Complicit Simplicity 24

As the group gathered two weeks after the successful coup, they celebrated that only one of them had been injured. Pahl Had received some blaster burns, now mostly healed, while fighting alongside his royal guard. "I've trained to be a king, but it looks like my only opportunity to actually lead my nation was as a battle commander in a small skirmish. Now I will have stories to tell my students and grandchildren."

Mose looked at him, a glint in his eye. "You did so well, are you sure you don't want to be king. I could use a long vacation, thirty or forty years to start th..."

Pahl interrupted with a laugh. "Not a chance. You are stuck until you can dump the whole nation back on itself. If you work as hard at giving liberty to the people of Elldee as you worked at avoiding the crown, you should be done in a year or two."

They both looked at Gloria as if by agreement, "Perhaps a ruling queen could handle the task better?"

Gloria pretended to be greatly offended, "Me, taking a noisome task like ruling a kingdom? Please gentlemen, I have my pride."

All three looked at Jon, then shook their heads. Pahl summed up their thoughts, "Oh sure, he could do it, but he would have to run it through computers until we had a technocracy. A kingdom run by computer is a kingdom run by computer programmers. Our friend Jon would rather hack than rule."

Amelia already had her hands up as they looked at her, "I've enough to do tutoring a certain prince in the value of restraint. That is a better use for my time than running a silly government; making decisions people are better off making for themselves."

Gloria smiled at Mose, "I guess you're stuck. But I do have a good bit of news. You remember Susie, the fruit stand girl that subverted the border guards? Midas is sending her as a Natural Enterprise Cooperative intern to watch the esteemed King Jacob. She will probably be doing all the hard work."

Mose: "After she handled those guards, then all the refugees we sent her, I think she might make a wonderful generic hacker. I could always apprentice her to you two for a while, someone has to replace Mose, now that I'm King Jacob. If nothing else I plan on her heading the Elldee NEC. She will soon give Midas, and any other competitors, a run for the money. "

"She can handle it." Jon said, "I'm sure you won't be too easy on her."

Jon looked around the room. "I have so much to be thankful for, for a while there I thought I might not be able to enjoy another sunset, or another of Gloria's smiles. Gloria, would you marry me?"

"Of course I will Jon, think of how much we will save on rent in the next tyranny we hack." She got serious. "I feel complete with you. It is not only that we can live happily together, it is we would be miserable apart."

Jon agreed. "Not only can I live with you, I can't live without you"

Mose noticed Amelia and Pahl glancing at each other. Another couple for me to watch, he thought.

"Let's all finish our tea." Amelia said, "Then the head of the Elldee church can offer a prayer of thanks prior to our dinner."

Prince Pahl spoke quickly, "I have been looking at how Gloria used a distributed network to spread her travel business with associates. Her model may be adaptable for reviving a historic church culture based on relationships, not hierarchy. I'm removing the church from being a government tool, it is not healthy for the church ... or for the government. Our God is real, his story will thrive in the pressures of an open and free ideological marketplace. God is big enough to take care of himself. Let a relationship with God compete on an even footing with all philosophies, and having done all to stand - let it stand. When we limit others, eventually we are also limited. Religion will be open and free in Elldee."

Pahl waved a hand in imitation of one of his former royal flourishes. "I'm of course following King Jacob's lead; who this week disbanded the Ministry of Travel, The Ministry of the Interior, the National Education Consortium, and is developing plans to eliminate the central bank. With his leadership freedom will rise, taxes will shrink, the people will once again have money to spend as they wish, the economy will thrive. And to think, Jacob is just getting started."

Pahl then raised his eyes and smiled, "but I am pleased to give thanks for our meal, and ask guidance for our future ventures ...

(I will be re-writing and you will be editing the adventures of Gloria, Mose, and Jon -- help me make Complicit Simplicity - the hackers end game, much better.)

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"Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations! And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works." -
economist Claude Frédéric Bastiat 1801-1850