I.O.U.S.A - Addison Wiggin [57]
Bill Bonner : John Milton said, in the beginning all the Earth was America. What he meant was it was just open, and it was free, and it was available. When people came to America originally, they came for a lot of personal reasons, but they came with nothing, generally, and they came expecting to fi nd a place where they could build the life that they wanted for themselves. They didn ’ t ask for a government handout, or a subsidy, or a license. They didn ’ t ask for anything; they just wanted to be left alone to do their own thing. Some were religious people who wanted to set up a City of God, which they did in New England. Others wanted to farm in the south. What they shared was a common idea about what America was. It wasn ’ t exactly a place because it had no boundaries. They were pushing back the boundaries of America all the time. As far as they knew, America was almost infi nite; they didn ’ t know how far it went. So it wasn ’ t a place and it wasn ’ t a government. They were colonies of Britain, each one governed its own way. Later they set up their own government and declared that they had the right to decide for themselves how they would be governed. But it was a place where people could come and c08.indd 118
8/26/08 6:59:06 PM
William Bonner 119
live freely. And it meant that they were free from the burdens of centralized government.
But now, America is not really very much different from any other country. Generally America ’ s not particularly more free than Britain or France or practically any other country we can fi nd. They all have their different cultures, a different style of food and dress. But the fundamental difference that used to separate America from the rest of the world no longer exists, and that difference was that America was a free country. The rest all had their governments, they had their aristocracies, they had their special classes, they had rigidity, structure, establishments, institutions, and these required people to be a certain way. If you were in a certain segment of society you had to play that role, but in America you could be anything you wanted. So it was a very, very different place. And now America ’ s not such a different place. Now America ’ s acting like an empire. It ’ s spending more money than it has and it ’ s throwing its weight around, as empires traditionally do.
Q: Can you go a little bit further with that?
Bill Bonner : One of the great delusions that Americans live with now is the delusion that they are a freer people than others in the world. This is something that animates the Bush administration; they believe that they ’ ve got something that everybody else would like to have and so they ’ re going to force them to have it. But America really isn ’ t that much freer or any different than anyplace else now. You need a permit for anything you try to do. There ’ s a regulation for it or there ’ s a tax.
Q: We choose not to listen to advice that was given a long time ago. Is that part of our culture, is that something that ’ s just human nature, or is that particularly present in American human nature?
Bill Bonner : I think Americans particularly are susceptible to what I call the tyranny of the here and now. Americans have no history. That ’ s not always a bad thing, because it makes Americans a very inventive culture. Jefferson and the Founding Fathers were c08.indd 119
8/26/08 6:59:06 PM
120 The
Interviews
scholars. They read the history of Rome and read it very carefully.
They tried to build into the U.S. Constitution certain checks and balances. These were designed intentionally to avoid the kinds of problems that they had seen occurring in history over many, many generations. And that sort of ignoring dead people is a risky proposition. But dead people don ’ t vote; it ’ s only the living who vote. And what do they vote for? They vote to give themselves more money. Where do they get the money? They get it partially from the dead by