True. And I agree that the context supports the idea that “that” refers to infrastructure, not the business.
But I still say that it has a negative ring to it, because the phrasing of that sentence lent itself to multiple interpretations. Sometimes that’s unavoidable; in this case, it’s not. “Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build those roads and bridges,” would be a much clearer and harder to misrepresent choice. That’s all.
Only one interpretation is reasonable. Willfully choosing an unreasonable one is tantamount to simple lying, no? The responsibility for that choice falls on the interpreter, not the speaker.
IOW, quit trying to excuse your party and its spokesbimbos.
Indeed. Someone who read or heard the quote “if you’ve got a business— you didn’t build that” in isolation, or worse, relied on the right-wing press’s gleeful misrepresentation of it, could be forgiven for thinking Obama meant “you business owners didn’t build your own businesses,” despite that being a completely nonsensical statement.
Someone who has access to the quote in context, and furthermore has had that context explained to him repeatedly, and still claims that Obama meant “you didn’t build your own business,” either demonstrates a severe learning disability or a deceitful intent. I will charitably place magellan01 into the last category.
I do agree with Bricker that Obama or his speechwriters should’ve taken greater pains to idiot-proof the phrasing.
It sounded like a semi-prepared semi-improvised riff, not really a speech, so I think the mistake is all on the big man. Not that it was that big of a deal, it turned out.
Change “idiot” to “liar,” and I kind of agree, except that liars gonna lie. Criticizing Obama because some highly dishonest politicians found a way to take something he said out of context and distort it seems like an unfair criticism.
I agree with the first sentence but that’s it.
Obama was not saying that we need for business people to pay for the infrastructure that supports them. He was saying that since they have already benefited from the infrastructure, they owe the government whatever it is that the government happens to be asking for at the time.
As documented above, the context was his call to end the Bush tax cuts for higher income people. There’s no specific linkage of these taxes to infrastructure. No one ever determined that the amount these people are paying after the Bush tax cuts was less than what’s necessary to support the infrastructure that benefited them. It’s just “you owe us - pay up”.
If he raises taxes on the rich people, he could then re-use that exact same argument to raise them again - there’s nothing changed WRT the raw argument. Nobody has determined what amount would be necessary to fund all the roads etc. It’s “right now we need X dollars so we’re going to take it from you because you owe us for all we’ve done for you”. It will never change.
It’s virtually impossible to avoid this type of thing when speaking off the cuff - you can’t think on the fly of all the possible ways in which your words might be misinterpreted.
But I actually think Obama lucked out, in that Republicans jumped on his specific words and took them out of context. That changed the discussion from Obama’s attitude to private property to what he meant by those words; the latter was much more favorable to him.
In short, that’s a product of your own imagination, nothing more. All he was doing was chiding those who aren’t paying their fair share by using the “taxation is theft” claim and its relatives.
Nor is there a *specific *linkage to anything else.
Zero, or less than Warren Buffett’s secretary, is certainly less than what’s necessary. As you know.
Again, no. It’s “You owe your fair share”. That *should *not be objectionable.
There is room for discussion about what constitutes fairness, certainly - but no definition includes the heavily regressive tax structure we have now.
Really? Its in every federal, and state, budget document. Tough sledding, sure, but they’re all publicly available.
And that is another version of the silly “Taxation is theft” claim. Want to tell us more about how paying your fair share as your responsibility as a member of society is just like being shaken down by the Mafia? :rolleyes:
While I think Obama was right on the money in what he said, what you’ve raised is at least a fair and honest critique of his speech; as such, it’s streets ahead of the nonsense raised by the liars.
It’s certainly sincere, but that does not equate to being either fair or honest.
This is actually where I feel that fact-checking has gone too far in recent elections (and why the liberal orientation of many fact checkers in the media is significant).
Because you and I both agree that it is a misinterpretation to claim that Obama said “you didn’t build that (business)” and that he actually said “you didn’t build that (infrastructure)”. But we would disagree on how significant of a misinterpretation that is.
As I see it, while Obama didn’t actually state “you didn’t build that business”, it’s clear from the context of his words that he was effectively making that same point. “You didn’t build the infrastructure which contributed so much to the success of your business. The government did, and therefore the government is effectively a partner in building your business and entitled to its share”. I don’t see that as being fundamentally any different than “you didn’t build that business” (other than perhaps an implication in the latter that you did nothing at all while the government did everything). So while twisting Obama’s words is not something I condone in any event, and if done deliberately a lie as you say, I don’t see it as a fundamental distortion as much as just converting it into a snappier and more inflammatory sound-bite.
OTOH, if you don’t agree with my overall perspective on the issue, you would find the distortion of his words to be very significant, as you presumably do.
And so it is with a lot of these fact checks. Technical facts are easy. What’s highly subjective are the “technically accurate but misleading” or “technically inaccurate but generally on target”. That’s where a lot of the fact checking has moved lately, and where there needs to be some pushback IMHO.
What’s the fundamental difference between what you’re saying right now and saying that it doesn’t matter whether his words are distorted or not, because he’s a liberal, and that’s what liberals believe anyway? Which is to say, what’s the difference between the position you’re staking out and a position that holds that it literally doesn’t matter what he says, since we know what he believes?
You know better. :rolleyes:
“Perhaps”? Is that a synonym for “Not”? There is no reasonable interpretation, even out of context, that supports that inference by you. None.
Then you ought to stop doing so. :dubious:
I think you’re wrong here. I think Obama’s point (in the whole statement) was “you didn’t build that business in a vacuum, and society at large (including government) made it possible for you to succeed and create this business, so it’s reasonable to ask you to contribute a little more of the fruits of your success towards improving society and the conditions for future successes to be wrought”.
Gotta love the “ask you to contribute” euphemism. Sounds so much better than “take from you under threat of force”.
Luckily, we live in a society in which those who aspire to lead must lay out their vision and ask the population to vote for (or against) them. In 2012, the majority voted for Obama (and, apparently, the vision he laid out). If a majority opposed his vision, then he would not have been re-elected.
The modern Republicans do have a strained understanding of who are the takers and who are the givers in this society, don’t they?
I’m not just saying we “know” what he believes. I’m saying that was essentially what he was conveying in that particular phrase, but just more indirectly than the distorted version would have it.
But in any event, I’m not saying that “it doesn’t matter”. It does matter. But it’s not as big of a deal as if it was a distortion of the general theme that he was conveying.
That pretty much means the same thing (once you allow for the fact that when it comes to taxes “ask” doesn’t really mean “ask”, and “little” is subjective).
Sure it does – he’s asking for votes to elect him to a position and execute his plan. He’s asking for their support (and the support of others).
Here’a a discussion comparing infrastructure quality and spending among countries.
I’m sincerely curious how road repair is handled in the models of libertarians and other right-wing extremists. Should all roads be toll roads?
BTW, a main reason U.S.A. ranks even as high as #25 in overall infrastructure is that it’s #1 in “Available airline seat kms/week.” According to the World Economic Forum, in quality of roads U.S. ranks below several countries including Spain, Portugal and South Korea. In quality of railroad infrastructure, U.S. ranks behind even Malaysia.
Yes, and Bill Gates retains the vast majority of the value created with microsoft. Bill Gates has been quoted saying that he could never have achieved his sort of success in any other country but America (or a similarly developed nation, I suppose). Unless you are proposing some sort of capitated tax to replace the income tax (where everyone pays the same amount because we all have the same access to public goods), progressivivity makes sense…
I agree with ther est of your post but I don’t understand this part.
I think there might be a generational disconnect with tattoos. I understand that toattoos aren’t just for gangsters and sailoers anymore but I’m not aware of the racial element.
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Slippery slopes aren’t always a fallacy but in this case it is. There is no reason why increasing taxes a little bit (I think it was literally 4.6% increase on income over $250,000 from Bush era tax rates to Clinton era tax rates) will lead to confiscatory taxes. The argument wasn’t even “lets raise taxes because we are desperately short of money,” it was “lets let these tax cuts expire because we are desperately short of money” I happen to believe that raising taxes just then was not a good idea when we had so much borrowing capacity during a recession but it wasn’t as stupid as what the other side was peddling.
Are you under the impression that our country does not reward the successful businessman enough? I think we might disagree on how much of a businessman’s success is due to the advantages of living in a nation of laws; with a developed economy; with developed infrastructure; with a literate educated populace, witha complex dependable complex financial system, with high levels of disposable income, fairly uncorrupt law enforcement and the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
It doesn’t mean that the state owns the product of your labor but it means that you have a partner in everything you do and your partner is (for lack of a better term) society.
I think he is agreeing that Obama wasn’t referrign to the business when he said “you didn’t build that”
Is that really the way you read that paragraph or do you think it is fair to read that spoken sentence in isolation from its context?
Of course it makes sense. When conservatives pretend they are solely responsible for their busiensses success, it makes sense to point out that there were extrinsic factors provided by society at large that also contributed to their success.
Do corporations count as job creators?
They certainly tried to make it one.