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“You Didn’t Build That” Isn’t Going Away: It doesn’t matter what Obama meant. Here’s why.
Slate ^ | August 30, 2012 | Rachael Larimore

Posted on 09/02/2012 7:40:21 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

The official theme of the GOP convention Wednesday night was "We Can Change That," but that didn’t stop several of the speakers from revisiting Tuesday’s theme, the base-rallying battle cry: “We Built It.” The message: The righteous exploitation of President Obama’s “You Didn’t Build That” gaffe isn’t going away.

Ever since the president stood before a crowd of supporters in Roanoke, Va., on July 13 and, while explaining why the wealthy should pay more in taxes, uttered the infamous words “If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen,” conservatives have hammered him for his disregard for small-business owners. And liberals have hammered back that Obama was taken out of context. To be fair, this is the full quote:

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.

Obama supporters can complain all they want. They can argue that when he said “that,” he was talking about the roads and bridges, not the business itself. It doesn’t matter. And it’s pointless to blame Mitt Romney or the RNC or anyone else for taking it out of context. Here’s why....

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012; 2012electionbias; anticapitalism; bhofascism; democrats; dnctalkingpoints; economy; elections; entrepreneurs; nakedemperor; nakedmarxist; nobama2012; obama; romney; slate; socialism; youdidntbrewthatbeer; youdidntbuildthat
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Before he got around to the "you didn't build that" line, Obama had already basically said "If you were successful:

1) Let me give you a list of everyone besides you who contributed to that success.

2) Let me mock you if you think you're successful because your smart, or because you worked hard.

3) Let me extol what everyone else has done to help you, without giving you any credit or acknowledgement. Let me especially ignore and make no mention of the fact that many of you may have risked your savings and/or gone into debt in order to start your businesses.

So naturally, by the time he got around to saying the "you didn't build that" line, even granting his claim that it was misinterpreted, the misinterpretation was still representative of the disimissive attitude toward business owners of everything he had said prior to that!

So Obama wants us to back off the "you didn't build that" line because it was misinterpreted! Fine ... then let's confront him with the three items I've mentioned above, because that clearly is what he did and did not say, and there is NO debating that!
21 posted on 09/02/2012 8:13:04 PM PDT by zencycler
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To: Steely Tom
That's what I thought I heard him say... he needn't try to complicate things by telling me how I should have interpreted what he said, because in the end, he still believes the same way ha has always believed, regardless if I heard him correctly or not. It all still points to the same thing, "small business owners are nobody special, anybody could have done what they did, and besides, if it wasn't for the government nipple slogging them upside the head, they couldn't succeed"...
22 posted on 09/02/2012 8:15:32 PM PDT by dps.inspect (rage against the Obama machine...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I commend Slate for trying to explain this to their readers. Afeter reading the comments from the “Progressives”, sadly, it didn’t work.


23 posted on 09/02/2012 8:15:32 PM PDT by griswold3 (Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)
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To: redpoll

Very eloquent summary.


24 posted on 09/02/2012 8:16:37 PM PDT by God pays good
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

This is what he meant.

If you’ve got a business, that...you didn’t build that. Someone else made that happen.

That is why he must have a teleprompter. He cannot contain his hostility towards America without it.

He’s an idiot and a husk.


25 posted on 09/02/2012 8:17:02 PM PDT by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: redpoll

‘Property is theft’ since ‘You didn’t build that’, you have no complaint when it’s taken from you by force (which is government) if necessary.


26 posted on 09/02/2012 8:19:14 PM PDT by griswold3 (Big Government does not tolerate rivals.)
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To: Steely Tom

If you think he said what you heard him say, you’re a waysis too!.....


27 posted on 09/02/2012 8:21:25 PM PDT by Red Badger (Anyone who thinks wisdom comes with age is either too young or too stupid to know the difference....)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Obama didn't say, "You didn't build those", meaning roads and bridges. He said, "You didn't built that", meaning your business.
28 posted on 09/02/2012 8:23:21 PM PDT by Signalman
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To: austinaero

I wholeheartedly agree — there’s no such thing as bad publicity about Zero’s public expression of his real attitude — which is reparations [sic] and redistribution in a dissent-free environment.


29 posted on 09/02/2012 8:23:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: GeronL
The former co-founder of Car(l)Ma(r)x even supports the statement.

I just emailed carmax and told them I would never purchase a car from them again due to the owners support of Obummers comments. I told them to get ready to be "Chick-fil-a'd" in reverse. everybody needs to email these people.

30 posted on 09/02/2012 8:25:29 PM PDT by In God I trust
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To: RedMDer

Is it any wonder a person who firmly believes “white folks’ greed runs a world in need” - a line Obama quoted approvingly in his own book (page 293) - would also believe that a business owner only owns it by taking advantage of others?


31 posted on 09/02/2012 8:25:36 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Liberalism: "Ex faslo quodlibet" - from falseness, anything follows)
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To: zencycler

You’re exactly right, and notice that Slate did not include those portions of the speech when they put the “You didn’t build that” into “context.” They conveniently left off the key sentences of the entire speech, which shows that “you didn’t build that” meant exactly what conservatives have been saying he meant:

“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.”


32 posted on 09/02/2012 8:27:07 PM PDT by RightFighter (It was all for nothing.)
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To: redpoll

I did the same thing as you, only my course was in Comparative Religions. What I learned about a little understood religion called Islam alarmed and frightened me, because I could extrapolate into the future the events that eventually came true on a bright sunny September morning in 2001. Islam and Marxism have a whole lot in common.......


33 posted on 09/02/2012 8:28:00 PM PDT by Red Badger (Anyone who thinks wisdom comes with age is either too young or too stupid to know the difference....)
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To: TIElniff

Yes, thank you, and I would add to that, that not only do some us do things with out help, we also acomplish things against great odds, with others - even family members - saying “You can’t do that, it will never work out.” And we get up and do it anyway. That’s what really makes me angry about that statement.


34 posted on 09/02/2012 8:29:20 PM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: Signalman

Aw that’s racist — to expect to interpret Barack’s remark as though it had been put in English! Ebonics mixes singulars and plurals without rhyme or reason. Surely there was an elided word [stuff] as in “You didn’t build that [stuff].”


35 posted on 09/02/2012 8:30:04 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The thing about the spin from the left on this as to what the President “actually meant” is that it doesn’t at all change the meaning - the point of the speech still remains to diminish the significance of individual achievement - that is the only thing it could have meant - with that sentence preceded by the other mocking comments about people claiming to be “so smart” and claiming they “worked hard”, etc. Their spin is also just as incorrect - the roads and bridges would not be there without business owners and their employees producing the capital that was taxed. Look at the old pictures of towns / cities when they were first starting up - no roads, no bridges. Dirt paths and little boats to take things across. Totally wrong - he and his fellow liberals have it backwards.


36 posted on 09/02/2012 8:30:12 PM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: austinaero

Sarah Palin NEVER, EVER uttered such a stupid and inane comment........


37 posted on 09/02/2012 8:30:59 PM PDT by Red Badger (Anyone who thinks wisdom comes with age is either too young or too stupid to know the difference....)
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To: Red Badger

Both believe in ganging up to do brutal, unthinkable things.


38 posted on 09/02/2012 8:33:12 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew (or is that lou?))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I wonder how professor thomas crapper feels about this. who knew obama helped him invent the toilet with the help of roads and bridges.


39 posted on 09/02/2012 8:49:15 PM PDT by Ryan_Rubio_2016
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I wonder how professor thomas crapper feels about this. who knew obama helped him invent the toilet with the help of roads and bridges.


40 posted on 09/02/2012 8:49:21 PM PDT by Ryan_Rubio_2016
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