Obama: “you didn’t build that”
I don’t ordinarily read the Chicago Tribune, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of John Kass before, but this is one heckuva good column.
I’m tempted to quote the whole thing, but I’ll just suggest you read it. In it, Kass takes on Obama for his speech the other day in which the president said to business owners:
“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.
Kass contrasts this with his own father’s experience as an immigrant owning a small grocery store and working his fingers to the bone. The column is a tribute to a hard-working man who tried to rise above the rest and build a business through the sweat of his own brow and that of other family members working with him in the store. It ends with this thought:
When I was grown and gone from home, my parents finally managed to save a little money. After all those years of hard work and denying themselves things, they had enough to buy a place in Florida and a fishing boat in retirement. Dad died only a few years later. You wouldn’t call them rich. But Obama might…
And he offers an American dream much different from my father’s. Open your eyes and you can see it too. He stands there at the front of the mob, in his shirt sleeves, swinging that government hammer, exhorting the crowd to use its votes and take what it wants.
As I mulled over Obama’s speech (a fuller excerpt can be found here), I found it to be an excellent example of the different approaches of left and right. Obama is not just pointing out an obvious fact—one that even Republicans and small business owners do not deny—which is that people do not exist in isolation, and there are countless factors, little and big, that go to influence a person’s life. He is saying that economic success is not a meritocracy, and capitalism itself is not a meritocracy. Furthermore, it seems to me that he implies, without exactly saying it, that businesses succeed on the backs of other people who deserve success as much as those who do succeed.
In his address, Obama later added the obligatory disclaimer sentence, “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together,” but the earlier (and longer) part of his speech belied that statement.
He then went on to give a version of his old “uniter” speech (“We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for president ”“ because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.”) Is there anyone—anyone—who still believes this claptrap that Obama wants to unite rather than divide us? If so, I doubt that there are many of them left. But there are a lot of people who believe the rest of his speech: the politics of envy, and the logical consequence of a self-esteem movement in which high self-regard has become uncoupled from a realistic appraisal of a person’s actions in the real world.
Obama is using this argument to justify “ask[ing] for the wealthy to pay a little bit more,” to “want to give something back.” Now, when last I looked, most of the wealthy paid a lot of taxes, although they (much like everyone else) try to legally reduce their tax load as much as possible. They also are pretty prominant on the rolls of voluntary giving, otherwise known as philanthropy. The latter is a way that people, rich and poor, express their gratitude for what they have and their compassion for those who have less—that is, to voluntarily “give something back.” But Obama thinks that government should be asking them to “give something back”—more and more back, because what they give is not enough. They are a cash cow ripe for being milked, all in the name of togetherness.
No one is ignoring the interrelationship of human beings with one another, nor the need to work together. But more and more government compulsion is hardly a great way to do that, and it doesn’t even foster that warm fuzzy “we” feeling. Ask those who lived under Communism.
And no one is saying that capitalism is a perfect meritocracy, or that those who succeed in business are inherently superior people to those who don’t. But to say, as Obama did, that “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” is a slap in the face to people like Kass’s father. One wonders what Obama knows of businesses, or those who run them, whether small or large. One wonders how much Obama’s own history, in which he was the (self-admitted; see the next-to-last paragraph of this letter) beneficiary of affirmative action, has affected his view of how and why people succeed.
The American Dream says that hard work pays off—and that yes, people who have a business actually built that business. That last fact co-exists with another obvious one—that no man is an island. Republicans and conservatives don’t need Obama to tell them that, either. We’ll let John Donne do it:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
[NOTE: The life of Donne, oddly enough, contains the following somewhat-relevant facts:
Donne was elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Brackley in 1602, but this was not a paid position. The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave him a means to seek patronage and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially Sir Robert Drury, who came to be Donne’s chief patron in 1610.
So, voluntary philanthropy and love of literature on the part of the rich seem to have helped Donne produce his poetry.]
[ADDENDUM: Zombie offers a discussion of Obama’s “summary of core progressive fiscal dogma” that includes a lot more detail, plus charts and figures.
And Richard Fernandez has something to say worth reading, as well.
Stuart Schneiderman at Had Enough Therapy adds some observations.
Funny stuff here.
Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest calls our attention to these stirring words (mentioned by Scott Johnson at Powerline) by Republican Abraham Lincoln. I think Romney would do well to quote them:
They are the arguments that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find that all the arguments in favor of king-craft were of this class; they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the Judge [i.e., Stephen Douglas] is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever way you will””whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent ”¦
They sure don’t make eloquence like they used to, do they?]
Many a synagogue sermon tells me one must not attribute his successful to his own efforts alone, but to the help of someone else.
The thing is, that something else is God, to Whom we are never free of debt. Not the government.
The taking away of attributes traditionally given by human beings to God the Creator and bestowing them on the State (thus writ large) is a core tenet of the religious anti-religious Messianic vision of Marxism.
With these words of the anti-American President, which I have dubbed the ObaMarx ReMarx, the nature of the adversary is laid bare for all to see.
Self-reliance is under attack–the character of the nation. The idea that one prays for God’s blessing, relies on one’s own efforts and maybe asks friends and family for help–but only help, not giving him success on a silver platter–if the matter is too serious for one person to deal with. Marxism wants all eyes off God and family and looking up toward the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent State, whose voice is the Party, the source of all true Truth, where also the only friends a person is allowed to have are found.
Marxism is a anti-religious blasphemy wrapped in an anti-human travesty tucked inside an anti-political obscenity. As a system of immorality posing as morality, it is rivaled only by its 1400-year-old ally.
Here in Chicago John Kass is a beacon of reason and right thinking. He coined the term “Combine” for the marriage of corrupt politicians from both parties that control and milk Illinois. That Combine propelled Obama’s career.
John Kass is a must read. And his Beer Can Chicken recipe is pretty danged good.
This is just completely amazing and if most people cannot discern what and who Obama is after this, then we’re lost. There shouldn’t be need for any more campaign. There is and will be, but oh how the dragon has asserted its pride.
No one succeeds on his own.
Of course, most of us don’t have Red operatives to cheapshot our adversaries, nor do we have Red-penetrated media to provide us with downfield blocking.
So, I guess we do pretty much succeed on our own. Barry, not so much.
Great post, Neo.
I hate the phrase “giving back” with a white hot passion. The underlying impression is that you are giving back what was taken from someone elsy by force or coercion. Besides, when it comes to taxes you are definitely NOT “giving back” it is being taken from you under the force of government. My wife and I have a small furniture store in New Jersey and we definitely earn our income and when I choose to give it is just that – giving from what we have legitimately earned.
President Obama is “asking” the more well-to-do to give a little more (to the collective). I recall very well when Hillary Clinton was “asking” the more well-to-do to give a little more (to the collective).
This “asking” is a euphemism. They’re not “asking” — once they and their ilk are in power, they’re ^compelling^, ^coercing^.
When the government is “asking” me to give what I give, they’re ^compelling^ me. If I decline the gracious offer to give a little more, they will haul me into court. If I do not show, they will arrest me. If I resist this gracious gesture, they will come with their weapons. I’m sure I need not elaborate further.
So, quit with the stoopid “euphemism”, Obama and Clinton and others. It’s not “asking”, dammit.
^euphemism^, not “euphemism” . . .
Mr. President,
You didn’t get where you are without help. Affirmative action, the prism through which you see the world, is responsible for the high self-regard (cum laude) that was bestowed on you by Harvard Law – in lieu of an education. There are those who would think that from one who had been given much, much would be expected. We now see, yet again, things don’t work that way.
Never thought that ol’ Barry would be dumb enough to hoist the giant Red banner before the Election, but I guess he just couldn’t help himself.
P.S.–If, after this revelation about just how naked the Emperor really is, American voters don’t boot him and his whole nasty crew out on the collective asses in November, well, then, the Republic is truly lost.
He is right in principle. However, his perspective of reality places the forest before the trees. It is a primitive, corrupt philosophy, which denies the fundamental concept of individual dignity. It engenders a perception that individual human beings are ever disposable and interchangeable, from conception to grave. It is strictly contrary to the American ethos, and Judeo-Christian faiths, which dictate that individual dignity is a primary concern and people will be judged by their individual conscience, respectively.
There is no collective salvation, but there is collective damnation. Let’s choose our compromises carefully.
For the sake of argument, let’s accept his preferred perspective of reality. Obama suggests that the most productive be subject to a progressive penalty. What is the significance of his election to reward the least productive?
Something else to consider is that denying individual dignity engenders acknowledging universal mediocrity. This is possibly the first obstacle which the Soviet communists faced and eventually overcame — sort of.
None of this would be poignant, if we could all enjoy the beachfront property in Hawaii, and if paradise was a universal and sufficient ambition.
George Pal:
Excellent!
And a rabbi who IS a legal scholar remarks:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/obama_the_bane_of_capital.html
There is another way that his perspective fails to correlate with reality. Each of us pay taxes; although, a large minority receives direct compensation from that pool which exceeds their contribution. Business people, however, pay taxes, compensate their employees, and produce a product which is voluntarily consumed by the people. They give back in a multiplicity of ways. It is not just taxes that are counted in our GDP (or similar assessment). It doesn’t seem reasonable to maintain a narrow perspective of our contributions to the general Welfare, and certainly not to penalize the most productive while rewarding the least.
Wolla Dalbo said:
“Never thought that ol’ Barry would be dumb enough to hoist the giant Red banner before the Election, but I guess he just couldn’t help himself.”
He wasn’t on his teleprompter. Think his handlers might reinstall it? 🙂
It is imperative that we defeat this dangerous man come November.
This moment reminds me of Kerry’s famous statement that he was for the Iraq War before he was against it (or something to that effect or maybe the opposite…I have trouble remembering the exact nature of his flip flops.).
I hope Romney, the RNC, and the Romney PACs repeat this Obama misstep over and over and over between now and November. And I hope the PACs ravish his character every way they can. EVERY way. They certainly have plenty of ammunition.
“…the politics of envy, and the logical consequence of a self-esteem movement in which high self-regard has become uncoupled from a realistic appraisal of a person’s actions in the real world.”
I teach in an applied science department at a big10 school, and we have noticed the transition over the last ten years in both the undergrad and grad student. Just getting in to the grad program means one has a right to the degree, etc.
It is so bad that two higher ups at a major corp (P&G or Dow I think) wrote in a letter to the department that they were very disappointed in the newly hired American MS and PhD grads. They wrote that “they are unprepared for hard work and long hours, but they have high expectations for pay and promotion.” They had no complaints about the Chinese and Korean grads.
It appears that it has infected the entire society, that is a potential disaster, especially when you have a presedent with a criminal mind playing the “you deserve” card every day.
“They had no complaints about the Chinese and Korean grads.”
I have said before and I will say again…the Asians here in this country may be our last, best hope.
Full disclosure: I’m a WASP.
“Never thought that ol’ Barry would be dumb enough to hoist the giant Red banner before the Election, but I guess he just couldn’t help himself.”
Why not? It’s clearly obvious that most of the country sees absolutely nothing wrong with collectivism. To the average American voter, socialism, at least if it is not called that by name sounds like an enlightened and benevolent way to run a country. I mean after all, the highest human attainment that is conceivable is that life be made “fair”. Right?
@George: But of course, President Obama deserves all the credit for killing Osama bin Laden…
ziontruth:
Amen.
John Kass is quite good on Chicago politics. I check out his columns once every week or two.
There are a couple of critical things Obama skips over and conveniently misses – Risk and Sacrifice. Small business owners risk and sacrifice everything, every day, all year long, for years if necessary. And if they fail, if they still believe, they try again.
Kass would make Royko smile.
The pain of it though . . . the fact that he is our President . . . isn’t it like some bad dream or alternate reality and it’s just too large to believe?
But he is just the tip of the damn iceburg. There is the even stupider Biden and the batshit crazy Pelosi: ruling us. Somebody tell me I’m not in a skit, a joke, a play, a damned ruse.
What was it Cotton Mathers said about the daughter’s of prosperity.
Papa Dan,
Ace has a nice rant on that subject: risk.
Check it out.
Well, I think it is pretty obvious now that Rush was not exaggerating when, in response to Obama’s “you didn’t make that” comments, he said that it was now perfectly clear that “Obama hates America.”
Obama just despises and hates the whole American project–lock, stock, and barrel–believes it illegitimate, malicious, and destructive, which is why he is trying to “fundamentally transform” i.e. destroy it.
“Never thought that ol’ Barry would be dumb enough to hoist the giant Red banner before the Election, but I guess he just couldn’t help himself.”
I’m convinced Romney could make Obama go farther off the deep end before this election with a little taunting. There’s a deep seeded rage in this manchild and it’s just below the surface.
I think you are correct SteveH, and I expect to witness it. I also expect that he will ultimately release the rage into the streets.
As many political philosophers have observed, you cannot have a Democratic government–or Representative Republic–without an informed and enlightened populace. Our Achilles heel is exposed.
The Achilles heel is the family…
Without that, there is no way to insure the kids go out and play, do the right thing, eat well, know their family history in context with larger history, honor their elders, have help, etc…
imagine i put 20 quotes on the critical foundational point of the destruction of family illustrating which group has made that a core goal… (saving space)
“Why not? It’s clearly obvious that most of the country sees absolutely nothing wrong with collectivism. To the average American voter, socialism, at least if it is not called that by name sounds like an enlightened and benevolent way to run a country.”
Nope, its 30% at best on the left. 40% on the right and 30% up for grabs.
Cora Quinn Parker breathed the air early this morning. 7 lb. 2 oz. Red hair just like her momma and grandma. Not so curiously both of our boys married red heads. Apples do not fall far. We shall prevail, my grandchildren will rule.
BTW, BHO I’m worth nearly 3 mil and every single penny was well earned. I don’t cling to the Bible, but my guns are rather important to me and you can’t have them.
Congrats Parker. Congrats.
Take me back to the days of yesteryear, with Charkes Bronson in “Deathwish.”
Hey, Parker, how wonderful!! And such a pretty name! Congratulations!
Now we have yet another reason to fight for our future!
Money quote from Dr. Schneiderman,
“Obama’s statement is striking because it is so raw and so utterly wrong. Obama seems to believe that he has the right to take away your pride and your wealth because you owe it to everyone else.”
Exactly!
My father was a small business owner. He had a small convenience store (“colmado”) in Puerto Rico. My mother helped him at that store many times. His enterprising spirit was taught from his father and relatives, who had yet another small convenience store in another part of Puerto Rico, for decades. A few relatives of mine on my father side have their own businesses, and two or three are accountants. You can say that business was on his blood, even though he wasn’t born and raised in America.
Sadly, my father never got to enjoy retirement or even profit from it: he died suddenly, only thirteen days shy of his 60th birthday. I was fourteen then. That happened twenty-five years ago.
If my father were alive today to hear all this tripe coming from The One, my father would have been so furious, I would not have heard the end of it. Neither my father nor my other relatives on his side liked the idea of being dependent upon anybody: they worked their own sweat and they liked it that way. They were proud of the little bit they had accomplished. They never took Marxists lightly. This statement from The One would have meant a declaration of war against my enterprising father and his family.
What really bothers me about all this talk about the rich is its superficiality. Everything is measured in money and symbols of wealth. Kids learn to evaluate other kids on the brand of sneakers they wear and the type of cell phone they have. They never hear the downsides of celebrity, like not being able to walk in a store without being noticed or having to fear what kind of paparazzi photo might show up in tomorrows paper. I am sick of hearing Michelle talk of her childhood as deprived. Mine was far poorer money-wise, but far richer experience-wise. But she loves to play the victim. I grew up seeing my parents use their ingenuity to give me things they couldn’t buy off the rack. I learned what I didn’t need to be happy and a lot about making silk purses from sows’ ears. One of my proudest moments was hearing my father talking to an uncle about my planned move to Philly after college graduation. My uncle said he wouldn’t want even his sons to move to a big city alone. My father replied that I would do OK, that I knew what I was doing. He couldn’t give me ski trips to Aspen, but he gave me a foundation and he gave me wings. Some things are worth a lot more than an Anna Wintour-approved dress. But the Obamas think that “education” only counts if it means an Ivy degree. Vacations are only fun on Martha’s Vineyard. Go to college, become credentialled, and get a good government job. If you would rather fix cars or plumb a house, or teach your own kids how to cook, you are second rate. Sorry, Obamas, but you are truly poor bas**rds. And this has nothing to do with your tax returns.
Congratulations, Parker!
“If, after this revelation about just how naked the Emperor really is, American voters don’t boot him and his whole nasty crew out on the collective asses in November, well, then, the Republic is truly lost”
Agree 100%. I’m not even going to bother refuting BO’s statement because it so astoundingly wrong. Americans have GOT to see this.
Expat. amen to that. Some of the poorest people around have lots of money.
Welcome, Cora! What a pretty name. Congratulations to all of you, Parker — from a grandma who also recently welcomed a redheaded grandbaby into a family full of them. Between us, we’ll take over the earth!
So revealing and so damaging has Obama’s last Friday Roanoke, VA “you didn’t build that” speech been, that an army of Leftist flying monkeys have descended, to erect one of those canvas screens around this statement, bring in the backhoes, dig a hole, bury it, and plant a huge tree on top of it and, then, point everyone in the direction of some other, distant feature of the landscape that they want us to walk over to and to focus on.
All in an effort to pretend that:
1. “He didn’t really say that,”
2. “That’s not what he said/meant,” or
3 “His remarks were taken out of context.”
All of these efforts at concealment and distraction a barometer of just how devastating and—dare I say it, “game changing”–Obama’s very free, frank, and all too clear confession of his true attitude and beliefs has been.
To my knowledge, no clearer appeal to class warfare, greed and envy, no clearer justification for government control and ownership of the “means of production” and everything else, no clearer restatement of the basic Communist credo of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” i.e. in reality and practical application by every Marxist government that has ever or does now exist, for government coercion and eventually terror in the aid of theft–the “leadership cadre” always on top and profiting at everyone else’s expense–has ever been uttered by a U.S. President, or even by a major Presidential candidate.
– Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
Power is not a mean, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. George Orwell – 1984
P.S.–Or, to put it another way, to quote the remarkable statement of the late Tip O’Neil–not remarked on at the time–about “all of the government programs that made America great.”
It would be so awesome if we lived in a world in which everyone was equally smart and talented and in which everyone worked equally hard to succeed. Just think, no one would have to flip burgers in that world. There would be no janitors. Everyone would be a CEO or a President and no one would have to work for anyone else. Buoyed up by their ability and their hard work, everyone would be the only one in charge.
I believe the states should be laboratories of political ferment. Let Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Washington, California, Wisconsin, and Illinois fully and completely implement Obama’s and Warren’s political program while the rest of the country completely and thoroughly rejects it. Wait fifty years. Compare.
“communists are the heirs of the Mongols who conquered, not because they had an attractive ideology, but because they outperformed opponent in the fields of strategy and tactics Stefan Possony
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“We hate Christianity and Christians; even the best of them must be looked upon as our worst enemies. They preach love of our neighbors and mercy, which is contrary to our principles. Down with the love of our neighbor; what we want is hatred” Lunacharsky, first soviet commissar of education
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“The worse, the better.”
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“The misery and oppression of the masses must be intensified to an extraordinary degree” Sixth Party Congress of the International at Moscow
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“[t]error is the basis of Soviet power. Terror is not an incidental act, nor an accidental expression of government displeasure, however frequently repeated. Terror is a system of violence, ever ready to punish from above. It is a system of instilling fear, of compulsion, of mass destruction elevated to the status of law”
– Our Chameleon Comrades
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“The scientific concept, dictatorship, means nothing more nor less than power which directly rests on violence, which is not limited by any laws or restricted by any absolute rules.” Lenin
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“The Bolshevik leaders were capable of anything to achieve their political and factional ends” Angela Balabanoff
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quotes assembled from
The Marxist Heart of Darkness
By Bruce Walker
at American thinker
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i will add to it a bit… 🙂
just wondering if anyone realizes from what i am posting below, what we are really up against? note the refernces to pelosi, obama, and others including international feminist organizations talking about population control
[and do you think they are doing this equally across all class groups, or some classes are more than equal than others? ]
Chapter 13, “Population Policies,” of Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment by Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and John P. Holdren (1977) / http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98156598
U.S Population Policy and Feminism: A Working Relationship?
http://tinyurl.com/7snywoe
Chapter 21
POPULATION POLICY
Paul Demeny
Population Council, New York
1. Introduction
Population policy may be defined as deliberately constructed or modified institutional arrangements and/or specific programs through which governments seek to influence, directly or indirectly, demographic change.
we USED to call it Eugenics…
you can download tons of white papers, working papers, journal papers and such, that talk about eugenic policies, but like communism and socialism, they use ‘other’ words that mean the same thing (synonyms, euphemisms, end results without discussing means directly)
oh… so while your exterminating members of a certain class to control the demographic outcomes, you also let in immigrant populations to balance things and hide the stuff from the incurious common people. who wont even listen if someone points it out..
SHOA II
Openly going on since WWII, but Soft Style
ultimately, the you didnt build that thing is about affecting demographic outcomes.
if the people who were making things were the right class, he would NOT be seeking to remove them…
while he is demonizing ALL in the front end, he is rewarding classes on the back end. ie. no one makes it alone… and then you go to SBA who gives out money, grants, help and such from the state, along class lines.
which then outcomes create demographic changes in the population.
no more jewish shop keepers, the volk now own the shops… ie. class line social engineering.
3. Rationale for population policy
PLEASE NOTE HOW THIS PARALLELS OBAMA as this is sourced in his agreement and the lefts agreement with Agenda 21…
The state increasingly came to be seen as an institution created by the voluntary association of the individual members of a given society to further their interests. The central function of the state was to produce public goods–goods that individuals cannot secure for themselves.
ah… so the central funciotn of the state was not to secure property rights and individual rights but to procure for the poor… and so on.
[edited for length by n-n]
US office of Population Affairs
http://www.hhs.gov/opa/
did you know it existed?
did you know that the feminist stuff above is referred to and part of it? that its about eugenics with a smiling face?
just dont use tha word..
just as your not supposed to realize what obama actually said.
think about it.
he says it, you get a flurry of excuses that what you hear isnt that.
i point out tons of such statements by the same elite showing they are doing the same thing, and i get a flurry of the excuses and such that have bee nprovided for the past 40 years.
is it any wonder that the leaders dont realize that the game isnt working as it did? that the past 40 years of public stypidity, is not quite continuing?
you see… prior to obama and the slap in the face, most of you all just accepted the excuses…
now the excuses are hard to swallow
you still obey the old ones, not going back to correct that!!! the conditioning is about fixing the state, not constant growth and reassessments and learning!!
but you now question new ones like Obama spouting communist dialecticals.
you should all see the stuff they spend your money on…
Obama certainly did not make it on his own–he needed a really compliant press among other things.
Wolla Dalbo:
A big part of the problem is that ∅bama said something that could be interpreted several ways.
If you include the first sentence, the third sentence means that the business owner didn’t make the infrastructure building happen. If you emphasize just the last two sentences, the implication is that the business owner is not responsible for his success.
That ∅bama made a statement with ambiguous meaning contradicts the image of ∅bama as the great wordsmith, the great speechmaker. While Dubya mangled the Queen’s English from time to time, it was pretty clear what he meant. Dubya’s meaning, whatever his problems with syntax, could not be MISUNDERESTIMATED. You knew what Dubya meant.
The lefties have been crying that all three sentences have to be read together. In that case, ∅bama is making a misleading statement, because by paying taxes which funded building roads and bridges, business owners DID help make it happen.”SOMEBODY ELSE” implies that business owners had nothing to do with building infrastructure which is FALSE- as they helped fund them.
Even if you include the first sentence, there are PLENTY of other statements in ∅bama’s Roanoake speech where ∅bama implied that people weren’t responsible for their own success, or where he denigrates individual success. Look up smart people and working hard.
Whatever interpretation you give to ∅bama’s speech at Roanoke, he damned himself.
That statement is the plain expression of Obama’s theme, the meat and potatoes. Mentioning that “There was a great teacher…” is the parsley or fig leaf intended to cover his bald-faced rejection of individualism, i.e. Americanism.
In essence, Obama did not say you did it with help, he said you did not do it.
Commentary on his speech should not start with the assumption that he meant the more reasonable interpretation. This was not a blank screen moment on which to ascribe good intentions. Obama meant what he said and should not be given the benefit of the doubt that he did not really mean this hostility to free people.
What I liked about Romney’s reply is that he also pays tribute to the workers– people who have good work habits and develop their skills. I suck at business and never made much money, but I’ve (almost) always had a job. And I’m not jealous of those who made those jobs possible.
Actually I think he did in fact mean the more reasonable interpretation. It’s a classic case of sloppy pronoun usage.
“Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
I think most likely he meant for “roads and bridges” to be the antecedent of “that,” though it’s not only ambiguous but grammatically incorrect. (I’m assuming the remark was extemporaneous–if it was a written text, there’s less room for doubt.) Also I don’t believe he would have deliberately given his opponents this gun to shoot him with. He ain’t that dumb.
In a generous and fair-minded debate, his opponents would grant that he may not have meant it the way it sounded. Even if that’s true, it would not really change the general thrust, the overall straw-man-ness, of his argument. But that would be a more subtle case to make, one that can’t be made in the mass media anymore, if it ever could.
Although I do think the right’s attack on this is a bit unfair, I can’t say I’m shedding any tears over it. Absolutely no mercy has been show to any conservative, ever, for things that could be similarly misintepreted. Cf. Romney’s “Corporations are people, too” and “I’m not worried about the very poor”: willfully and gleefully misrepresented.
Live by the sword, die by the sword, Dems.
Mac: please see my latest post, on both interpretations of Obama’s words.
Parker, I would be proud to live in a society under the rule of the likes of Cora Quinn. Congratulations!
Will do–but later. ‘sposed to be working here…