Re: What do you believe?

Description: Bill believes in the love of family and country, and independence.

Question: Do you have a personal philosophy?

Transcript: I don’t have a . . . a set of deep, formalized, religious convictions. I think a lot about the big existential questions – you know why are we here, what are we doing and so on and so forth. You know I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that story about Gertrude Stein. She was on her deathbed, and she said . . . she said, “What is the answer?” And she was told there wasn’t any answer, and she said, “Well in that case, what is the question?” And I think we ought to ask ourselves, “What’s the question? What’s the answer?” and so forth. And as best I can tell, the answer is family. The answer is love. The answer is love of country, love of family, all the things that really make our lives worthwhile. And what are we gonna leave behind? What is our legacy going to be? You know there’s a phrase that I like a lot: What did you do with the dash? So you know on your tombstone it’s going to have your birth date and your date of death, and in between there’s going to be a dash. And the question is what did you do with that time in between? What did you do with that dash? I think that’s the big question.

Question: Do you have a political philosophy?

Transcript: I have a fierce political philosophy, and it is independence. I really despair when people start off by saying, you know, “I’m a conservative, and therefore . . .” Or, “I’m a liberal, and therefore . . .” You know, “Let’s privatize something,” or “Big government is best.” I just got into this discussion the other day with Newt Gingrich. And what I say is if you’re a business person; if you’re in the military; if you’re a football coach; if you’re anybody – a mother – how do you think? You think about what’s the problem to be solved. And that’s the way we have to be. We have to be pragmatic. So I think of myself as a centrist; as a pragmatic problem solver. And I wish we could get our political leaders to put aside all this ideology and think about problem-solving. Be a centrist. Be independent.

Question: Do the young have a responsibility to the old?

Transcript: I think the young have a responsibility to the old. And very definitely older people have a responsibility to the young. There’s no question. Every generation has to be responsible to the other. That’s what . . . that’s what society is built upon. And you know there was a congressman who came to the AARP Board one day, and he said, “You know that young people have to pay for older people to receive Social Security. And I’m gonna go out and talk to young people, and I’m going to make them madder than hell about this.” And of course there is no intergenerational warfare in this country. He was . . . he was dead wrong. Young people are interested in their parents and their grandparents. And as I said before, vice versa. We have to all care about each other. And if we do that, we’ll be a better society.

Question: How does one age well?

Transcript: Well I think there’s a formula. And the formula is not a deep secret. The way to age well, I think, is to stay mentally and physically active. And then the obvious things: you know eat well, don’t smoke, those kinds of things. Get plenty of exercise. But mental and physical activity are the most important things that people can do to age well.

Recorded on: 9/27/07