Hey, Obama: We Built That Stuff Too!

Townhall.com ^ | July 19, 2012 | Neal Boortz

[Kaslin]

Dear Ruler:

First, let me say how thrilled I am that you went off-teleprompter last week. This “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen” thing was just wonderful. Now I know how Chris Matthews felt.

Oh .. I know. Your handlers weren’t all that thrilled with your amazing screw-up, and, frankly, they have been worried this day was coming for a long time. They know how you feel about the private sector. They know of your antipathy toward free enterprise and those evil small-business men out there who are not likely to support your move to a centrally-controlled economy. They had hoped to keep your true feelings in check with those teleprompters … but nooooooooo … you just had to improvise, didn’t you? You just had to wander off the tightly-controlled, rhetorical reservation. Well, thank you. You certainly didn’t gain any significant voter support with that asinine utterance, but you most certainly did lose some.

Now we’re having fun watching and listening to your sycophants trying to defend your “somebody else made that happen” line. Somehow they have to make your blunder sound marginally reasonable. Apparently they’ve had a meeting somewhere, because they’re all running with pretty much the same message. It was the government that built the roads those trucks travel on to bring stuff to your business for you to sell. It was the government that built those utility systems that keep your offices cool and the water clean. They really love that quote from Henry Ford about not being able to build his cars if the government had not built those roads.

Well guess what, Dear Ruler? We built that stuff too. Not government, but the private sector: America’s evil private businesses.

Get in Marine One, Obama, and fly off to visit a road construction project. Look at those graders, rollers and the machines that lay the asphalt. See those logos on the doors? Those logos are for private construction firms. Those workers in yellow vests? Their paychecks and benefits are coming from private businesses – many of them the very small businesses you want to hit with tax increases.

Next, you can fly off to take a look at a utility project somewhere. Maybe you can find a sewer line being laid, or some electrical transmission lines being strung. Again – those are private companies doing that work with private sector workers.

You see, there’s a document out there that, frankly, I doubt you have ever read. It’s called The Declaration of Independence. I’m sure there’s a copy around your office somewhere. But I do want to save you a bit of trouble here, (knowing you busy you are fundamentally transforming American and all), so I’ll provide you with a little excerpt from that document:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

There! Do you see that? That government you’re so enamored with … that government you credit with Americas greatness … well, to paraphrase one of our presidents, “You didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” That’s right, Dear Ruler, somebody else made that government happen. and that somebody else is US. The government is OURS. We built it. We hire the people to run it. We have regular meetings every two years or so to decide whether we want to keep those managers or get rid of them to find better talent. Those roads .. our national infrastructure? We HIRED the government to build those things for us, just as we hire contractors to build our business locations and to design and manufacture the equipment we will use in the course of our businesses. We created this government – the government did not create us – and we contract with this government to do things for us on a grand scale because we recognize the inefficiencies of trying to do those things for ourselves. Government is just another contractor we hire to get our private business done.

But hold on a minute, Ruler Obama. There’s something else I want you to read before you put this letter down. You see, I didn’t include the whole quote from The Declaration of Independence above. I left something off … and here it is …

"...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m of the opinion that when our elected leaders become so enamored with themselves, and of the government we have hired them to manage, they become a grave danger to those unalienable rights set forth in The Declaration – you know, the rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration says we may “pursue” happiness. It does not guarantee it. You and the party you represent seem to think that happiness is a right, and have created a government that has now become destructive of the very ends it was designed to support.

There’s more than one way to alter or abolish at government, Ruler Obama. We’ll give one of them a good old college try in November.

Again .. thanks for your incursion into extemporaneous speech. We’ve learned a lot from and about you in the last week.

With all DUE Respect.

Neal Boortz.

[IamConservative]

There have been some well written and passionate responses to “You didn’t build that.” Glad to see the right unite.

That one sentence may give us enough momentum to see images of Fonzi on water skis dancing in our dreams a year from now.

[Steve Van Doorn]

The issue is much worse then what was written. The issue isn't who built the product. The issue Obama was talking about was why we are all forever indebted to the government. Remember this was his ration of .... trying to explain why the rich need to pay more.

Which means Obama was explaining why we are peasants. Obama was actually explaining to us his reasons why we live under a system of feudalism and there is nothing we can do about it.

[Atlantan]

Thanks for posting the video. And God bless the hard working family that built the business.

[griswold3]

True.
Classic Collectivism “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”
This IS about why those who have created wealth should be willing to fork over more. You OWE society for allowing you to succeed.
The problem with this argument is that those who operate small businesses already pay license fees, taxes, permits, etc along their way to the top. Now there’s a majority of voters that are convinced they are entitled to your talents and property. We’re screwed as history has proven time and again.
(in the words of Robert A. Heinlein):

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

[doug from upland]

Too funny. I pulled that MIDI today to see if it might be the right parody.

[doug from upland]

His hatred of and disdain for businessmen is unprecedented. Before a businessman pays himself, he pays wages, unemployment, employee benefits, taxes, insurance, rent, inventory, accounting, maintenance, advertising, loan payments, all kinds of government fees, etc. If there is any money left, he finally pays himself. He is the one taking all the risk.

[Cyber Liberty]

That would be a good one....

[Steve Van Doorn]

WOW I never heard it put that way. Very nice

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”

24 posted on July 20, 2012 12:45:06 AM EDT by griswold3 (Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)

Most excellent, griswold.

Theodore Roosevelt famously asserted that

"It is not the critic who counts . . . the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena . . . who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds . . . 

[SCalGal]

BTTT