Elegant Disunity

So, this story broke:

Barack Obama: If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

Now, does that mean President Obama thinks you didn’t build your own business? No. But, I guess it does make a great Talking Point, I suppose.

If anyone would bother to read (or listen to) the full quote, it’s pretty apparent what the President was referring to:

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. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Unfortunately for the talking heads, this is the objective truth.

So-called job creators didn’t build the infrastructure that gets customers to your store. The internet was a joint collaboration between the government and private enterprise.  No one built it on their own (not even Al Gore).

Furthermore, if you’re the CEO of a major corporation like Best Buy or Home Depot, you don’t even do the day-to-day, ground-floor labor that makes you successful. The workers are making money for you, you’re profiting off of the benefits society has given you. So, we poors have the right to expect you to contribute in proportion to the amount you benefit.

Someone like Mitt Romney exemplify exactly the problem. He says, “I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more.” 

That’s great.

But, Mitt, you’re worth at least $250,000,000. You didn’t earn all this by the sweat of your brow. You earned it by buying and selling stocks.

It seems to fly over the heads of some people that, if you make $100,000 per year as the titular CEO and sole shareholder while—admittedly—not doing anything, we might expect you to contribute to the people who are suffering for you.

We can’t keep cutting benefits for the ground-floor workers so CEOs and stockholders—modern day robber barons—can rake in millions. It’s not sustainable and it’s immoral.

Private businesses are cutting health benefits and capping wages but still making record profits.  If private enterprise won’t provide for people, the government is going to pick up the slack.  That’s not “free stuff,” Governor Romney.  That’s the government stepping in to fix your mistakes.

If people want to intentionally take Obama’s words out of context and pretend that businessmen are all ubermench magicians capable of building national infrastructure on their own, go right ahead. But that’s dumb as shit.

The full text of Obama’s remarks are even better.  See below the break for the quotes.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  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.

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.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.  There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own.  I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service.  That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires. 

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together.  That’s how we funded the GI Bill.  That’s how we created the middle class.  That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.  That’s how we invented the Internet.  That’s how we sent a man to the moon.  We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea.  You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.