Free Republic

Weeding out individualism at an early age... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZQvSCGaJI#ws

Want to know what Barack Obama’s second-term agenda will be? Looking at the VIP admissions to the Democratic convention, the assumption will be more Solyndras and more wasted taxpayer dollars. ABC News caught former Department of Energy official Steve Spinner getting a “red-carpet” tour yesterday of the facilities in Charlotte. Who’s Steve Spinner, you may ask? He’s the man who pushed the DoE to ignore the advice of auditors and approve Solyndra’s $500 million-plus taxpayer-guaranteed loan:..... What happened when ABC trained their cameras on Spinner? He scurried out of the spotlight:.....

CHARLOTTE — After being pummeled for days at the Republican National Convention for his remark that business owners “didn’t build that,” President Obama heads to the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina this week facing mounting questions about how he will respond to charges that he is hostile to free enterprise. On Sunday, senior Obama advisers suggested that they will not address the anti-business allegations directly but will instead try to turn the tables on their GOP rivals by accusing them of being dishonest about what Obama meant. David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said in an interview Sunday...

After being pummeled for days at the Republican National Convention for his remark that business owners "didn't build that," President Obama heads to the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina this week facing mounting questions about how he will respond to charges that he is hostile to free enterprise. On Sunday, senior Obama advisers suggested that they will not address the anti-business allegations directly but will instead try to turn the tables on their GOP rivals by accusing them of being dishonest about what Obama meant. Nevertheless, there are signs that they see a vulnerability. Obama has not repeated the...

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...

"Property is theft."  Proudhon's classic anarchist paradox is more than a catchy slogan for international leftism.  It encapsulates a complete and comprehensively absurd view of humanity -- one which finds its contemporary apotheosis in President Obama's more prosaic rendition, "You didn't build that."  In other words, "You didn't build that" is just "Property is theft" without the irony.

TO THE EDITOR: Now that Mitt Romney has selected his running mate, it is clear that this election will be viewed as the adults against the children. One party wants everything for free and screams like little babies if someone dares to tell them that the country cannot afford to give them handouts. The other party wants to reduce the amount of entitlements in order to both save the country and to minimize the amount of debt that will be passed on to everyone’s children and grandchildren. This election will also be about substance and class warfare. One party will...

This is one dirty campaign. My fellow Fox political analyst Karl Rove sees the proof in the Obama campaign’s claims that Mitt Romney might be a felon and an Obama super-PAC advertisement blaming Romney for shuttering a factory and leaving a dying woman without health insurance. Yes, there is dirt being thrown by the Obama campaign. But one of the biggest chunks of mud is proudly splattered all around the Republican National Convention site. I refer specifically to signs that read: “We Built It!” For weeks, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have hammered President Obama for saying, “You didn’t build...

One would think that after a full week of Ryan and Romney campaigning strong that they would have maintained a lead in the Rasmussen poll. For the life of me I do not understand how the kenyan can all of a sudden be up 2 points for 3 days in a row. Any thoughts?

“They’ll turn us all into beggars ‘cause they’re easier to please.” So goes a Rainmakers song. Beggars also are easier to control. Just ask the drug dealer. It is not compassion that motivates him to give away the first hits of heroin for free; it is the promise of control. President Obama wants to give you free stuff. Lots and lots of free stuff. At least, he’d like you to believe it’s free. Free health care. Free welfare checks. Free food stamps. But as the saying goes, free stuff or freedom: Choose one. As any teenager knows, you don’t escape...

Ross Murty, the co-owner of the Village Corner Deli in Davenport, is a proud small-business owner who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. Serving up pulled pork, beans and cheesy potatoes for the press at the president’s campaign event this evening, Murty wore a T-shirt that said, “Government Didn’t Build my Business, I Did.” The shirt is a reference to a comment Obama made last month. While discussing the importance of government investments in public services, the president said, “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. … Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system...

RADFORD, Va.— Would you say no to the Vice President? One New River Valley business owner turned Vice President Joe Biden down. This might happen more than you think from both political parties, most businesses just don't talk about it. The owner of "Crumb and Get It" - did. Chris McMurray's bakery has been open only since May, barely three months. Wednesday morning, advance teams for Vice President Joe Biden walked in. "I approached her she said Joe Biden is coming to town today," McMurray said. "Crumb and Get It" is a mom and pop store. Literally. Chris and his...

One month to the day after his infamous ‘you didn’t build that’ speech, President Obama’s description of wealthy people did not include “smart” or “hardworking,” as he instead ascribed their success to good luck. “If you’re lucky enough, and fortunate enough, and been blessed enough to be in the other two percent, the top two percent, you still get a tax cut for your first $250,000 of income,” Obama said during a campaign stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “All we’re saying is after that, maybe you can do a little bit more to help pay down this deficit and invest...

Now that President Obama and his apologists have spent a few days insisting – with increasing panic and desperation – that he didn’t say what he clearly said in Roanoke, Virginia, the spin itself has become a negative reflection on the President. He’s basically demanding that his supporters abandon their own senses, and the most elementary understanding of the English language, to un-hear his words, forget his contempt for individual achievement, and swallow him as a champion of the entrepreneurial spirit. “You didn’t build that” has become a sort of litmus test for pure, blind, unwavering faith in Barack Obama....

Kevin "The Geek" Kerwin, a business man who owns a computer shop in Lake Oswego, Oregon, said he was slapped by a woman over an anti-Obama sign in his window, Victoria Taft wrote Tuesday. According to Taft, "Kerwin came to Oregon to get a fresh start after being wiped out by Hurricane Katrina." She added that he started his business with the money he had in his pocket. After President Obama said business owners did not get where they are on their own, Kerwin posted a sign in his window saying that he built his own business and Obama had...

On the trail, Obama is calling for more taxpayer investment in infrastructure and other projects - investments he was touting when he uttered the phrase "you didn't build that" - a line Republicans chopped up and turned into a rallying cry. Several of the small business owners tapped by the Obama campaign say their businesses survived the recession thanks to government projects. "I am a product of all the great opportunities our country gives its citizens. I grew up with middle-class values, where I went to public school. I went to college at a public university, where I received a...

Ever notice how selective President Obama is when he bashes success? He implies that many wealthy peoples' success makes them greedy - that they don't pay their "fair share" in taxes. Yet he milks them for campaign contributions. He insults the success of small business owners, saying, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Yet he leans on small business owners to build jobs and the economy (which would help his re-election).

President Obama must surely wish he could undo the campaign speech he delivered in Roanoke, Va., on July 13. That was where he offered up the view that "if you've got a business, you didn't build that, somebody else made that happen." It is a line that could haunt him right to November, revealing as it does an unwillingness to credit success and a hostility toward the culture of entrepreneurship. But the remark came in the context of a broader argument that was just as telling on a different point, and no less troubling. The president simply equates doing things...

The president's speech calls to mind a "West Wing" episode in which speechwriter Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) explains to the staff of some liberal house members why he won't insert a line in President Bartlet's upcoming speech. They want the president to attack Republican tax cut proposals as financing "private jets and swimming pools" for the wealthy. As Seaborn argues: Henry, last fall, every time your boss got on the stump and said, "It's time for the rich to pay their fair share," I hid under a couch and changed my name. I left Gage Whitney making $400,000 a year,...

President Obama's message to entrepreneurs that "you didn't build that" prompted one Georgia business owner to respond with a not-so-subtle retort. "I built this business without gov't help. Obama can Kiss my ass," reads the sign outside Gaster Lumber & Hardware in Savannah, Ga. Owner Ray Gaster posted that and two similar ones at all three of his company's locations in response to Obama's comments during a speech to supporters in Virignia, which struck a nerve with small business owners around the nation.