What was President Obama thinking when he uttered the words that will likely to dog him for the rest of the campaign, “You didn’t build that?” It’s one of those astonishing gaffs that politicians pray their opposition makes. While trying to denigrate the accomplishments of Mitt Romney and his ilk as something he couldn’t have achieved without government assistance, he managed to outrage thousands of business owners across the nation; a group that already looks at Obama as the boogeyman.
The Romney campaign and virtually the entire GOP have jumped on President Obama’s infamous words from a campaign event in Roanoke, VA, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made it that happen.”
Trying to recast Obama’s words the Democrats are claiming Romney and other detractors are taking the president’s words out of context and if you read Obama’s speech you’ll come to a completely different perspective. Democrats are attacking Romney’s simplistic criticism as unfairly perverting Obama’s message that individual achievement flourishes best in an environment of collaboration and cooperation.
Reading the full context of Obama’s words only serves to reinforce the Obama message that government makes all things possible; you’re rich because of the government and therefore you should send some of that money back to the folks that made you successful; it’s the “fair-share” message repackaged.
President Obama’s own, off teleprompter words, makes it clear the man actually believes that if the government builds a road that you drive on to get to work that they’ve made it possible for you to invent a better mousetrap; the intellectual weakness of his point is startling.
Of course public facilities play a role in everyone’s life day in and day out; we plug our computers into an electrical grid created as a public/private endeavor; we drive on publicly built roads; we may have been taught in the public school system; so how does Mr. Obama explain why everyone isn’t a Steve Jobs, Michael Dell or Mitt Romney?
Where is Mr. Obama going with this line of thought? Is the president telling us that if you created anything but benefitted in any way from government, you don’t really own it? The money you made really isn’t yours since you only got it because of the government helped you? Taxing the rich isn’t really a bad thing because it’s not really their money anyway.
The president’s words speak volumes more than Mitt Romney or his surrogates could ever convey.
There is no Apple Computer since they couldn’t sell their computers without electricity or Al Gore’s fabulous Internet; so it’s Apple-Federal Computer. There isn’t a General Motors, as they couldn’t sell their cars unless there were roads to drive on; dipso facto: Government Motors; oh wait, we’ve already done that.
President Obama revealed for all to see what most Conservatives already knew: progressives like him believe this is a logical argument for raising taxes on a minority for the purported benefit of the majority. It’s a justification for using the force of government to confiscate private resources for the government to “invest” as it sees fit regardless of the intention and values of the individuals who created them.
Obama’s argument is quite simple: Government has the moral authority to “spread the wealth around.” You see, when you tax the rich you really aren’t “taxing” them because it’s not their money, it’s “our” money; we, as a society, provided the means to their success therefore its society’s money. Who says socialism is a bad word?
President Obama is using a tried-and-true left-wing bait-and-switch; he’s not raising taxes, he’s lowering inequality. Convince the people that success has little to do with hard work, brilliant ideas and skillful execution and you’ve justified redistributing their proceeds.
If the folks in Romney’s campaign can’t make a thousand strong ads from Obama revealing what’s behind the curtain they are complete idiots.
—————————————————————
Subscribe to Mr. Kaplan’s articles at Examiner.com
Read Mr. Kaplan’s blog at Conservatively Speaking
Email Mr. Kaplan at ken@conservativelyspeaking.us
Join Mr. Kaplan on Facebook at ConservativelySpeaking
Follow Mr. Kaplan’s tweets at ConsSpeaking