Print
Email Story
One of the messages promoted by Bob Williams in Pasco on Wednesday is as old as politics: Know thy enemy.
Williams, president of the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation, encouraged an audience of 45 people to read the books Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky and The Plan by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed to better understand what he described as the liberal plan for America.
Where Williams sees the left wing taking the United States is down a road toward Marxism, an idea he said scares him.
"We're in a battle like you've never seen in your lifetime for freedom," Williams said.
He's traveling Eastern Washington to motivate people to speak out, call or write letters to their representatives -- anything to get their voices heard.
"We're trying to get people more engaged, more active with government," he said.
Williams is no stranger to government, having worked as a GAO auditor for the Pentagon and Postal Service before moving to Washington and serving five terms in the state Legislature.
In 1988 he ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for governor, trying to unseat Democrat Booth Gardner.
These days he believes the state is in trouble under the leadership of Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire and a Democrat-controlled Legislature.
"The state is heading off a financial cliff," he said, referring to a $9 billion budget deficit that resulted in the state postponing $1.2 billion in contributions to state employees' pensions.
Williams said a recent report showed the state pension system had taken a severe hit by investing in risky stocks in a volatile market, leaving an even bigger hole that will have to be filled.
"We've been sounding the alarm for years about the state pension system," he said.
He is also concerned about proposed increases to the workers' compensation rates charged to businesses and the effect that will have on the state's economy.
But above all, Williams is worried about perceived efforts by the federal government to chip away at Americans' freedoms, including private property rights.
Audience members nodded along as Williams spoke about private property rights being the cornerstone of American liberties.
"There can be no pursuit of happiness without private property rights," he said. "The founders wrote in the Constitution you couldn't vote if you didn't own property. That's how important it was."
He said if Americans want to protect their freedoms, they must remember that the citizens themselves are the most important check on government.
"We have to fight to regain our freedoms," he said. "We're losing our freedoms."
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is an Olympia-based nonprofit policy research center with a stated mission to "advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government."
-- On the net: www.effwa.org
-- Michelle Dupler: 582-1543; mdupler@tricityherald.com
