Laman becomes king—He gives a glimpse of his laws and government—Being a king is no piece of cake—The government grows like Topsy.
AND it came to pass that I, Laman, did set up shop as the king over the Lamanites, and my first order of business was to impose a few stiff taxes; but behold, Lemuel did think that I should devise some laws first and then lay a tax on the people, for if there is no law, there could be no transgression of the law, as our father had taught us.
2 Now behold, I do not give a full account of all of my trendy and up-to-date laws, for I did remodel most of the musty old codes that were about as ancient as Melthusedick, nor do I tell of our nifty form of government, neither do I explain the laws of political science that Lemuel did help me invent, for I have written about all those things in my secret diary.
3 But behold, I did think that Moses was on the right track in a few cases; wherefore, I did pinch some of his ideas; yea, I did like his number five about humoring thy father and thy mother, for I was now a father and did notice that my own children did sometimes stumble with this item, for they did often make fun of my clothes and laugh at my taste in music and complain that I had a bad sense of direction, so I did throw in number five along with all my dandy new laws.
4 Now behold, I did soon learn that it was not all purple and fine linen to be a king; for behold, I did find myself tossing and turning over direct and indirect taxes, over progressive and graduated taxes, surtaxes and subtaxes, and flat taxes and round taxes; wherefore, I did murmur unto Lemuel that this job was the pits and that it did give me insomnia and also kept me awake.
5 But Lemuel did try to cheer me up, saying that all kings had their bad days, and he did quote the ancient scripture wherein it says: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown; but behold, I did remind Lemuel that I did not even own a crown yet, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn't be dumb enuf to sleep in it.
6 And it came to pass that Lemuel did help me by inventing several especially hefty assessments, including a three percent sales tax to raise money for the crown that I decided to [62] wear, thanks to the suggestion of my brother; yea, I did not wish to enter the first year of my administration shorthanded or bareheaded.
7 Now behold, some of my people did think that I should work like everybody else, but it did not seem right to me that the king should put in all of the late hours and lose all of the sleep that a king must lose, then fret and fume about his people and about all of the taxes he has to saddle them with, and to worry himself sick that the Lord might up and lead off some other poor, unsuspecting chosen people and plop them down right in our own backyard, yea, and do all of the other nail-biting and sleep-disturbing things that a king must do, and then go out and fetch himself a second job!
8 And it came to pass that I did not listen to the small-minded views of my people, and I did remind them that they were now living in a monarchy, and that we would not have a representative government for about twenty-five hundred years.
9 And behold, my duties as the king began to be exceedingly heavy; wherefore, I did hire Lemuel full time, that he might be the vice king; yea, and we did employ others to be our cabinet and our counselors and still others to be their assistants and then a bevy of secretaries to keep track of all the appointments and the paperwork created by the assistants and the counselors and the cabinet.
10 And it came to pass that we did need a whole department just to collect the taxes; yea and another to maintain the tax rolls and still another to help spend the taxes; and behold, Lemuel was happy that we had become a numerous people, for the government had become our number one growth industry.
