Here in the United States, we've just finished celebrating our independence as a nation, and students of history will know that the battles fought and won for this cause, while clearly ideological, were largely motivated by commercial interests. In short, we were damn tired of not being able to buy and sell what we wanted, when we wanted. Our Independence Day remains as much a celebration of capitalism as anything else.
The irascible nature of America in the face of constraints on commerce has been one of the driving forces of my country's progress for more than 200 years. Yet...