Puzzle Post

"It is not the young people that degenerate; they are not spoiled till those of mature age are already sunk into corruption."

Charles de Montesquieu

Once upon a time far, far away in the Montana mountains there lived a family called the Washington's. They lacked a blue blood heritage, but were in possession of such enormous wealth that they had more power than any other family: royal or not. The Washington presided over their land with an iron fist, protecting it, their source of wealth, from invasion by the surrounding country, the United States. This was accomplished by bribing the rival government and eliminating threats from the air. The deaths were justified as necessary to protect the resources that everyone in the area was dependent on. In their isolation from the rest of the world the corruption of the Washington family grows as do their delusions of their own worth, shown through the rhetoric employed by the author. Their dependence on the human labor provided by the slaves resonates strongly with people today because of the sheer ridiculousness of the idea that you could keep of news the termination of slavery from slaves previously living in the South ; The power the Washington family maintains over their workers is of such strength that they could claim pink elephants were the only species that exist and the slaves would believe it. The corruption of the Washington family is brought down because of an escaped prisoner's determination and the remaining members of the family are forced to wander, like Moses, back to civilization.