The words were jolting.
Under George Bush, government has expanded more than under any president in our history other than LBJ.
It wasnt so much what was said, as who said it.
The speaker was Bob Williams, head of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, an organization dedicated to individual liberties, free enterprise and limited and accountable government.
Its no coincidence those also are the goals of the Republican party, which some Republicans think their president has forgotten. Williams, a CPA, was the state House Republican brain whiz in the 1980s and ran once for governor, defeated, in part by efforts of the liberal media in this state to label him a gadfly.
He has long been my trusted source on budgets and spending.
This time, he was addressing North Kitsap Republican women, for whom he had a special message. Men have blown it, he said. The Republican party has blown it. There is no vision in the men. We must depend on the women.
How many of them believed the Republicans in the other Washington who lost control of both the House and Senate last year got what they deserved? Hands went up, considering the invasions of the freedom and rights of the citizens by the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. The picture looks grim, Williams said, but a grassroots effort by the fourth branch, the people, can do it. Republicans must seek out superior candidates and do all in their power to elect them.
Williams blasted such infringements on private property rights as the Growth Management Act whereby an appointed board of unelected bureaucrats can overrule elected county commissioners on land decisions. The Constitution says no person can be deprived of property without due process. The GMA and such offshoots as the Critical Areas ordinance do just that.
The Constitution says laws on property rights can be passed with the consent of the governed, and that isnt happening. He said, Our liberty is under relentless attack in the state and in the county.
The courts have taken liberties with eminent domain laws. The governor defies the Constitution in entering into campaign financing. The Legislature seeks to bypass the ability of the people to seek a referendum on unwanted laws by putting unneeded emergency clauses on bills. Two years ago, Williams said, 98 bills with emergency clauses were passed. There are more coming, inducing the Sonics stadium the NASCAR race track, allowing the spending of union member dues without the payers permission.
Democrats are running hog wild, from a health bill that would make most people over 18 and not on Medicare required to pay a $75 a month insurance premium beginning in 2009 to a constitutional amendment establishing a state income tax. Republicans need to develop a positive agenda and live up to it, Williams said.
Limited government, defeat of tax and fee increases, open government, preservation of traditional marriage, oppose enforced dues. Get motivated. Develop candidates to run for the Legislature. The answer wont come from above but from here, the grass roots.
Well, women are up to it, if they dont lose their perspective and vote for Hillary as the first woman president as Republican women did in helping make Dixy the first woman governor.


Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA, 98340.