GOP's On-Target Convention Theme: "We Built This City"

Ideology: The battle is on between entrepreneurship and crony socialism, between candidates who believe innovative risk-takers create jobs and an administration that believes all blessings flow from the government.

By President Obama's logic, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps didn't really win all those medals on his record-setting run. The credit should go to those who built the pools he trained in and filled them with water.

Building on the reaction to President Obama's disparagement of entrepreneurs and businessmen large and small, the GOP at next week's Republican National Convention will dedicate Tuesday night to the theme of "We Built This!"

Speakers will include Sher Valenzeula, a Latina candidate for lieutenant governor in Delaware. Her campaign website notes she and her husband started an upholstery business that makes padding for baseball umpires and military vests.

"Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive," the president famously has said of business owners. "Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

According to Obama, those of you who thought that those bridges and roads were built with the tax dollars paid by businesses and the people they employ were sadly mistaken. The GOP hopes to capitalize on the justified anger of those who made personal sacrifices and put long hours into building their businesses.

This disdain for the individual and the American system of free enterprise designed to let everyone reach the limits of his or her talents and ambitions should be the overarching theme of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The theme should be Paul Ryan's I drive a truck and I worked at McDonalds.

The GOP does not have to work to get small business voters, any small business that is still in business understands they most likely will not survive four more years of Barry.

If that elitist snob Romney and his elitist brain trust want to win, then they need working class blue collar workers who have either lost their job or are in danger of losing their job and who voted for Barry in swing states.

The fact is both elitist conventions will offer little substance for that set of swing voters. Celebrating entrepreneurship may be an important to the Republican base just as celebrating cultural diversity is important to the Democrat elite base but middle class jobs, jobs, jobs is most likely on the minds of swing voters in battleground states. Barry and his crowd as well as Mittens and his crowd are in their hearts Ivy League elitists snobs incapable of connecting with that endangered species middle class working America.

That Hollywood movie star named Ronald Reagan was no elitist snob as was educated in a small college in the heartland of America and he embraced entrepreneurship as much as anyone but he could connect with the working man. Barry and Mittens cannot connect with the working middle class because they are too busy pandering to those who funded their billion dollar campaign chests with monies made possible by all the Gubmint bailouts and stimulus programs and giving condescending lectures.

If Republicans choose to do so, this Convention provides an unprecedented and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity "teaching moment" on America's founding principle of Creator-endowed individual liberty and the explosive and revolutionary freedom, opportunity and prosperity which resulted from that idea:

With reference to Obama's "you didn't build that" comments, for instance, every American citizen needs to know that it was not government planning, government interference, government regulation, or government "wisdom" which created "the Miracle of America."

Free individuals, acknowledging Divine Providence, pursuing their own interests, under what Madison called the influence of a "benign" government, created that outcome.

The Miracle of America

from

axes and hoes to high technology;

log cabins to air-conditioned condos;

horsedrawn wagons to autos, planes, and rockets;

scarcity to abundance; &

from tyrannical government rule to individual liberty

HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?

Most of our history books don’t tell us that, in the beginning, the pilgrims established a communal economic system. Each was to produce according to his ability and contribute his production to a common storehouse from which each was to draw according to his need.

The assurance that they would be fed from the common store, regardless of their contribution to it, had a peculiarly disabling effect on the colonists. Taking property away from some and giving it to others bred discontent and retarded employment. Human nature was the same then as now, and before long, there were more consumers than there were producers, and the pilgrims were near starvation. Governor Bradford, his advisors, and the colonists agreed that in order to increase their crops, each family would be allowed to do as it pleased with whatever it produced. In other words, a free market system was established. In Governor Bradford’s own words:

“This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means ye Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into ye field, and tooke their little-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene though great tiranie and oppression. . . . By this time harvest was come, and instead of famine, now God gave them plenty, and the face of things was changed. . . . and some of ye abler sort and more industrious had to spare, and sell to others, so as any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since this day . . . .” (Wm. Bradford, “Of Plimoth Plantation,” original manuscript, Wright & Potter, Boston, 1901)

Those who, today, favor central government planning, common ownership and redistribution of the earnings of others are advocating a system that Americans tried and rejected over 350 years ago. Their wisdom gave birth to the great American miracle!

Are we as wise today?

You Can Do Something About This: Make Your Voice Heard

(The Above Was A 1980's Free Enterprise Message Published by Stedman Corporation. For more information on America's Founding Principles, see "Our Ageless Constitution," here.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.