Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Ben on July 15, 2012, 10:11:43 PM
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Obama insisting that there's no way to become successful without help:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/president-obama-if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/
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More proof that Obama is more full of *expletive deleted*it than a Christmas turkey.
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:facepalm: [barf]
I am sick and tired of this meme. Seems to me Clinton did this too, as well as a number of other demorats.
Obama has no highground on this matter.
I don't think he's ever even operated a lemonade stand................................. :mad:
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When I started my first business (photo studio), local, state and federal government did innumerable things to make me want to give up. Until I hired an assistant in the third year, I did everything myself.
I can almost guarantee that the people who run around repeating this tired mantra have never run a business. It's just more justification to take money from those who've earned it and give it to those who haven't.
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He must be right. If success were the result of intelligence or hard work, Barack Obama would never have risen to the highest office in the land.
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I think psychologists call Obama's statement projection.
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This has been a talking point of the Left for the past 1.5 years. Kind of peaked with the OWS crowd.
The idea being that you couldn't be a millionaire if it weren't for roads, pub schools, the military keeping whoever from invading us, and this somehow justifies ever higher progressive tax rates.
Of course, like so many of the Left's arguments, it's a typical straw-man fallacy.
They don't want to get into any kind of discussion of taxes paid vs. services consumed. Nor are they interested in hearing about the fact the person or business entity in question paid taxes commensurate to their income or holdings "on their way up".
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This has been a talking point of the Left for the past 1.5 years. Kind of peaked with the OWS crowd.
The idea being that you couldn't be a millionaire if it weren't for roads, pub schools, the military keeping whoever from invading us, and this somehow justifies ever higher progressive tax rates.
Interesting how I use roads, and Mitt Romney uses roads, but I am not a millionaire. Interesting how public schooling is available to me and to 50 Cent, but I am not a millionaire. Interesting how Bill Gates and I both enjoy the benefits of national defense, a criminal justice system, and so on, yet I am not a millionaire.
Why, it's almost as if these people did something differently than I did, that allowed them to make more money than I make. Maybe they made different choices than I've made. Fascinating.
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Y'know, it's funny that someone who takes credit for everything good that happens, from the killing of bin Laden to increased domestic oil production, won't allow that someone else did something himself.
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Obama's argument is so very easy to pick apart...
Who paid for or will be paying for the bridges, roads, government services?
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Spoken with the experience only a post turtle can have.
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I guess it was just good luck that I studied my butt off in college and got better grades than everyone else ;/
I told one of my professors that I cheated: I did my homework :lol:
I could be a lot more financially successfull right now if I moved to some hell-hole city and worked year around, but I choose to enjoy what years I may have left. I am pretty much to the point of "shrugging" and this latest crap from the Communist in Chief is good reason.
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A friend of mine, Citizen Scribe, had some remarks on this (http://noisyroom.net/blog/2012/07/17/obama-line-about-building-a-business/). Reproduced here with permission:
By: Citizen Scribe
While this has the potential to become quite contentious, permit me to offer a couple of points.
Some of my friends and I disagree a bit on the essence of the money quote, the "f you have a business, you didn't build that" thing. Their take is that he meant it as he said it. And my take is "yes, but…"
And here is my "yes but…"
The entire quote runs to about two paragraphs. It is clear that his meaning is that no one who succeeds can take all the credit for having succeeded, because the government made his success possible.
His semi-inarticulate blunder -- the money quote -- amounts to a Freudian slip of epic proportions.
Yeah, sure, he meant to say that those who built a business didn't build the roads and bridges, but what he really means -- under all the awkward wording -- is that you didn't build that. He goes on at length to make his "point" that without the government's help, without the government's having established all the infrastructure, you would have had nowhere to stand in order to accomplish your success. (He conveniently omits that every freeloading loser had that same infrastructure available.)
His "money quote" is the clearest, most succinct distillation of what he means here.
Yeah, he slipped up in trying to make the point, and gave his opponents a super clean sound bite, but that sound bite -- even with all its "out of context" framing -- is exactly what he meant.
The honest interpretation boils down to exactly that sound bite. It doesn't matter what his intended wording was, what he actually said is what he actually means.
And this goes deeper…
He's desperately trying to make the point that no one is responsible for his own success.
And why is that, Doktor Freud?
It's because he is not, himself, responsible for his own success.
He's a "made man." And not just figuratively speaking, either. He is an entirely manufactured phenomenon. There's no "there" there. He's a story, not a person.
A whole cadre of people collaborated to put him where he is. People of great means and evil intent financed him. People of letters and evil intent educated him. People with power to grab and an axe to grind propelled him. And none of this is unknown to him.
He knows he's a made man. He knows who made him.
And he can't interpret success through any other lens.
So, while I agree that he "meant" to say that a businessman didn't build the infrastructure, I also see clearly that he really means that no one who succeeds did it himself.
His money quote betrays him.
We need to hit this and hit it hard. It is his essence.
The money quote sound bite can be the intro, and a "summary clarification" can be made that he said two paragraphs of stuff, but the ultimate intent of his slam on business people and those who strive to succeed is embodied in that very quote.
Don't cut him any slack on this.
Couch it in whatever terms you must, but after you take the time to "clarify" the context, take that clarification all the way out: in the end, he said exactly what he means.
And he means it because it is an entirely and excruciatingly precisely accurate self-description.
He is that person about whom he speaks.
Make him own that.
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he "meant" to say that a businessman didn't build the infrastructure
Actually, some businessmen (construction contractors) DID build the infrastructure :P
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Actually, some businessmen (construction contractors) DID build the infrastructure :P
Yeah, but they couldn't have done it without inspectors, and permits, and the zoning commission, and union kickbacks....uh, wait....
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Yeah, but they couldn't have done it without inspectors, and permits, and the zoning commission, and union kickbacks....uh, wait....
Don't forget OSHA and fuel taxes :angel:
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If I was trying to hit the whole list I'd still be typing...
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Am I missing something here? Where did the gov get the money to build these roads and pay the salaries of these .gov employees? Taxes from the folks who didn't become successful on their own?
He has it all backward. All this great "success-building" infrastructure is here as a result of successful capitalists, entrepreneurs, and all the other folks who work (successfully) for a living.
Makes me want to slap the back of his head. Hard.
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i had a kid tell me how lucky i was. i said he could get up at 3 am with me for the next 3 years and see if that changed his luck
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He's a "made man." And not just figuratively speaking, either. He is an entirely manufactured phenomenon. There's no "there" there. He's a story, not a person.
<quibble>"Made Man" implies he did something to be recognized by his affiliated group. I would prefer to use "Made Up Man"</quibble>
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Makes me want to slap the back of his head. Hard.
I like you so much right now. :lol:
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Makes me want to slap the back of his head. Hard.
I suspect it would splatter.
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I suspect it would splatter.
POP! Swoooosh....
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I suspect it would splatter.
Nah, it would just be a hollow gesture.
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Obama insisting that there's no way to become successful without help:
The post turtle's perspective.
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He must be right. If success were the result of intelligence or hard work, Barack Obama would never have risen to the highest office in the land.
Bwahahahahahaha.... Excellent point.
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Makes me want to slap the back of his head. Hard.
Now that's a winning visual.
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Makes me want to slap the back of his head. Hard.
"Like" and +1
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A friend of mine, Citizen Scribe, had some remarks on this (http://noisyroom.net/blog/2012/07/17/obama-line-about-building-a-business/). Reproduced here with permission:
Now THAT is insanely astute.
I should have realized. Obama was talking about himself. Post-Turtle In Chief.
From how his white grandparents probably raised him, feeling guilt over his wayward .alt lifestyle mother, to the affirmative action in the schools that promoted along the (Joe Biden) "Clean Cut" articulate black boy, (and they won't release transcripts, probably because they show a history of "social promotion", or just getting by) to the Constitutional Law sinecure he got at UIC where he didn't really teach anything, to the "community organizer" jobs, "Dreams of my Father" that was ghost-written for him (possibly by Bill Ayers), to the Chicago Machine putting him in the IL legislature where he voted "present", to being shooed into the U.S. Senate where blind luck over Jack Ryan's sex-scandal divorce over wanting to watch other men rail his hot actress wife at swinger clubs got him in.
Deep down, I imagine Obama is probably very suspicious/jealous/incredulous of people who WORKED to get where they are. Competing emotions of superiority at feeling like getting other people to do these things for him is his "core talent" or gift, and simultaneously suffering low self-esteem at being nothing, if he were left to his own devices.
Makes perfect sense now. :facepalm:
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http://didntbuildthat.com/
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F25.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_m7brkkDUGN1rbxfido1_400.jpg&hash=1b73317475cad91cd198010bcb21a328946ac95e)
My favorite. Note also, he's making an "O" with his hand.
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Obama insisting that there's no way to become successful without help:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/president-obama-if-youve-got-a-business-you-didnt-build-that-somebody-else-made-that-happen/
He should stop letting Biden write his speeches.
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Am I missing something here? Where did the gov get the money to build these roads and pay the salaries of these .gov employees? Taxes from the folks who didn't become successful on their own?
He has it all backward. All this great "success-building" infrastructure is here as a result of successful capitalists, entrepreneurs, and all the other folks who work (successfully) for a living.
Makes me want to slap the back of his head. Hard.
At first, I agreed with you. But then I remembered how that government spending is actually coming out of Obama's stash.
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What is also unstated is the concept that these things can only be provided via a coercive monopoly. Only one entity can build a thing or do a thing (post office) and you will be forced to pay for it and/or not allowed to compete. Even though there is much historical evidence of all manner of nominally only-government things being provided on a voluntary basis such as roads, the post office, currency, education, dispute resolution, product standards, apprehension of malefactors and so forth.
Plus, the whole concept ignores the price system. The people who had input into whatever business at whatever remove were compensated for their efforts. They agreed to whatever reward and took it, that ends their claim. Now, people who are taxed to support the infrastructure do not have any additional claim because they too could have used said infrastructure provided for their own needs so have already received an equal share of the benefits.
All of this is just another slimy way to weaken property rights and put more productive assets in the hands of the political class and their hangers-on. The net result of this line of thinking IS socialism and the debasement of all productive elements eventually leading to a wasteland where there was once a viable country.
It is the mindset of the weak-minded, the gullible, the unethical and the lazy.
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FedGov doesn't build power lines, do they?
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FedGov doesn't build power lines, do they?
Sure they do. They issue the permits to allow people to do it, then regulate the hell out of the industry. That's "building infrastructure" in govspeak.
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FedGov doesn't build power lines, do they?
Ever hear of the TVA?
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Out here where I live, there wouldn't be power lines if it wasn't for the Co-Op.
Same with telephone.
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Ever hear of the TVA?
Also the Bonneville Power Administration out here in the West. The dams, irrigation and power infrastructure made the desert bloom and turned the lights on.
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Also the Bonneville Power Administration out here in the West. The dams, irrigation and power infrastructure made the desert bloom and turned the lights on.
And that's why you're a millionaire.
=D
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Looks like the hypocrite Romney is guilty of the same rhetoric, in spite of his words:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/23/12904508-romney-to-olympians-you-didnt-get-here-solely-on-your-own?lite
"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power,” said Romney, who on Friday will attend the Opening Ceremonies of this year’s Summer Olympics. “For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities. All right! [pumps fist].”
This is exactly why all politicians are compulsive liars.
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That's not the same rhetoric. Call me when he says, "You didn't win that Gold Medal."
Nobody claims that business owners create their wealth ex nihilo, with no assistance from customers, employees, etc. The problem with Obama's commentary was that he said flatly, "You didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." And that's a much different claim.
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Obama didn't win his Nobel prize or write his book on his own, but you'd never get him to admit that.
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That's not the same rhetoric. Call me when he says, "You didn't win that Gold Medal."
Nobody claims that business owners create their wealth ex nihilo, with no assistance from customers, employees, etc. The problem with Obama's commentary was that he said flatly, "You didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." And that's a much different claim.
There was no issue that I saw with Obama's remarks.
They were taken out of context.
Please continue taking the blue pill.
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What do you mean?
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Obama didn't win his Nobel prize or write his book on his own, but you'd never get him to admit that.
:rofl: The nobel prize was a gift and made the prize a farce. :mad:
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How could he have won the Nobel prize himself when the committee awarded it to him for things he hadn't even done yet?
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The nobel prize was a gift and made the prize a farce.
To be fair, it was a farce long before Obama got one.
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There was no issue that I saw with Obama's remarks.
They were taken out of context.
Please continue taking the blue pill.
Have you read the entire speech? I have. Context makes it worse. Stop watching MSNBC.
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Have you read the entire speech? I have. Context makes it worse. Stop watching MSNBC.
I think you missed Jamie B's sarcasm.
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Foi50.tinypic.com%2F2ic31wg.jpg&hash=7002d64e76027fca8bd185c9cb88872dae6006bc)
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.googlepixel.com%2Fimages%2Ferectionissue.jpg&hash=eea065f942a15d3611b77469f57642ce0e172ba6)
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In a sane, brave nation this man would be read the riot act to his face for rank foolishness.
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That first pic from Harold Tuttle with the build-a-bears. Obama looks rather like a Zombie in that photo.
I'm going to have nightmares.
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I think I'd prefer a Zombama. He'd probably make fewer, shorter speeches.
And they would make more sense!
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We need a like button.
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This one is most awesome since both characters share the "yes we can!" line. Hmm, come to think of it, Bob was first. He should sue.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fordgtforum.com%2Fforums%2Fbob.jpg&hash=4e9b6becbb85da79f2f50482fd22af6533b33a29)