‘You Didn’t Build That!’ … Oh Yeah?
One of the many great things about Paul Johnson’s magisterial A History of the American People is that he begins that history in the Sixteenth Century. There was an identifiable, culturally distinguishable American People long before there was a Revolutionary War, a Constitution, or a central government. The American People, by their industry and ingenuity, didn’t just build successful businesses… they built the most successful nation in history — and all, somehow, without HUD, Fannie, Freddie, the EPA, OSHA…
In one of a thousand vignettes, Johnson tells the story of the founding of Springfield:
Elijah Miles, who moved to the Sangamon River country in 1823, left a record of how he founded Springfield. It was then only a stake in the ground. He marked out an 18-foot-square site for a store, went to St. Louis to buy a 25-ton stock of goods, chartered a boat, shipped his stock to the mouth of the Sangamon, and then had his boat and goods towed upriver by five men with a 300 foot tow-rope. Leaving his goods on the riverside — “As no one lived near, I had no fear of thieves” — he walked 50 miles to Springfield, hired waggons and teams, and so got his stuff to the new “town,”where his store was the first to open. It was the only one in a district later divided into fourteen counties, so “many had to come more than 80 miles to trade. Springfield grew up around him.
The president can try telling Americans they can’t build businesses, careers, communities and lives without his broke and broken Leviathan, but history and common sense prove him wrong every time. I’ve listened to some of this debate with fascination. Not at Obama — there is nothing surprising about his cockamamie claim that individual Americans could not have built their successful ventures without his central-planners providing the infrastructure of roads, bridges, police, firemen, schools and the like. What surprises me is the response of some on our side who argue that it was the other way around — that it was the successful ventures that prompted all the infrastructure.
Why would we concede the infrastructure to Obama? When it comes to human beings living in society and helping each other, why do we allow the president to treat we/us as if it were synonymous with the federal government. We built roads and bridges, policed our communities, put out fires, taught our children, and built our businesses before there ever was a federal government.
It is certainly true that, in modern times, the government has gotten itself involved in the infrastructure business. Very often, that has not been a positive development. At Reason, Matt Welch has a very interesting column about the building of the Golden Gate Bridge — which Obama likes to cite as a federal government success story that “benefitted everyone” and, so the story goes, made possible the success of the evil one-percenters.
The story is fiction. As Welch shows, the federal government did everything it could to prevent the Golden Gate from being built. The local people and businesses wanted it; but the Defense Department did not want it built and owned the land on either side of the channel, which it refused for a long time to sell. When it finally agreed to sell, it would not sell to the developers, only to a state commission. And the feds did not participate… other than to try to derail the project. That is, federal contractor unions held up the works, trying to extort their piece of the pie. Finally, because of the market’s collapse and the Great Depression, the bond financing ran into trouble, resulting in more delay until, finally, private capital — the personal wealth of A.P. Giannini — came to the rescue. The bridge was completed $1.7 million under budget, Welch recounts, “using non-union labor and private contractors.”
Welch ends with a fabulous point. In today’s dollars, the $35 million cost of the Golden Gate Bridge translates into $530 million. That’s “far less than one percent of Obama’s stimulus package. So,” he asks, “where the hell are our new Golden Gates? What exactly has been the return on all this added ‘investment’?”
Human beings are social beings who act in their individual self-interest — which, common sense tells us, is often but far from always personal gain. Obama thinks the individual American, particularly if he is an entrepreneur, compares unfavorably to the noble federal government — as if the government were some altruistic “we” just looking to help. When the feds “help,” however, they are often an overbearing presence that depresses individual initiative. Those who run government are in it to wield power, mainly redistributing benefits to their favored, connected cronies. Government stifles the individual more than it empowers him.
The president should not be able to get away with equating such a self-interested behemoth with “us” — the people who help each other and make their communities, and ultimately the country, work. And the thought that the behemoth has become benevolent under Obama, and that we somehow would not have infrastructure without it, is laughable.
When Obama said, “You didn’t build that….,” I think this speech will be seen, not far down the road, as the moment when he lost the election.
His words were staggeringly obtuse. I can’t think of a more thoroughgoing way to crap on everybody who has built up something from scratch.
Hey there, small business owner, entrepreneur, family struggling to meet daily needs — the President of the United States just took a dump on you. How’s it feel?
You think you’ve succeeded through your own efforts? No, it was government that made it all possible. The very same government that wraps you in endless red tape, regulations, restrictions, permits, and variances, not to forget special taxes, too.
Yes, that’s what made your efforts successful: government. Let’s all have a giant second helping of it.
Well, I don’t know what’ll happen on election day, but I hope to heaven this guy gets shown the door.
Small business owners were probably not going to vote for Obama anyway. Obama will sacrifice the future of many small businesses by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. This isn’t by accident. A dictator can’t lord over people until they are all poor and their spirits broken.
Then now would be a good time to point out that his comment insults not only every entrepreneur, but also all the employees who learned a skill, got a job, got up on time to get to work every day and earned their pay. If the entrepreneur’s success is not his own, neither is the worker’s success his own.
The Bush tax cuts should and will expire. They haven’t done anything useful. As far as the “you didn’t build that” comment, let’s look at it in context:
“If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own … If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive … If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that … The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
- President Barack Obama, Roanoke Fire Station No. 1, Roanoke, Va., July 13, 2012
How dare President Obama suggest that we add value to the economy together! In the conservative version, only the rich do! But where do conservatives get these ideas from?
“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contribute nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all their brains.”
- Ayn Rand, “Atlas Shrugged,” required reading for Rep. Paul Ryan’s, R-Wis., staff.
Interestingly, Ayn Rand sucked away at the federal teat she so despised towards the end of her life under another name, but that’s another story.
The rich in this view are the engine of the economy who all the other people rely on for their survival. The economy isn’t something we create together. It is something the rich create for everyone else, so they are, therefore, entitled to special treatment such as paying no taxes and hiding tax returns when running for president. The problem with this sort of mentality is that it is what is responsible for the economic mess we are in right now.
So let me ask you a question: Does working for Obama’s Office of the Director of Progressive Media and Online Response pay well?
Short answer: no. However, I’d like to ask you a question as well. Do you think the wealthy create jobs (i.e. job creators)? My view is that they don’t The wealthy do not create jobs. They create personal wealth. This seems like a no brainer, but some find it hard to understand. I think Abraham Lincoln put it best in that:
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861
President Obama, the second great President from the state of Illinois, understands this. Why don’t you? Can you answer that question?
Individuals create jobs, through selling their marketable skills and labor to people who don’t have them, but need them.
Government cannot compel you to have marketable skills. You have to do that yourself.
Voyager, I think the point Lincoln is making is contrary to what todays neo-cons make in that we should somehow genuflect and kiss the ring of the mythical, so called, “job creators” when in reality they have created nothing. Lincoln understood that we have a ‘trickle up’ economy – always have and always will. ‘Trickle down’ was a Big Lie to make the greedy even richer, and it worked. Now these, anything but American values, are being exposed for the clear and present danger they represent.
Wouldn’t it be great if the republican party got back to their Lincolnesque roots? How far they have strayed …
Cynical Wonder says:
“Do you think the wealthy create jobs (i.e. job creators)? My view is that they don’t The wealthy do not create jobs. They create personal wealth”
And your view of how money works is foolishly immature, just like our “Coom-Gang” President who has never had a Real Job a single day of his life. Its along the same plane as my 4 year old son, who points to an ATM when daddy says “we have no money for that today”
Are you really this ignorant, or are you just being provacative?
You “create personal weath” by investing, purchasing, selling and RISKING your money, in business interactions with OTHER PEOPLE, in the hope you can all turn it into MORE money. All of that activity creates jobs.
Because when you are sucessfull in your quest to Create Personal wealth, such as cutting enough laws or doing enough home renovations that your happy satisfied customer base now exceeds your personal physical ability to service them all, you:
A) BUY another truck, perhaps on your good credit?
B) You BUY more tools and equipment, perhaps on your good credit?
C) You HIRE some more WORKERS to serve your customers.
All of that creates jobs. Auto industry. Manufacturing. Banking. Everybody gets a piece of the action.
And now you begin to MANAGE the enterprise and direct how its money flows in and out more than you perform the actual work yourself. You invest your profits into other venues (start-ups? stocks? real estate? internet?) and begin to accumulate (wait for it!) even more “personal wealth” if you are savy.
But heres the REAL kicker Wonder Boy…you are paying for all these other people, products and enterprises in REAL MONEY, while YOU carry on YOUR BACK (guess what?) the burden, the risk, and the responsibility to PAY BACK some hefty business loans as you “grow your empire”.
Your quest for personal wealth supports all that.
Not everyone succeeds in this. Some actually do fail. But enough of us do succeed, IN SPITE OF an impossible to comprehend tax code (we must PAY professionals to help us) and corrupt Public Unions who bribe politicians with own money, that most of the country can live off the efforts of those driven to suceed.
Plenty of folks that you and Obama would(do) call “wealthy” are self made entrepreneurs, contractors, techinical/mechanical I/T and service industry types, who BUILT their businesses using their OWN CREDIT.
They now live in “rich gated communities” or “McMansions” in the suburbs, drive big evil SUV’s have swimming pools, maids and landscapers, and earn oh, say about about 250,000 a year….
These “wealthy people” NOW MANAGE their business and MANAGE their investments, while paying huge amounts of Property and Capital Gains taxes…which FURTHER FUND the local schools, police and fire services, beyond the simple “income and witholding tax” they paid as “employees”…
And all of their (OMG!) employees now also BUY things, from OTHER people, and pay their OWN taxes. And some of these employees will follow the same path as their boss, creating and growing their OWN little empires.
Creating Personal Wealth creates jobs. You cannot create real Personal Wealth WITHOUT creating other jobs. Its just. Not. Possible.
Its called “economics”. Its how things happen.
Learn some basic math someday, its quite an eye-opening event I assure you.
So I have a simple question for you, slick:
Where, oh God where, do YOU think all that money for roads, teachers, firemen food stamps and welfare COMES from?
My only qulifier is that Debt to China, or enslavement of generations yet born, are not acceptable answers.
hmmm?
Root, take up your argument with Abraham Lincoln. You and him are obviously not on the same page. You envision a different kind of America from the one he did. I like his vision better. His vision is more conducive to us forming “a more perfect union.” Yours is not, and frankly, it is un-American. Your ideas would find a better home in 1930s Italy.
When considering the validity of Abraham Lincoln’s opinion on the economy, it’s important to remember that he was a world-renown economist, that “labour” is synonymous with “government” and not individual sweat and tears, and that his administration proved this view with its remarkable non-war-related public spending.
Oh wait. Cynical is just babbling incoherently. Carry on.
With a name like, ‘Cynical Wonder’ you oddly seem to enjoy the Illiberal kool-aid.
Obama said this, in a public sector union firehouse, using a hypothetical public school teacher i.e. ANOTHER public sector union rube for his example. Whereas Uhabama stopped short because even HE realized he was needling the private sector business owner contingent with, ‘..you didn’t build that’ quip before snapping out of his TRUE self and getting back to his empty-headed rhetoric, pontifications where EVERYONE of us can sadly recite.
If you can’t see this as but another example of Uhbama sticking his nose further up the presently disgruntled public sector union types you MAY have to consider changing your screen name. Jmo.
CW’s another sneering, resentful Leftist whose notions of history and human nature read like a cut and past ransom note. What state supremacists like CW conveniently overlook is that no nation or empire ever taxed itself into freedom and prosperity. Most of human history is a reflection of despotism of one sort or another. CW yearns for a return to to that sort of situation where he fancies that he’ll be in the vanguard of the elite, and thus immune to the consequences of his very bad ideas. CW and his ilk are in for some rather unpleasant surprises, I think.
Cynical Wonder says :
“Root, take up your argument with Abraham Lincoln. His vision is more conducive to us forming “a more perfect union.” Yours is not, and frankly, it is un-American. Your ideas would find a better home in 1930s Italy.”
Spectacular! Calling my absolutely Constitutionally aligned defense of Individual Rights over State Powers, and my incontrovertibly, endlessly precidented and verifiable “Lincolnian” view of Individual Freedom and Private Property Rights held sacredly above the Arbitrary Enslavement, Confiscation and Re-distribution Powers of Wannabe Central Planners such as yourself, THIS you call “Fascist”.
Good God son, have you ever in your life, actually READ a book?
Seriously?
You must have gotten the wrong Memo from the DNC….
We’re “Racists” when defend Individual Rights and the Constitution…
Got that?
Racists, not Fascists.
I’ll answer your screed with one of my own. Individuals, acting under the invisable hand of the free market, create jobs, and the more resources you have the more jobs you help create. How else do these rich folks make their money in the first place, other than creating or expanding businesses which create jobs. Excessive taxes at any income level suck capital out of this private economy, and shift it toward less productive fed spending.
A reasonable level of government provided infrastructure can help the private economy. As far as what is reasonable, it should be done as much as possible at the state level, and as little as possible at the fed level. This is because anything is done better if it is done under compeditive conditions, and states compete with each other, while the fed gov has no competition, and therefore is more able to get away with doing it badly.
As for what is reasonable at the fed level, I would prefer about 10% of GDP (which we could achieve by returning many functions to states or individuals and voluntary associations where they belong) but could live with the 18% of GDP we had under Clinton. But presently Obama spends an unprecedently bloated 25% of GDP, the most since WW2, 25% worse than big spender Bush, and 35% worse than Clinton. This bloated fed spending must be cut back to at least 20% of GDP, and preferably to 18%, and I see no signs whatsoever Obama and the dem senate (which cant even pass a budget) will ever do that.
As for tax hikes, as I said they all suck capital out of the more productive private economy. But I have an even bigger reason to oppose tax hikes now. This president, and his party has shown no restraint in controlling spending whatsoever. Giving a tax hike to this president now, is equivalent to giving a bottle of vodka to a drunk. Perhaps if I see an actual fiscal year when we have reduced actual current spending to a more reasonable 20% of GDP, and we still have a deficit, then and only then will I trust the gov to get some more revenue, by cutting tax loopholes not raising rates, while they cut enough more to get spending down to 18% of GDP. But I am not going to fork over the tax hikes today, in exchange for Whimpy like promisses of spending cuts in outyears that never happen.
As for your Ayn Rand remark, first I would submit her personal life does not necessarily alter whether her ideas were correct. But even more, where do you get this idea that anybody who advocates small gov must forego any gov benefits. If I am forced to pay for it, then I may as well get what I was forced to pay for, while at the same time advocating eveybody, including me, get less from gov. And perhaps you could also apply your own standard to yourself. If you think high taxes and fed spending are so great, then why dont you, and Warren Buffet, voluntarily donate your own money to the fed gov. After all, they can spend that money much better than you can right, and it will benefit all of us and create jobs right? Isn’t that the flip side of your demand we forego any benefits we advocate cutting? Of course I know you wont, because most leftists are very generous with other peoples money, but not so much with their own.
Cynical Wonder says :
“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
Lincoln’s First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861
President Obama…understands this. Why don’t you?”
Wonder Boy, neither you or Obama understand that a single word of statement. You both lack the intellectual capacity to grasp the Greatness of what that First REPUBLICAN President was saying, or you are simply co-conspirators in crime of theift.
Capital is indeed fruit of Labor.
MY capital, is the fruit of MY labor.
No one else has claim to it.
NO ONE.
I have worked hard to accumulate a small excess. There is some food in the pantry, it will last till tomorrow and a bit beyond. There is some money in the bank, it will last till tomorrow and a bit beyond.
How far it will last without additional daily wages added, I cannot know. But I DO know, it cannot simply lie there dormant, and sustain me forever as I gradually take from it in the leaner times…this is simple arithmetic.
Prudence says I should INVEST that excess, that Fruit, that CAPITAL THAT’S ALREADY BEEN TAXED, and try to LIVE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE FROM THE GROWTH OF IT, rather than just nibble from it daily, inert and lifeless ever shrinking, until gone forever.
I have EVERY RIGHT ON EARTH to use that small excess, that Fruit of my Labor already taxed, to invest and grow with NO interference or any additional NEW taxes, placed upon it, by YOU.
Or Obama
Or the Teachers Union
Or anyone
What you and Obama are saying is, I must REMAIN a wage slave, forever. I may live off my taxed daily Labor, but not the fruit of it. You are sayin, if that small, already taxed excess I I’ve accumulated invest dares to grow, you will seize upon THAT well, taxing it TWICE.
You are even today, scheming to make the portion of that seizure even larger than it was yesterday, all in the name of “fairness”.
To Whom do you pretend this is “fair”? Certainly not to the Laborer…The one who Produced his own Capital, and now fears now the risk of venturing its growth is outweighed by the AUTOMATIC LOSS of what now, a quarter?
A third?
HALF?
You and your kind will graciously allow me to EAT the surplus apple I purchased through my daily labor, but seek to punish me further should I attempt to plant a TREE that would dare provide me with FUTURE fruit at less labor to myself…You and your kind will graciously allow me to DRINK that extra cup of water (here only because yesterdays thirst went unquenched?), but you discourage, obstruct and secretly poison, any sustaining WELL I might try to dig for myself.
You are saying I should simply eat my last apple, and drink my last cup of water, and be thankful.
That tomorrow, their “might” be some paid labor I can exert somewhere, for someone, with which to purchase my next meal.
Well, thank you kindly, Massa.
I din wunt no fruit t’day anyhow
“The Bush tax cuts should and will expire. They haven’t done anything useful.”
complete and utter nonsense, history proves you wrong. tax cuts have continued to save this country over and over by increasing revenue when needed. they worked in the twenties, they worked for Kennedy, they worked for Reagan, they worked for Bush. we don’t add value to the economy together – show me a person on welfare who is hiring people and paying for others to work.
it’s obvious you don’t know how business works. speaking of hiding tax records I’m sure you can access obummers records?
I hope you’re right. I think that, among other things, that statement was when all doubt was removed about his being, at a minimum, a small “c” communist, if not an outright large “C” Communist.
(OK, it’s gauche to reply to one’s own comment, but why not?)
What this whole episode brings out in starkest detail is just how thoroughly un-American this guy is. He is totally a product of today’s academy, and that’s where I hope he returns as fast as possible next January.
His biggest life mistake, ever, was leaving the campus for politics. He has a tin ear for how ordinary people speak and think, and his political talent is zero — Lyndon Johnson’s bath water had more political skill. (And let’s not even talk about good ol’ Bill, who demeaned the office but who certainly has ample political chops, even now.)
Yet much as I want to see Obama trounced in the election, I do feel sorry for his kids. At a time in their lives when they should feel proud of their father and look up to him for all sorts of fatherly things, they are sitting first-row, ringside at a process it will be very hard to watch. And even if he gets a second term — God forbid! — I don’t think American historians are going to be kind to him in years and decades to come. That would be hard to grow up with as part of one’s family history.
Michelle might have been out of her gourd when she was talking about hardly ever feeling proud of her country — but I bet these kids come away from this whole episode pretty soured on American politics and society.
Good post, but I hope (as I’ve said on another site) he not go back to the academy, but take over George McGovern’s Bed and Breakfast. Then he’ll learn what a Profit and Earnings Ratio is.
Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian has absolutely nothing in common with the average American and even less in common with African Americans. This 50% WHITE 40% ARAB 10% Black guy has a lineage from his Kenyan BRITISH CITIZEN, Alcoholic, Polygamous, Undesirable mooching alien, womanizing, absentee Father which has connections to Muslim SLAVE TRADERS not to SLAVES. He was also, apart from being BORN a Muslim through his father, brought up as a devout Mosque going Muslim as the adopted INDONESIAN CITIZEN son of his Stepfather Lolo Soetero. When Barry Soetero attended STATE school in Jakarta ONLY Indonesian CITIZENS were allowed to do so. Then on return to Hawaii his WHITE Grandparents, who took care of him because his father had run away and his mother didn’t care, provided him privilege and luxury he skated through school and College with AFFIRMATIVE ACTION enabling his cause. He associated and indeed SOUGHT out (its all in his book DREAMS which the Lame Stream EneMedia and Left Wing moonbats studiously ignore) Terrorists both Domestic and Foreign, Islamic Radicals, Communists, Felons and Racist Black Supremacists as role models. In his youth he was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis a COMMUNIST, BISEXUAL fiend of his Grandfather, he even wrote LOVE POEMS to him. Which most probably explains his homosexual dalliances in his early days (and perhaps even now).
So to ask Barry HUSSEIN Soetero Kardashian America’s first Bisexual, Celebrity UNQUALIFIED, inefficient , incompetent, USURPER President to ‘UNDERSTAND’ what built America and what it means to be an American is a long shot indeed.
From your mouth to gods ears freind.
All great comments/replies, up to this point, especially by Richard 40 and Root83 to Cynical Wonder/blunder. Enjoyed reading it all. Thanks!
The thing to remember is that CW is a typical Libtard troll of the more “sophisticated” variety, well schooled in sophistry. It’s like arguing with one’s mother in law, which is the whole point of his/her effort: to keep you all involved in lengthy responses which ultimately exhaust both, writer and reader, and keep us from more important things, like actually organizing to get out November’s votes in our favor. Forget CW. Ignore.
As a parting shot: I bet CW can’t even give a simple DEFINITION of Capital.
He/she is too ignorant for that, despite quoting Atlas Shrugged, where that definition is not explicitly contained, but derivable from the plot by any even somewhat educated and thinking person.
(Hint: 3 words are good, 2 will do!)
My bet is CW wouldn’t know it, if her/his life depended on it, as ultimately it does! CW wouldn’t even know THAT. Conceptual thinking ability = 0.
Remember November!
President Obama and VP Biden are on the same page of “China has the greatest cities in the world”.
There are a number of ghost cities of huge infrastructure, bullet trains and all of it is useless. No one lives there, it is too expensive. Shops that are open there remain empty hoping that it will change.
It won’t.
Team Obama/Biden wants the US to be more like China, but China has only been moderately successful only because they are now more like the US.
Now is the time to show Team Obama is wrong and their vision of a central planning government like China is not the American way to success and prosperity. Liberty is the only way to make that happen, free from centralized big government.
Rise up sons and daughters of Liberty! Defend your rights, your privilages and your freedom from taxation, over regulation and stifling burdens of government.
Vote Republican. Vote Tea Party. Vote for Freedom and Liberty to bring the blessings of prosperity!
Go Mitt! Romney for President! 2012!
Thank you for mentioning liberty. There is a statue of a woman who represents Liberty. This administration (especially, but there have been others) has been having their way with her. Real men wouldn’t treat a woman this way, and I imagine if Obama and Co. could, they would shroud Lady Liberty in a burka (look for the Union label).
What do liberty and women have in common? They are both delicate and deserve respect even from those whose size and might would allow them to easily harm or destroy them. If you look at societies where tyranny abounds you’ll notice a lack of rights for women. Females in Arab countries are denied many rights and are treated poorly under the law. In China, the female fetus gets singled out for elimination because it is less desirable.
I suppose the Statue of Liberty could have been of a dog as they too suffer wherever liberty is wanting. But the artist chose a woman and it must have to do with a real man’s instinct to protect the one who bears his children, or is a sister or a mother, etc. Real men will defend women, not the metero or weak little sissy- which defines the liberal male and his collectivist cohorts seeking to ‘fundamentally change’ our society via their strength in numbers.
The same is true of liberty. It’ll take real men (real Americans) to stand up and defeat the attacks on her too. From Liberty is born that which has made America unique, exceptional, and the envy of the world. Woe unto to those who fail to recognize our inherited kinship with Liberty. The backlash that awaits this den of miscreants in November will be of titanic proportions. They’ll regret the day they laid their filthy hands on her.
I dont think that China is the model of team Obama. I think the model is Venezuela, in which prosperity is replaced by equality, and in order to obtain equality, we must all sink to the lowest common denominator. Obama resembles Hugo Chavez every day, and Hollywood (Obamas biggest supporters) feted Chavez on his recent trip to the US
You are right that Chavez, however, the leader of Argentina is also doing many of the same things as Obama. She said last week that “fairness” is more important than “freedom. What a crock of bull. This guy needs to go…one big ass mistake America.
Barack Obama, of course. American history is a lie. Sez who? Obama, that’s who.
When Microsoft was first started, did a public road in front of their office MAKE IT a success? The bottom line is that Obama gave absolutely no credit to the people who start businesses and sink their lives into it. Obama only believes that government is responsible for everything and that nothing can be created or solved without it.
Well, if that’s the case, why wasn’t the stimulus a gigantic success rather than the dismal failure that it was? After all, the government was in charge of investing hundreds of billions of dollars into the private sector, it was supposed to be creating all of those “shovel-ready jobs” Obama yearned for, and it picked winners and losers in the energy field, like Solyndra, even though none of these corporations had a successful track record for creating anything except more debt. So if according to Obama, the government is the answer to everything, how come the economy isn’t swimming along magically because of the stimulus?
Because, as usual, Obama is wrong. The stimulus was an utter failure and he knows it. And so does the American public. Socialist liars like Obama want you to believe that all success stems from government, when they know it’s just not true. The government never created a Ford Motor Company or Apple Computers, and that’s just a fact. Obama will never understand that, but at least we, the voters, do.
When Microsoft was started, they didn’t even have an office. Gates and Allen worked out of the MITS factory in Albuquerque. They had their flagship product in hand, and a healthy log of sales before they moved to Seattle and opened up something that resembles an office.
When they finally built the campus in Redmond, they were assessed by local government for the infrastructure to support it.
Among other things, Obama’s a complete dope regarding how public infrastructure projects are financed. If you build something, you’re assessed for the utilities. And no, they don’t build the utilities first, and hope the developers come, they furnish utilities to the development, and assess the developer for it.
This may very well not only be the most outrageous thing Obama’s ever said, it also may very well be the most ignorant. A government cheerleader without clue one as to how government works.
Microsoft is a very bad example, and may even support the Obama thesis, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that.
Why is Microsoft a bad example? They didn’t get any government help in their early years, or really, ever. In fact, they had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, by Janet Reno, into the D.C. lobbying racket. You don’t remember the big lawsuit? That was Janet, the heavy, making it clear that you have to pay to play.
Don’t know if you were in the industry at the time, but if you did a little research, you might change your mind. I could link some stuff for you but don’t have the time right now. And the point was more about significant help by people with influence, not necessarily overt government sponsorship.
At the time of start up that is. The Janet Reno thing was all for show afaic. Never mind the links. unless you want to subject yourself to a network attack.
If yu have someting substantial to say, say it otherwise STFU. I was in the industry then and now and cannot fathom your obtuseness.
As someone who knows a bit about what was happening in the industry at that time, I’m a little confused by your statement too. I know MS was fortunate to get involved with Big Blue, but Big Blue is not the government. So unless you want to actually explain yourself, you are assumed to be talking nonsense.
To DeeBee nice. I don’t have the time or inclination to write an exposition. Suffice it to say, that Microsoft’s rise given the quality of their products should raise eyebrows with anyone in the industry at the time (or now for that matter). It wasn’t just slick business acumen, although business ethics aside they got the job done. BG had connections through his family.
Oh yea I remember that. Microsoft was dragged to WDC and an assortment of allegations were leveled. Monopoly ,, except there were multiple operating systems available. Then when Microsoft, “hired” some lobbyist and funded a PAC, justice had been served and/or the shake down was complete. I don’t think Bill Gates has been seen in WDC since. Heard from, yes, seen, dont think so.
The left’s argument now is that Barry O’s comment is being misinterpreted; that he “mis-spoke”.
My rebuttal is that he was sold as The Greatest Orator of Our Time (Patent Pending) – were you lying then or are you lying now?
Mr. Obama has been and always will be one with Bertholt Brecht. As most know Brecht, for years the Left’s favorite commie playwright, famously said “We need to elect a new people.” He also said “People are too durable, that’s their main trouble. They can do too much themselves, they last too long.”
I’m sure that Mr. obama would be heart-and-soul with these statements. His vision of life is cribbed from the Leninist idea of the “vanguard elite.” In his mind the people are just too stupid to know what is good for them and need the “leadership” of an elevated class of properly-educated revolutionaries to tell the poor swine how to live their lives. In Obama’s view the people get in the way of governing.
In this Obama is part of the tradition that runs through late 19th Century Progressivism (itself inspired by Bismarck’s Germany) through Woodrow Wilson, the New Deal, the Great Society and now the mish-mash of leftist ideas that goes under the rubric of modern “liberalism.” All of this is predicated on the same premise – That it is the government,and nothing else, that is central fact in a person’s life. (At least Bismarck was honest about it. He originated the welfare state, not because he was interested in “the people”, but rather as a way of outmaneuvering the social democrats and to put the German people squarely behind his ideas of militarism and empire.)
In his remarks on small business Mr. Obama let the mask slip. He was in fact saying, “You are nothing without us.” The depressign thing is the number of people who are willing to sign on to this sentiment and say “yes.”
Walter Williams: Tyrants And Human Nature
http://www.creators.com/opinion/walter-williams/tyrants-and-human-nature.html
I have compiled my families genealogy as a hobby for the past 50 years. I can site countless examples of family pioneers setting out from Pennsylvania, Virginia, South and North Carolina, Ohio and heading west in ox carts on trails through mostly not well charted routes and later by railroad after arriving in America from Europe. They wanted an opportunity not a handout. They wanted a chance to create a life they could not have where they were whether in the east or in Europe.
We the people supplied the money the government used to buy and expand this country. (The government doesn’t produce anything except collecting taxes and printing money, so Obama please stop with the “government largesse nonsense” ).
My relatives were people walking into unknown territories with only a vague and often freightening idea of what to expect. But they took the risk and sometimes it paid off. There were no government roads or mail service, indeed what government there was once settled they established with no help from anyone but their neighbors. Sure a few forts here and there but the military certainly didn’t escort these pioneers who often traveled in small not large convoys of ox carts/wagons and on foot with just the bare essentials of life.
I’ve seen much success in my family. Not necessarily financial, but that too. More importantly there still remains (for how long I don’t know) an individual spirit and a commitment to community that keeps us strong. My family and I won’t go quietly into Obama’s New America, that is for sure.
This small ‘p’ president is utterly clueless, arrogant, ignorant, and insulting to those individuals who have made and still make this country the greatest country that has ever existed.
God help us on November 6th.
Er, while I am no fan of President Obama, your story of Elijah Miles proves the point that he made in his speech. Unless you are arguing that Elijah built the roads himeslf, built the wagons that traveled on those roads himself, built the boat he chartered himself, etc. Now, you can say that these things were not done by government, and that would be true, but that was not what President Obama presented in his speech. I may not like him, but I am not going to lie about what he said.
He clearly meant what he said… in Obama’s philosophy, the individual (excepting the ruling class) is valueless; only the Collective has value. Therefore, anything the individual has rightly belongs to the Collective, with the implication being that the ruling class should be able to appropriate it and do with it as they see fit. This is Obama’s world, and it is the clearest statement he has made of his beliefs during his Presidency.
That most people these days build upon the foundation of civilization is so obviously true that it need not be said. That’s why Obama didn’t say that.
Er, maybe you could point out where anyone here ‘lied’ about what Obama said…
Did you even pay attention to his entire quote? To the whole speech?
We are all aware of what he said and what he meant. Stop sticking up for him when he attacks what’s great about this country!
Bobby, replay the entire speech and there is no way you can post what you did, unless you have your nose where the dont shine on Obama’s anatomy.
Obama’s “You didn’t build that….” statement shows he is locked in a slave mentality. The philosopher Nietzsche said (in his “Will to Power”, 51 & 125) that socialism was the “tyranny of the least and dumbest.” He also said that socialism embodied the slave mentality.
For Obama, the state is the master and people are the slaves. It is extraordinary that while Americans in general fought against slavery 150 years ago, defeated it, and it has not existed for all that time in America, Obama, steeped in Black Liberation Theology, lives within a slave framework. This fact explains why free people cannot understand him or his policies. Free people are not accustomed to thinking within a slave framework and few Americans can even imagine that anybody would function within such a mental framework.
Here’s his quote that has gotten all the conservatives up in arms or as most would say grasping at straws:
“…look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
Now what has gotten all the people who can’t understand what he was saying is that he was saying – you didn’t build the infrastructure it was American who did that. It was Government through their tax revenues that built the infrastructure and hired the teachers.
Please notice what you just said: “the Government… through their tax revenues.”
“Their” tax revenues?
From whom can the Government claim tax payments? From individuals and businesses who have wealth.
The people voluntarily cede their money to the government for specific purposes, which the people’s representatives get to vote on. It’s not the government’s money! How would there be any money to hand over in taxes, if individuals and businesses didn’t create the wealth first?
Suzanne people don’t voluntarily cede their money to the government they are required by law to file their returns and pay what they owe. Once the revenue is in the US Treasury is is the governments money. Prior to being in the US Treasury it is your money.
Once the revenue is in the US Treasury is is the governments money. Prior to being in the US Treasury it is your money.
It’s the peoples’ money regardless of its location.
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
—James Madison
As the representatives of the people had no hand in earning those monies, there is no particular incentive on their part days to spend it wisely.
Hence, the peoples’ money is now treated as something of a cash cow for self-promotion and the granting of political favors.
For “voluntarily cede their money,” read “agree to comply with the tax code.” You could, of course, be prepared to face fines, penalties and possible prison time by refusing to pay your taxes, but most people do comply.
But it’s still our own money! That’s why some, at least, continue to take an interest in how the people’s representatives spend it, and why they owe us an accounting for what they do with it.
Notice how leftist pols like the President, however, act like it’s a gift from the government to the taxpayer when the rates are lowered and they ‘give you back’ more (really, take away less!) of what you earned. They even refer to this as government (tax) expenditures–on a par with whatever they in their wisdom decide to spend money on.
bostonlib: what in the hell is the matter with you? where do you think the tax laws came from? the government doesn’t own your money..the government does not create wealth…the government is a spending machine of other peoples money. how did you get so screwed up? Now, of course, THIS current administration is the most corrupt in American history by stealing others dollars and squandering
the long built up wealth of hard working Americans. Please do us all a favor and get the hell out of America..perhaps Cuba would be more to your liking..now theres a real socialist success story!
“If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that.”
Yeah…why on earth are Americans up in arms about that?
By the way, it’s AWESOME how you completely glossed over Obama attacking individual intiative and sacrifice to build something.
Talk about missing the point.
Poor AF_Vet it appears you can’t comprehend what he said but please try even though it might be hard.
He said this at the end “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together”
No where does he denigrate individual initiative. Certainly this doesn’t. As for “If you got a business – You didn’t build that” Clearly it has gone over your head but he wasn’t referring to not building the individual business but not building the infrastructure. And he’s right business didn’t build that infrastructure or educate that child. Or maybe you think the military that protects our businesses in Foreign lands is paid by those businesses like some mercenaries.
Condescension won’t win you any style points, Boston.
If you want to spin Obama’s “ohhhh, everybody absolutely needs Big Daddy Government” drivel, I’d guess your brain is beyond salvage.
Obama has never accomplished anything on his own and, like most hothouse, ivory tower élitists, he’s resentful of anyone who has.
“Certainly this doesn’t. As for ‘If you got a business – You didn’t build that’ Clearly it has gone over your head but he wasn’t referring to not building the individual business but not building the infrastructure. ”
No, he meant what he said. He is, after all, The Greatest Orator Of All Time (TM). (Just ask him; he’ll tell you.) In the leftist philosophy to which Obama is completely committed, capitalism is an inherently evil activity. Therefore, by definition, anyone who succeeds at it does so by theft.
It is true because leftism says it is. I was just reading on ChicagoBoyz about a docent at a natural history museum who asserts that the American bison is extinct. Why? Because the EPA did not exist in the 19th century; therefore, the numerous private efforts undertaken to save the bison, a century before the EPA was ever thought of, never happened. Per Obama’s philosophy, no private effort ever accomplishes anything positive; only government effort is meaningful. The bison is extinct. QED.
Sorry BostonLib, but you are wrong. For a detailed explanation of the meaning of the statement in question according to the rules of English grammar, see:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444873204577535053434972374.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion#articleTabs%3Dcomments%26commentId%3D4458949
Poor Boston Lib…you open your alligator mouth and get your tweety-bird a$$ kicked by the rest of us.
You’ll grow up one day…and hopefully out of your liberal phase. Most adults do.
BL, your loyalty is admirable; your reasoning is not. We understood what he meant – he’s been saying it in various forms for years now.
Please elaborate: From where comes the revenue used to build the infrastructure? (hint: it isn’t from the government.)
Is government willing to take the blame for failures as well as the credit for successes?
If I were you, I wouldn’t bring up the example of teachers. While individual teachers are worthy of praise, the (government-run) system is not. IIRC, we have more than doubled the employment and increased spending 10-fold over the past 40 years – in return for flat test scores. You really don’t want to go there, do you?
Of course there are things that require a government – Please refer to the history of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, since you seem to be unaware of them. The point is that Obama and similar morons believe that government should and must oversee just about everything.
Like I said, your loyalty is admirable. Too bad it’s awarded to an unworthy ideal.
Boston Lib doesnt get it…
He a (wannabe) elitist who, like Obama, thinks it was “The Government” that showed up for us at Lexington and Concord.
Boston Lib is a (wannabe) elitist who, like Obama, sees government as something OTHER THAN our humble, groveling servant that does EXACTLY WHAT WE TELL IT TO DO, for our purposes, on our schedule, to meet our objectives, not theirs.
Boston Lib is the kind of (wannabe) elitist who, like Obama, who would never understand this type of exchange between our servants and ourselves:
Armed Police Chief: “I cant abide you folks ownin’ them auto-magnet-salt-guns no more…I’m thinking only WE should have any of them…I’m gonna talk to the Mayor about passing a new law”
Citizen: ” Ummm…Ya know Chief….thats MY gun you got there on your hip there, see?…I GAVE it to you…I gave you MY gun, to patrol MY town, only because I’m too busy right this very second to patrol it myself, see?”
Armed Police Chief: “that’s crazy talk!”
Citizen: “Actually, Chief……ALL the guns are MINE…and get this…NONE of them are ever YOURS…”
Armed Police Chief “But…But…How dare you…”
Citizen “So, if at any time you think this job is too much for you to handle, please dont let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, mmmkay? I’ll do it myself, or maybe hire some ‘nother fat guy to sleep in a car all night, because…..
YOU AINT IN CHARGE, I AM.”
Or, if I was talking to Obama:
“you didnt build that, WE DID”
See, its a subtle little, sophisticated type of (wait for it!) “nuance”, some folks on the left just dont get.
Spoken like a true Chicago gangster. The only difference between Obama and Capone is that Capone didn’t like communists. He didn’t want the competition.
Bingo! And this administration wants no competition from the private sector when it decides to really drop-the-hammer. Sixteen thousand new IRS agents aren’t just for show. This latest attempt at dominance is illustrated by their actions which are bold attempts to discredit any vibrant, competitive private sector and creative (wealthy) business people. Boy, have they got another thing coming.
Please consider giving some serious thought to willing your brain to science.
Your stupidity is extant and profound. People pay taxes (including business people), so there is no second charge of them felling obligated to the contiribution of others and others having any take ine sucess of such business people. WIth this kind of reasoning the fact that you are a lib says to me that there is too much lead in the water supply of Boston.
We shouldn’t cede the infrastructure to Obama. Having worked for an engineering firm for more than a decade, I know that it’s the private sector that builds all those roads and bridges. The government contracts out the work to private firms who bid on and compete for that work. Their private employees build that infrastructure. Leviathan, the great redistributor of wealth, just pays the bills.
“Leviathan, the great redistributor of wealth, just pays the bills.”
You are right as far as your statement goes. But it would be even more correct if it finished”
“Leviathan, the great redistributor of wealth, just pays the bills from funds it forcibly extracted from those who earned it. And wastes much of the funds along the way.”
Thanks for accurately completing the statement.
It’s Elijah Iles, not Elijah Miles. Good grief!
I think there is no question that remark comes out of Obama’s official policies to destroy the concept of the individual as the defining concept of what it means to be an American. It permeates all his ed policies where the cited research behind the theories adopted says that the essence of each person comes from their environment and interactions with others. As one cited prof put it, “students need to know there is no me without the we being first.” I am because we are replaces I think, therefore I am in Obama’s vision for America.
This communitarian ethos is also at the heart of these ridiculous energy and sustainability policies being pushed. In fact the two are connected. The idea is to reject the high-status knowledge that is only accessible to some people who think in a linear, sequential way. There’s a hatred for the technology those unique minds can create because the innovations may not benefit the current politically class.
We hear that in those side remarks about ATMs displacing jobs people could be performing. Basically in the famous Paul Ehrlich/Julian Simon wager over the future and whether to be optimistic or pessimistic, Obama takes Ehrlich’s side.
And is now using all those federal agencies and our tax dollars to try to redo the bet and shut down human ingenuity. Because sometimes remarkable minds really can change the world.
And statists hate it and don’t want it to happen again.
Nicely put.
I would add but this one, careful, correction: (from the point of view of a human being, as opposed to one of a million ants in the heap):
I am, therefore I think. (Sum, ergo cogito: Usually stated other way around.)
Being, precedes consciousness, precedes thinking – its use. The individual PRECEDES the collective, wherefore the collective can have NO rights not granted the individual. Anything else is subhuman, literally so.
Out of many like me, we create a “we”, and NOT the other way around. (That professor you cited was an obvious idiot with improper collectivist ambitions.)
Remember November!
Thanks.
I was never a business owner. I was, in fact, a government employee. Specifically, an air traffic controller for 29 years, retiring after my first heart attack. The FAA hired me at age 18 with no guarantee I wouldn’t wash out of training and find myself unemployed. I was owed nothing. I believe I was successful by virtue of going to work each day (or night), doing my level best for 29 years. ALMOST as hard as a business owner, but without the pressure of losing everything by failing. So, it’s highly insulting that Obamao would be so hateful and ignorant (I can’t write what I really feel) as to denigrate, diminish, and ridicule all the blood, sweat, and tears spent to provide a better life. I refer to ALL business owners, as well as those dedicated folks who worked for them. Obamao’s comments are insulting, but, sadly, NOT surprising.
rpjkw11,
Thank you for your faithful service.
I sincerely hope the Training and Resources that we, the (rest of) The People provided you with, was sufficient enough for you to competently perform that vitally important job without placing undue stresses and hardships upon yourself or your family, and that you found in your Experience of Service to (our) Republic, a happy and rewarding career choice.
That being said, if you, or ANY OTHER PUBLIC EMPLOYEE is ever dissatisfied with a position, its responsibilities or its salary, I apologize to you all for not having another position available that meets your expectations, and I wish you all well in your decision to freely and with no hard feelings on either side, LEAVE THE JOB YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH, and seek another position elsewhere in the Private Sector you find more suitable to your needs and abilities.
I will be more than happy to provide you with a Letter Of Recommendation that truly attests to your demonstrated competence and loyalty, and clearly specifies any skills or qualifications you obtained in Our Service, to any potential employer who would be interested in hiring you.
I firmly believe that this and nothing more shall be a completely sufficient, fair, amicable and inarguably FINAL resolution of our Employment Relationship.
Signed in Blood,
Your fellow Citizen(s)
I think this message of O may be a thinly veiled threat, especially given his juxtaposing a comment about the government creating the internet. In his world view (imho) business doesn’t happen without payoffs and lobbyists and outright manipulation aka fraud. The linkage to infrastructure was just a lead in to his real point. (btw civilization has always advanced on the shoulders of our predecessors, its not an American thing) And moving Forward that is the way it will be…pay homage to the collective or cease to exist. The EO’s have been signed fast and furiously of late. Be prepared for the ‘event’ Necessity is the mother of invention, not government.
…pay homage to the collective or cease to exist.
Spot on.
I’d add that Obama is projecting with those beyond stupid remarks in Roanake on Saturday since he, personally, has never had any advances in his own life without someone in the background giving him a leg up.
Look at what they accuse you of and you get an insight into how their addled minds work.
I agree. In the audio clip he was clearly preaching in his phony accent. It was part and parcel to his class warfare messaging. That if someone has success its either due to the gubmint or some other ‘unfair’ advantage given. It takes a fraud to know a fraud doncha know.
In the audio clip he was clearly preaching in his phony accent.
The disgusting, pandering cadences were all there, the sentences ending on breathless upswings.
If the voting population is sufficiently degraded to fall for this crap, I guess we’ll be getting the government we deserve for another 4 years.
After which, the damage will be permanent.
In a very short time I should be able to retire quite comfortably offshore someplace that I won’t specify. It won’t take a great deal to be comfortable as my needs are modest, as will my income be. I am definitely smart enough to figure out how to ensure that my life will henceforth contain no ‘taxable events’, legally.
Yes, four more years and the damage will be like a brick through a beautiful mosaic of stained-glass that is America. Our media neglected to tell us he was a rock-thrower. They went with pant creases, leg tingles, cleanliness, and articulateness. Justice Roberts just handed him a slingshot.
“In his world view (imho) business doesn’t happen without payoffs and lobbyists and outright manipulation aka fraud”
That is the world view of big business, those who are most against free enterprise and capitalism.
crony capitalism. that’s not really capitalism at all. there’s a reason for the convolution and interdependency with in the structure of any given bill(s). small business can’t keep up. Was the break up of ATT a feint? It’s a Kafkan nightmare or maybe the twilight zone (where we’re headed)
Ah, the irony of using “you didn’t build that” when trying to give the Federal government credit for local infrastructure and services.
The problem the Warren and Obama arguments face is a mistaken presumption of exclusivity. When the entrepreneur had “that one great teacher,” 30 other kids were in that classroom. The company’s trucks share the road with everyone else’s personal and professional vehicles.
Everyone has access to the infrastructure they cite; the fact that some do more with what is available to all shouldn’t single them out for conficatory, borderline punitive taxation (especially considering that roads are typically funded by tolls and gas taxes, balancing out disproportions in use).
Warren
Here is a video of the lying 1/32 not-Cherokee insane woman expanding on Obama’s theme
AZ,
“Everyone has access to the infrastructure they cite; the fact that some do more with what is available to all shouldn’t single them out for conficatory, borderline punitive taxation (especially considering that roads are typically funded by tolls and gas taxes, balancing out disproportions in use)”
Great line(s)
Thanks for being so clear and simple with what I saw but could not find the proper rhetoric to describe, in the Bummers obvious misconceptions of how things work.
“We the people” created the USA, it did not create itself. The nomenclature in DC surely wants to take credit and ever more control and funds. However, we the people can still take control……I hope.
Just want to be clear Mr. President, in the three years of your Administration, you haven’t built a goddamned thing.
My father was self employed all of his post-military service life. My father made furniture. He interviewed his customers at their home, sketched their desires on a piece of paper and then went to his workshop and created the piece from scratch. No one taught him to do this, he figured it out on his own. He took the time, the initiative and applied it to the task. He didn’t apply for a job, he became the job. He was both artist and engineer. He was also his own man. He taught me that there is a dignity to work that no amount of good intentions can replace.
He was never rich, but he was free and that was the point of it all. It was never about the money. If people want to sit in envy my father, envy the freedom he had and not the money he made from his labor. He came and went as he pleased, he answered to no man but himself.
He used to say that at the end of the day what we all want from money is to be able to say “Screw you” and suffer no negative consequences from the act. Money simply buys the ability to walk away. My father never had a lot of money, but he was free.
In my 52 years of life, I have never heard anything from any politician that has left me filled with rage as the words the President has used to describe men like my father, the men of this world who live their life with the goal of being dependent on no one and only wish to be left alone.
I want to thank the President for providing me with a moment of clarity.
Frank,
Great Post.
You father simply “Pursued Happiness” and was a burden to no-one.
And he was willing to serve when the time called as well.
The simple, simple truth of what made us so great.
Regular People, doing what makes THEM happy, without interference or subsidation.
Obama is the most insulting SCOAMF ever to walk this earth.
In all my 52 years of life, I have never felt so berated by my president like I do with this one. Why would he speak to a broken and discouraged country in such terms? I had a moment of clarity of what it must of felt like to be ruled under an “out of touch” old European monarch to its subjects. Maybe it is the *real* Obama revealing his contempt for the likes of us common working people.
Please don’t feel berated. — That lying SOB has NO RIGHT to berate anybody!
He’s OUR EMPLOYEE. — He’s forgotten it, if he ever knew.
Don’t feel berated. – Feel angry! – And, consider the source.
Berate him, in November.
Remember November!
I didn’t know the underground railroad was an ongoing state subsidized, client centered enterprise for escaping slaves from the south? And those Boston Tea party folks that dressed up as Indians to do that uncivilized dumping of British tea in the Boston harbor didn’t have to buy the tea and pay the excise tax. I mean, it wasn’t like the British King George and Parliament was charging the Boston tea drinkers an inactivity tax for not buying the tea anyway. That inactivity tax would have have been to modern and totalitarian and basically unthinkable in the 18th century. Apparently judicial evolving standards have evolved again.
Great point.
Somehow we became the greatest most powerful free and prosperous nation in the history of Mankind, all with very lttle government save for some basic restrictions of their ability to usurp our rights and freedoms, and now, after just 50 years under the Leviathan, were broke and need “fundimental transformation?”
SCOAMF that Obama
Then and Now
My mother has always been a confused communist who works as a head shrink. For the last 30 years she has told me that bad people are a product of their environment. Their failure is not their fault nor is their short comings. If failure is not your fault it seems logical that you are not responsible for your success.
Since we all have access to public schools and roads, we should all be very rich. Maybe I should file for disability and wait until success knocks on my door. I don’t want to go out of my home until opportunity knocks.
You sound refreshingly normal for having been raised by a shrink! Of course, you couldn’t have been responsible for that character development yourself. Were you abducted by aliens?
Obama’s July 3 speech at Roanoke Va. is a gold mine of historical misinformation.
“There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.”
Not really. Let us go back to the Founding. One of its most eminent members was Benjamin Franklin. Ben was what we might call a community organizer, among his other ventures: printer, writer, scientist, and statesman.
One of Ben’s first forays into community organization was his founding of the Union Fire Company in 1736, one of the very first volunteer fire departments in the United States. You will note that this was a venture in civil society, not a governmental organization. A few years later, Ben organized the Philadelphia Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses from Loss by Fire, the first mutual fire insurance company in America. Once again, civil society, not government.
In the 19th Century it was often the insurance companies that organized urban fire fighting. Homeowners would put the symbol of their insurance company on the front of their houses, so everyone would know who should fight a fire. The symbol of the Philadelphia Contributionship, hands clasping caused to be known as “Hand in Hand”.
Even today, volunteer fire departments are civil society organizations that provide fire fighting services across much of rural and small town America.
I wonder if Obama has ever spent anytime outside the big cities. Ignorant twit.
You didn’t build that
Here’s the thing that gets me every time about this whole infrastructure argument and how entrepreneurs had “help” with their businesses succeeding.
Yeah, entrepreneurs didn’t personally pay for every inch of the publicly maintained road in front of their business – neither did the employee working for them.
Both categories, entrepreneur and employee, pay taxes and those taxes help pay for that road.
The entrepreneur, however, took a look at that infrastructure and along with a lot of imagination and hard work DID create a business – something the person still classified as employee did NOT do.
There IS a difference between the two categories of people!
Not to speak of the fact that the infrastructure is there for everyone; so, why isn’t everyone a wildly or even moderately successful businessman?
It’s the condescension of the President that really gets me: the sneering “you think you’re so smart” or “you think you’re so hard-working” (and the people he’s talking to clearly love to hear that).
He’s admitted that he’s gotten where he is without hard work, and it’s obvious that he’s not very smart.
The problem is that he’s unacquainted with initiative and striving for excellence in other people; this is a problem for all of us.
The collectivism he celebrates represents a bringing-down of everyone to the same, low level.
“Welch ends with a fabulous point. In today’s dollars, the $35 million cost of the Golden Gate Bridge translates into $530 million.”
I seriously doubt the Golden Gate could be built today for a measly $530 Million. The Wilson Bridge over the Potomac was recently replaced. Though of no distinction, I think it cost around $2 Billion. The simple Metrorail extension out to Dulles Airport will be similarly expensive. It of course would have to be built today with union labor, adhering to myriad new regulations and subject to any number of environmental challenges in court. That’s why, despite the billions of stimulus money devoted to infrastructure, nothing of note was built.
Now that I think on it – no level of government built the road in front of my home.
It was a private developer who, with non-government funding, built that sub-division and paved that road.
It was only about a decade later that the government took over that stretch of asphalt.
No infrastructure ?
Sad story.
“That’s why the Wright Brothers waited until there were enough international airports before trying to fly.”
Oh, and let’s not forget all that the private developer had to pay in fees and permitting to be able to build that infrastructure in your sub-division. They get you coming and going.
After watching Obama’s comments on YouTube yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of the scene from Dr. Zhivago where all the commies come and take over his father’s home, claiming that it belongs to them. The president clearly exposed himself yet again as an enemy of freedom, yet the mouth-breathing masses don’t understand sound principles because of decades of leftist conditioning, and downright laziness. Anyone can go to a library (like the one financed by Andrew Carnegie)and read up on the virtues of Western civilization that made it great, but they’d rather watch American Idol. Until the educational system is rescued from this insidious communist fog swirling around us, and until there is a more focused effort to put leftist thinking to shame and teach the rising generation how to identify this social-spiritual poison, in whichever form to whatever degree it exists, the voting populace will always be susceptible to more fools like Obama. This is a very divisive scenario indeed. Anyone who supports this delusional President is not worthy of liberty.
all his stupid remarks, it’s the intention behind them, to make us slaves, and him the massa
just tell him to go fuck himself
“In today’s dollars, the $35 million cost of the Golden Gate Bridge translates into $530 million. That’s “far less than one percent of Obama’s stimulus package. So,” he asks, “where the hell are our new Golden Gates?”
We have (had?) Solyndra which costed even a bit more than $530 mil. We should be proud of outdoing the Golden Gate, shouldn’t we?
Hey Obama! That Solyndra loan to your buddies, you did not make that on your own. Millions of taxpayers worked their butts off to send money to Washington for you to fritter away.
Hey Mr. Mcconnel! That earmark you got for your buddies you did not make that earmark on your own. Millions of taxpayers worked their butts off to send money to Washington so you can grant favors to the toadies and goons that leach from federal government.
I can’thow Obama and friends have the audacity (he likes that word) to demand higher taxes on “the wealthy” when they’ve literally poured billions of taxpayer money down the drain.
Loan guarantees in excess of 1/2 billion from Steven (“we want gas at $10/gallon”) Chu’s energy dept. to Obama bundlers and buddies at Solyndra are just one example in a long line.
The nearly $1 Trillion down the proverbial chute in so called stimulus should infuriate people.
Another “green” company that got OUR cash gone belly up
Obama and his lowlife surrogates want people focused on what Mitt Romney did with private capital rather than what he and his cronies are doing with ours.
I can’t imagine how…
“When I have to expand my business and need money to do that, who puts up their home as collateral for the loan ? It’s certainly not somebody else.”
.. unless you’re an Obama contributor with an enterprise like Solyndria.
He is just projecting – it is he who has never built anything. I build things every day. Have built thousands of things in my life. He wants my treasure and my blood. He will get neither.
#10 Bobby V
You rightly point out that private enterprise built wagons, boats anbd even the goods that Elijah Mills sold. Did Elijah steal these things? Or did he hire or purchase them with the intent of reselling them at a profit?
Of course the entrepreneur doesn’t create everything in the final product. Other private entrepreneurs sell intermediate goods which he then organizes, transports, finances, markets and finally sells to the ultimate consumer. This is called a free market economy. He takes a profit for doing this. Each intermediate producer also takes their profit.
Until the 1930′s the Fed Government and even State and local governments were there to provide Rule of Law. Rule of Law and Defense are the only valid functions of government in the American Republic as envisioned by the Founders and applcable right up until the 20th Century began. Strangely enough, sll those years it worked! The real dismantling of this whole ideal started mostly in the 1930s.
So now we have pResident who was not raised an American telling us America was built by an elite bureaucracy and politicians in Government.
Guess what. He’s wrong about America, how it was built and how real Americans made and will make this country a success. That is why he has a failing presidency that come November will be officially a failed presidency (not that he has any chance, given another four years, to turn things around and make it a success. Heh).
Pearls in front of a swine!
It’s the attitude of the President more than the specifics that is offensive. As others have noted, he can’t cede to talented, ambitious people the fruits of their labor and ingenuity. He must claim it for the government.
As to specifics, the record is mixed. Let’s acknowledge that in the modern era some small businesses were able to begin and succeed because of a loan from the Small Business Administration. And they do indeed depend on the infrastructure of the community to facilitate their business. But not everybody who gets the loan and has access to the roads succeeds in their business. Individual owners make the difference.
As for “public” infrastructure, the Golden Gate Bridge citation in the article is just a dramatic example of what is true more generally: lots of our infrastructure and what we depend on for daily living is the result of money and the labors of private persons and groups, now claimed by the “public”. Some modern roads were indeed planned by bureaucrats. But much of the basic network of roads in many communities is just the current version of roads originally created by private individuals in the development of their own plans and communities. In many sections of our country the “public schools” are heirs to systems originally organized by private individuals or groups, many of them religious. The list can go on and on and on….
It’s also true that all of that “stuff” that the government builds has been there for EVERYONE. Why is it that the government only built success for a few? Maybe there’s something that successful folks do that doesn’t come from the government – like have a good idea, get up early and go to bed late, work hard, etc.
Somehow, some must believe that the government picked those folks for special rewards. If it wasn’t for that THEY should have got some too. Even without doing what it takes.
Because he’s an affirmative action president (lower case intentionally used), he must think that nobody can be successful in life without being, uhm, “affirmatively actioned” (if that can be used as an adj).
Most people get ahead despite having white skin.
Yeah, I can’t keep thinking about how bad my public school education was… Yeah, your side built that O man.
Trying to remember some good interaction with the government…
Who is Obama going to call on next to show their thannks?
Seems the businessmen should thank society, how about other people showing their thanks?
Like overpaid union goons, Occupiers, students, etc?
Will Obama be calling on them to thank those of us who fill the trough they have their snouts buried in?
Hate to say this, but someone once said that people get the government they deserve. He said enough in 2008 for anyone to figure his world view. He was voted in. He most likely will be again, given the size and scope of the blue states and dependency. The press still fauns (they are more afraid of being labeled racist, than ideology). Scary, but I fear a repeat.
And that is the core of the problem, the United States has gone from a country that could to a country that CANNOT no matter how much money and time is thrown at the problem.
But that’s OK, other nations that want it more and can get things done are stepping up to the plate…
I don’t know about you all. He was making a pretty mundane comment here, basically that government is the price we pay for civilization. I am amazed at the unhinged and fevered reaction to this, I mean, okay, be a conservative, but you’re not living in Deadwood.
There are places on the planet with no government. Try the sweet smell of freedom in Mogadishu.
The defining characteristic of liberals these days seems to be pyromania in the presence of strawmen.
Not the point. There are many hellholes on earth, always has been, and will be. Irrelevant.
What Obama is trying to do is discredit the idea that people can and do accomplish things without – and sometimes despite -government help. He wants to elevate government to the position of co-creator with private enterprise. This is nothing more than a liberal piety which will not bear close examination.
Where, exactly, on this site, or any Conservative gather, TEA Party rally, etc, have you heard the argument for NO GOVERNMENT?
Why the hell can’t libs argue honestly? Is there position so terminally weak that they can not debate the issues on the strength of their own beliefs and not the imagined weakness of a postion their oppostion doesn’t hold?
His remarks will have to stand or fall based based on how we see our current society. But because some guy went off into the frontier and founded a place in the wilderness in 1843, when we actually had a frontier and a wilderness, is not particularly instructive for how things work today.
It’s pertinent if you can think abstractly (that is, if public schools haven’t destroyed that utterly human characteristic in you).
Thinking abstractly, eh? Now only the most imaginative, Jobs,Gates, etc can create their own frontiers.
In 1843, everyone knew where the frontier was and if you had the inspiration, or desperation, you could head there. Some were better prepared than others, but there was no question that there were cheap, resources out there, waiting for the people to arrive, who would grow their own stuff, and grow it for others as well.
Now, all the good land is taken, half our stuff is imported from elsewhere, and the grid, highways, and airways make us dependent on larger systems in ways that would blow the minds of the Founders. If we want to build an oil refinery or an LNG terminal, it will always be in someone’s back yard now. This is not to prove that government cannot be too intrusive, cannot over-regulate, or should not be reined in, but we have grown into something so different from what we had in 1843, that you can’t change back just by defining yourself as a Tea Party. Most people know that they need a lot of government, even if they don’t like the government. Too many here pretend that we really don’t need much at all.
Anyway, I think Romney is a guy who can move things 2% in the direction they need to go, whereas Obama will move them 2% more in the direction in which they have already gone. No one knows how to tweak global capitalism of our whole money marketing system so that it works better for us, but Romney would have a better shot. Our system is supposed to self-adjust over a four to eight year cycle, when it is time to lurch a little leftward or rightward. The end of the Republic has always been at hand, according to the party not in power.
When we get desperate enough, we will de-value the dollar, which we have already done a few times in my lifetime. Were things worse then than now?
May be we can prove this by embracing the absurd: let us all demand to become federal employees. It is sad to read some of the arguments for the left and the right here. We need government and that is a matter of order. Government is a tool to bring order to a society. Individual or collective initiative is what we wanted to foster and help in the first place when WE THE PEOPLE created government. This is definitely not a chicken or egg problem: people decided to organize a nation, achieve prosperity and security and for that a government was needed. A small, proportionate government is needed. The way things are I believe we are heading for a Soviet style end to the American union. Once government reaches a certain critical mass collapse is sure to follow. We have lost our sense of proportion.
The semi-educated fool we have as our current president should read his adopted home town newspaper. Specifically, he should read John Kass’s column about how his parents built their grocery store: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0718-20120718,0,2313230.column
What Obama is saying is true about people like Obama – that is, people who have never created anything themselves. Obama’s entire life has been about being a parasite, and he has a parasite’s understanding of the economy.
The irony is that the very infrastructure Obama thinks of as being created by government was in fact made possible by the real creators in the private sector.
These “progressive” idiots are trying to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. (My guess is that Obama has never even heard that story. I doubt they teach it to kids in Indonesia.)
Well, in addition to being one of the biggest narcissists in history (US or otherwise) he’s also one of the preeminent parasites since the royal families of Europe (Your Rope…to hang them).
It’s so ironic that such an under achiever (no, pandering your way into public office is not achievement, it’s thuggery.) should be such an advocate of the under and non-achievers (ie, Occupiers, welfare remora, etc.
the fleas are what made the dog scratch, he didn’t do it on his own. without the fleas the dog wouldn’t have a need to scratch. what the dog needs are more fleas.
This, the primacy of private contribution, vs. government contribution, is a false argument, which politicians continuously exploit to divide and rule. They are the opposite sides of the same coin, one can not exist without the other. Obama is not stupid, he is defending his world view, one that never included earning a pay check or paying employees, in the private sector.
On Monday, I carried the casket of a 93 yr old ex Marine to his grave site. In 1942, he went into Guadalcanal, at 17, with a bolt action Springfield rifle. Without his, and many others sacrifice, this publication, if it existed, would be written in Japanese. Obama is correct, some government employees contribute. But he ignores that millions of others, under his orders, who are forcing our society, to be centrally controlled under the thumb of Washington D. C. Their contribution is massive, and destructive. They have driven entire industries off shore due to insane regulations. They have destroyed major professions, e.g. the engineering of nuclear and coal fired power plants, or the 83% of doctors who are considering leaving the profession due to Obamacare, or the quality of our public schools.
When your toilets do not flush, you will get sick and there will be no one to heal you. That is the result of an over regulated society. It was common in the USSR.
This election, the choice, has become stark. Basic policy decisions, which have been kicked down the road, for decades, must be faced, or our nation may not survive. By any measurement, we are much weaker today than a generation ago. Every pilot knows, on take off, there is a point of no return, and the US is very close to it, due to the caliber of leadership we sent into power. Obama is simply one example.
Everything government has it owes to us, the producers. Everything.
We pay more in taxes and make the things that make the world work.
WE paid for those public roads and bridges. WE built every government office building, every civic center, every public monument, every public square. WE bought and fund public spaces, from local and state parks to Federal preserves and lands.
WE pay for the firehouse and gear. WE pay for the schools and teachers. WE pay for the food Obama eats, the table he sits at, the room he works in and house he occupies. WE pay for the plane he jaunts around in and the fuel that makes it fly.
In a world of makers and takers, Obama has to denigrate those who build and make and research and create and innovate. Otherwise, he’d have to confront reality: We’re makers. He’s a taker. A very little man, with very little to offer, except in his own delusional mind and the equally delusional world of politics.
Obama has never had to compete in a competitive market. If he and government were put to that test, 75% of government would disappear. Many of us are tired of being forced to buy what government sells.
“Government stifles the individual more than it empowers him.” Gross understatement. Government stifles indviduals, period.
And let’s not forget Adam and Eve.
More proof from Obama’s mouth he knows NOTHING about the American people, our “can do” culture or how successful people achieve what they do.
Here are three stories of successful Americans I’ve known:
1) A man who built a trucking company after WWII despite restrictive ICC regulations; he began as a one-man business, loading, driving and unloading his truck. He worked seven days a week, added a few more trucks and drivers, often slept at his terminal for days on end to do the dispatching loading and unloading himself.
2) A couple who scraped every penny together, moved from a large city to a then rural area, bought land and began building houses. As the area became more populated they built shopping malls as well as houses. They started with nothing, built their business with their own two hands. They bore the risks, the agravation and harships of the real estate business.
3) A young man, fine athlete from a poor family enlisted in the US Army. the Army sent him to college where he studied hard in addition to performing his duties as a soldier. Having excellent grades and service record the Army sent the young man to medical school. He has been practicing as an OB/GYN for over three decades.
Three American who, with their sweat and hard work achieved in this great country, no one handed them anything but Freedom, Liberty and Opportunity!
refreshing to find so many intelligent writers but not one speaks about the globalists which are the generators of the cancers we are enduring. Foil the globalists and we could have a chance of saving our Country. the only one who could save us but will not be president is Ron Paul. With his knowledge of how our govt. works, what the Constitution means and what we must do to get out of any more wars, get rid of departments, reduce the debt immediately, get rid of personal income tax as soon as possible, we could become what we once were, the light of the World. But since he is not in the running, I hold out no hope for the USA! We are joining the rest of the world’s decline. Oh I almost forgot the most important first step, FIRE THE FED AND HANDLE OUR OWN MONEY!!!
Am currently about 800 pages into Paul Johnson’s ‘History of the American People.’ Just an awesome book. Johnson’s ‘Modern Times’ is my favorite book of all time.
Great post. Thanks!
To quote:
“Welch ends with a fabulous point. In today’s dollars, the $35 million cost of the Golden Gate Bridge translates into $530 million. That’s “far less than one percent of Obama’s stimulus package. So,” he asks, “where the hell are our new Golden Gates? What exactly has been the return on all this added ‘investment’?”
My answer: SHOVELS — For all of US citizens who are “shovel-ready”!
More precisely: For 300+ million Americans, for each his/her very own shovel, of course at NASA prices of roughly 1.500$ / piece. (Hammers would have been a bit cheaper, at only 1000$, but this time we had to have shovels.)
But, shovels are a prescient metaphor. Thanks to not “doing it alone”, aka acceptance of gubmint “help”, we are now “empowered” (there’s another nice and flashy “post-modern” LibtardProg term: “the people are empowered”) to shovel our own financial graves — after we dig one in New York harbor for the Statue of Liberty, to be there forever buried with a tiny brass cylinder containing what is left of our shreddered Constitution. We almost made it, but we didn’t do it alone!
Remember November!
Greetings, I am writing from Caloundra, Australia. Thanks so much for the thoughtful article. It helped me a lot with my university domestic science research
I like this post, enjoyed this one thank you for putting up. “We are punished by our sins, not for them.” by Elbert Hubbard.