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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: Steely Tom

Isn’t this called a Freudian slip?


61 posted on 09/02/2012 10:31:04 PM PDT by saintgermaine
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Keeping this meme alive is going to psych Obama out and force him to read off the Teleprompter rather than risk ad libbing and doing it again. He’s jinxed himself.


62 posted on 09/02/2012 10:46:40 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
On reply to that article needs to be reprinted.
Andrew_M_Garland

Frédéric Bastiat: "Socialism confuses the distinction between government and society. Every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all."

  Socialists also confuse the role of government. Whenever government provides a service, Socialists proclaim that only government can provide that service, and we owe our souls to the government because it is kind enough to provide that service rather than let us die.

  -- -- 

Bob: You put out the fire. I can't thank you enough.

Official: Hand over the keys. We own that house now. It would have burned to the ground without us.

Bob: But, I already paid taxes for your help.

Official: I apologize. You have a point. Instead, pay us in tax half of what you produce. That is for our effort in providing all of our vital services.  

-- --  

Even if someone protects you, you don't owe them everything. You can usually arrange a better deal than that. 

 One human doesn't own another one because he supplies an essential service. We aren't each other's slaves. Our obligations of mutual cooperation are satisfied when the transaction is complete. One or the other can't come around the next day saying he wants more. You might as well base society on the gun; give me more or I will shoot you. And, that is a good deal, better than being dead. 

 Government usually has a formal monopoly on force. That doesn't confer the right to make the population into slaves. From time to time, governments have asserted this right, and it always ends badly. 

If Bastiat were still around, he would need to write anything new about Obama. He would just be able to refer to what he wrote about socialism in the 1800s.

Obama and those like him seem to believe that everything you produce above what a lone hunter/gatherer could belongs to "society" and therefore to government. If the government allows you to keep more than a couple tubers and a handful of semiripe berries, it is only because of its benevolence and not because you have a right to your labor. That is what Obama meant and what we must fight every day. If it was a "gaffe", it was one only in the sense that Obama revealed more if his true beliefs than he meant to.

63 posted on 09/02/2012 10:57:42 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (Cardinal Dolan's DNC prayer is titled "Ritus exorcizandi obsessor a daemonio")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Obama is projecting all of his successes due solely through affirmative action apply to those of us who have to make it without the benefits of affirmative action. Obama and his wife only know success through affirmative action.


64 posted on 09/02/2012 11:21:38 PM PDT by monocle (Some polls are desi)
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To: redpoll
...the workers will rise up

My first college counselor told me that when "they" begin to march, he wanted to be right there with them. I got a new counselor. I always wondered where he thought all those marching people were going AND most importantly, WHO would be leading them all.

Sounds like the Good Lord has left some people to their own delusions.

65 posted on 09/02/2012 11:48:37 PM PDT by Slyfox
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To: austinaero
the leftists have twisted Sarah’s “I can see Russia from my house”

Sarah didn't say that. It came from a Saturday Nite Live skit.

It has been repeated so many times that most think she did say it.

66 posted on 09/02/2012 11:58:04 PM PDT by Dan(9698)
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To: TIElniff

Good post, and the last sentence gives a good explanation about why Zero is wrong.


67 posted on 09/03/2012 2:00:56 AM PDT by kitkat
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To: Belle22

In the X-ring. Dead on target.


68 posted on 09/03/2012 2:11:57 AM PDT by 5th MEB (Progressives in the open; --- FIRE FOR EFFECT!!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; Fred Nerks; little jeremiah; onyx

MARX & LENIN, STALIN & MAO: THAT'S HOW I ROLL

69 posted on 09/03/2012 2:42:00 AM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hussein: Islamo-Commie from Fakistan)
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To: redpoll; PGalt
Famous Cherokee warrior Elizabeth Warren said the same thing last year, I believe.
Precisely. And altho the rest of your post is spot on, this is IMHO the real opportunity in the 2012 context.

Obamaites can obfuscate until the cow come home, but two facts cannot be evaded:

  1. Obama was saying the same thing as Fauxcahantas notoriously recently said and, as the audio clip clearly documents,

  2. Obama was preaching to the choir when he said it.
One day, at least according to the Marxists, the workers will rise up and kill the capitalists, thereby taking the wealth that they created through their labor. As my prof used to point out to the delight of those of us with more pedestrian values, good and bad have different meanings based on who you are. When the workers kill the capitalists, it won’t be good for the capitalists, but it will be good a catastrophe for the workers.
There have been rebellions of this sort, in Russia and many other places. They are disastrous for the workers for one simple reason: It took leadership to assemble the elements of a successful (i.e., socially beneficial) business, and it takes leadership to keep adapting it to changing circumstances. And circumstances do change.

We struggle to understand why journalism is in the pockets of the Democratic Party, but it the reason is actually obvious. For reasons having little or nothing to do with the public interest (and everything to do with the very different proposition of interesting the public), Journalism is about bad news. Consequently journalism is really criticism. The more assiduously the journalist seeks to “make a difference,” the more s/he engages in second guessing of the decisions made by those who do socially necessary things. That can make the journalist seem important and knowledgeable - and since journalists are fascinated with creating appearances, that is good enough for the journalist. It can even gain control of a country for the journalist (e.g., Mussolini’s Italy).

But second guessing is no substitute leadership. Let your “worker” who “did" build that try to continue its operation in the absence of the leadership which “didn’t build that” and she will learn soon enough what that leadership was actually working quite effectively accomplishing, and what he was preventing. The Marxist idea of killing the capitalist is actually nothing more than killing messenger who tells you that the sum of your demands for credit for “doing that” is greater than the value of what has actually been accomplished.

The profit or loss of a business depends quite critically on seemingly modest expenses. The under appreciated problem being that profit/loss is a small difference between two large numbers representing income and expenses. Thus, a 5% increase in expenses (very “reasonable” wage increase) and a “reasonable” 5% reduction in working hours (thus, of production and revenue) can throw a modestly profitable business into a crisis.

But of course in reality this election is about one fundamental question which the Obama Administration raises - do those numbers actually matter? You and I know in our bones that they do. Obama is behaving precisely as if they did not. And every election year we are reminded of just how many people are capable of believing that. The numbers may not matter, but the reality which they describe does. Just not to a superficial person such as a journalist. Until there isn’t any food on the shelves.


70 posted on 09/03/2012 2:46:33 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which “liberalism" coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
I want it in a CATCHY COUNTRY MUSIC TUNE BY A NAME BRAND CONSERVATIVE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AND SOMEHOW WE CAN GET IT ON THE CHARTS AND IN POPULAR CULTURE.

It could be simply entitled "You Didn't Build That" or "You Ain't Done Built This". Something. Anything. Particularly in a "Take This Job and Shove It" kind of irreverent way. Why, for crying out loud,it is a big hit song for September and October just DYING to be written, recorded and hitting the airwaves and SNS/streaming.


71 posted on 09/03/2012 3:31:51 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Donate, & walk precincts, not for "Parties", but for individual, principled "Candidates" (& for FR)
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To: PhilDragoo
"Вы не строили это." -- Barack "Lenin" Obama
72 posted on 09/03/2012 3:38:05 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo (Donate, & walk precincts, not for "Parties", but for individual, principled "Candidates" (& for FR)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“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.”

Lie.

“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. (Applause.)

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.”

That’s the context. Snarky, in your face trash talk. Romney has made sure that the full text is included.


73 posted on 09/03/2012 4:45:20 AM PDT by gusopol3
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To: TIElniff

Thanks for the Atlas quote.


74 posted on 09/03/2012 4:59:07 AM PDT by magellan
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To: PhilDragoo

75 posted on 09/03/2012 5:00:36 AM PDT by Fred Nerks (FAIR DINKUM!)
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To: Red Badger

“Islam and Marxism have a whole lot in common.......”

Ya....evidently it’s on full display already...down in Charlotte

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/08/an_islamic_festival_to_jump_start_the_dnc.html


76 posted on 09/03/2012 5:05:40 AM PDT by mo (If you understand, no explanation is needed. If you don't understand, no explanation is possible.)
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To: GOPJ
Rachael Larimore appears to be the first liberal member of the press able to understand both sides. Rachael actually ‘empathized’ with us.
Very strange - stranger yet that Slate ran it...
(First, sorry for the Day Late Comment)

If you think that's something, you better sit down for this.
Saturday and Sunday I read two articles that were actually 'nice' to Romney.

They were in the --- New York Times! Honest 'Injun'. I'm not kidding.
I had to double check the URL to make sure I was at the right website. And yep, it was the NYT.

Now if the New York Times will print something even remotely nice about any republican, let alone Romney, Obama has a BIG problem.

77 posted on 09/03/2012 5:06:08 AM PDT by Condor51 (Si vis pacem, para bellum.)
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To: Honorary Serb

Eat your peas!


78 posted on 09/03/2012 5:39:13 AM PDT by Snow Eagle ("... Against all enemies, foreign AND DOMESTIC")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The actual full quote includes him chiding business owners for thinking they built that with their wits and hard work, when, says Obama, lots of folks are smart and work hard.

That is the damning full context and it is even worse than the quote the Obamacan’ts want to try to rewrite.

But of course they never acknowledge that context.


79 posted on 09/03/2012 5:45:37 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The actual full quote includes him chiding business owners for thinking they built that with their wits and hard work, when, says Obama, lots of folks are smart and work hard.

That is the damning full context and it is even worse than the quote the Obamacan’ts want to try to rewrite.

But of course they never acknowledge that context.


80 posted on 09/03/2012 5:45:37 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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