thought. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but in a few minutes down the hall that very important question would be put to a final vote.

Chapter 17

Hollis wasn’t anxious to get where he had to go, so he took the scenic route to the dining room.

When he could avoid his destination no longer he arrived at the meeting place with the sheaf of printouts he’d collected from the Web. He paced for a while, listening in, before finally opening the door to step inside. The program was going full steam by then, and the current speaker went right ahead without taking much notice as Hollis found a seat near Molly’s side.

The spirit of ’76 was running high in these people, and it sounded all too familiar. They were deep in their Founding Fathers’ roles, talking on about various grassroots actions to ignite a reawakening in the American people.

Samuel Adams stressed the critical importance of the clergy as a sure route to reach a wider, sympathetic congregation—there were 180 million churchgoers across America who might be reached with this message through the pulpit. Alexander Hamilton put forth a more political agenda, with goals secured by throwing the group’s support behind enlightened and right-minded candidates in future elections. Ethan Allen spoke of organized boycotts, protests, and other high-profile public acts of civil resistance meant to raise awareness of the unfolding crisis threatening to destroy the great country they loved.

Incredibly, they proposed these things as though they were actually possible, as though some vast and dormant constituency was out there just waiting to embrace the message, hit the streets, and take up the cause.

Hollis watched Molly through each of the impassioned speeches. With every untenable tactic put forth and debated, not a trace of uncertainty showed on her face. She looked as driven and determined as ever, ready to take any measure whatever the risk, as long as the action might move their campaign of liberty forward.

And when it was Molly’s turn to speak, Hollis learned that she had an idea of her own that made the others seem mild by comparison.

In her past work as a white-collar spy and whistle-blower, Molly would infiltrate her target organizations and then, through contacts in the press, leak what she’d learned to the world at large. These escapades would sometimes yield a few days of below-the-fold headlines before fading into the general swamp of corruption and vice in the news. More often than not, though, the stories found no traction and simply disappeared. By and large the public seemed to have grown completely immune to outrage anymore.