B.W. Richardson

Sunni: You know, first F. Paul Wilson started chipping away at the stereotype of New Jerseyites I'd had, and you've been accelerating the damage. But on the other hand, a quick look at the state's anti-self-defense laws makes it clear there's a basis for some aspects of the stereotype. So where's the truth? Or are you and Paul, and the stereotype, both extremes of differing sorts?

B.W.: Until a couple of months ago, at least I could say the tobacco Gestapo didn't reach here yet, but, well ... now we have a smoking ban all our own.

Sunni: Well, that's happening worldwide, sad to say.

B.W.: You know I never smoked, and sometimes I like the smell of tobacco and sometimes I don't. But I just see tobacco prohibition as a microcosm of everything that's gone wrong with the concept of freedom in America. We all just seem to be talking past each other, and tobacco is a great example of how it happens.

Sunni: Absolutely. It's a stinky habit that helped kill my father, but somehow I've no problem being with my dear friend Cat Farmer when she steps outside for a smoke break. And she's always very careful about being downwind of me, so it doesn't aggravate my breathing problems. If we can work around it, so can most other people, I figure. But back to you. It's been a lot of fun, getting to know you better over the past few months via our blogs. Sometimes you've written on the very thing I'd been musing about, or said something in exactly the way I was thinking about it ... and neither of these are very common experiences for me!

B.W.: It was kind of mind-boggling there for a while, I was building ideas off your blog and you were coming back expanding the thought. You've really helped me get a handle on some things, especially the whole thought of advocating for freedom and liberty and a personal philosophy without trying to impose it on those who aren't ready for it.

Sunni: Yeah, that was fun, and I wanted to do more, because you were helping me too, but my attention span seems to be shot these days. Anyway, in some ways I really don't know you very well at all. Can you give me some background on you, such as what and who led you to the freedom philosophy?

B.W.: Well, growing up and living in Jersey is an essential building block, I think. Living there just makes you scream, I have to be free of this! [laughs] I was your typical geeky awkward teenager, reading comics and science fiction and hanging around with the smart kids. I think reading Orwell as a teen was huge for my eventual transformation—1984 and Animal Farm scared the bejeebers out of me, and as I slooooowwwly started figuring out that they were coming true before my eyes, I started coming around to a vision of something better. Gotta admit I got sold on Ronald Reagan—Reagan the talker who said government is the problem, not Reagan the president who compounded the problem. Not that I grokked it fully at the time—I actually was a loyal little Republican for longer than I care to admit. I think I started becoming vaguely aware of libertarianism and Libertarians in the late '80s.

The last year, and communing with folks like Wally Conger and you, has really helped me crystallize not just that Big Government is the problem, but that I'm not the only one who thinks reasonable people can do without government just fine. It's been a chance to put together disjointed and seemingly unconnected thoughts and try to make them a coherent whole—Reagan the talker not the president, Marrou, Orwell, Bradbury, Heinlein, Gandhi. Right now I'm in the middle of Bill Bonner's Empire of Debt, which is really giving me the economic education I wish I'd had 20 years ago—and thanks to Sunni's Salon, by the way. I read your review and said, Gotta read that.