The proposition that roads and railways have to exist before food can get to markets is so basic and beyond cavil that, in my opinion, the only reason to mention them is to suggest something more than “necessary, but not sufficient.”
I don’t want to make too big a deal about this, because it wasn’t too big a deal for me, but here’s what I didn’t like about the “you didn’t build that” statement. Why not say “we all built that together”, because I DID pay LOTS of taxes that went into building “that”. When he says “you didn’t build that” it sounds like someone else built it for me. But most of us folks who are old enough to have paid taxes for awhile contributed to building “that”.
It’s not going to stop me from voting for Obama, but I can see why someone who doesn’t like him to begin with is going to bristle at that statement.
Politicians say basic and obvious things all the time. Obama was essentially saying “No one got where they are entirely, 100% on their own. We all had a little help.” That’s it- and yes, it’s pretty basic and obvious. It also is completely different from how the Republicans are characterizing it.
I already noted Romney’s comment characterizing Obama as having said “Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple Computer or that Bill Gates didn’t build Microsoft or that Henry Ford didn’t build Ford Motor Company or that Ray Kroc didn’t build McDonald’s or that Papa John’s didn’t build Papa John’s Pizza.” This mischaracterizaiton is a standard part of the stump speech now. His surrogates have all done the same thing, repeatedly.
The campaign has put out many ads playing the context-free quote with variations on the theme of small business owners saying, “You’re saying I didn’t build this company?”
Romney himself and the campaigns ads both characterize Obama as having said that businessmen didn’t build their own companies, and rebutting the strawman that individuals had no role in their own success. None of that is at all responsive to Obama’s actual claim that government investment is also necessary for businesses to thrive. All of it is directed at rebutting the mischaracterized claim that individual’s played no role in building their businesses.
Of course he was stating the obvious. You think Obama is saying individual skill and intelligence is not necessary for success? Even if his comments were ambiguous (which I don’t concede), why on earth would you read them that way? He is quite obviously saying both are necessary and neither is sufficient.
Because he wasn’t talking about the business, he was talking about the infrastructure. You paid for that with your taxes, but your hard work and merit had nothing to do with the construction of I-95. You didn’t build it, in normal parlance.
I think his weighting of the relative importance of individual skill as opposed to social infrastructure is vastly different than mine, or in the alternative I think his conclusion about what a successful individual “owes” society as a result of that infrastructure being present is vastly different than mine.
All of which, in Romney’s mouth, would make for a good election campaign about issues. Would that he didn’t choose instead to wildly mischaracterize the remarks.
If we’re done with that issue, how about the welfare attack?
One other point, which is that I earlier characterized this about being about taxes. It is, but only in part. The thrust was also about the necessity of infrastructure for economic prosperity. This stands in contrast to the Romney/Ryan position that cutting funds for infrastructure and research is part of a sound economic plan. That context further reveals why Obama would be stating the obvious.
It’s irrelevant. I’m on the same page as the OP. If someone says something you don’t like, just move on. I would also be fine if you wanted to engage the person directly. What I find tiresome are your efforts to find a third party to condemn the person for you. “Ooh, he was mean to me. Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
Hey, look at that! Bricker has fallen back on his argument so far that it now looks actually reasonable. If only the Republican Party had taken such a stance.
Actually, the reason is that the “gummint suxx” ideology has (as George Orwell put it in with reference to a different situation) now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.
Echoing this, conservatives don’t seem to be troubled at all when one of them suggests that it is “heroic” or “really American” to avoid paying taxes. It really has come to the point where they need to be reminded that by doing so, they are impacting the resources available for everyone else to succeed.
OK. I agree. It’s at best a mischaracterization and at worst a lie. I think more likely the latter, only because I don’t think Romney is stupid and he knows exactly what Obama was talking about.
There is a link where you can read the full polling results. It says absolutely nothing about “the employer would have to prove it”, it says that the majority of Americans believe that employers with religious or moral objections should not have to cover contraception. Period. You’re wrong in trying to argue that it says anything more than that. You’re also wrong about the Republican position. The Republican position, as expressed in the Blunt Amendment, is precisely that employers with religious or moral objections should be allowed to purchase insurance plans that don’t cover contraception and abortifacents.
The presence of the infrastructure makes it possible for your ingenuity to bear fruit. Fail to support the infrastructure, and you fail to support the possibility of your ingenuity bearing fruit.
Saying this doesn’t ‘dilute the value of private initiative’. It presumes that private initiative is of supreme value. It (private initiative) is the very thing that makes the infrastructure valuable. Private initative, on this reasoning, is the ultimate source of value.
MARGINALLY??? HA! I see you walked that waaay back later in the thread. It is a plain big fat lie. Just another in a string based on the Goebbles-Rove BIG LIE strategy.
If only the Republican Party had taken such a stance.