From President Obama's remarks to an audience in Roanoke, Virginia this past weekend:
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. (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. 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.
No, the point is, if you have ears to hear and eyes to see, this president doesn't want to
mandate what you must do with your property, nor does he want to
tax it. What he really wants is for you to acknowledge that your property is not now, and never was, yours at all. Rather, it belongs to everyone. That is, it belongs to the only entity that can reasonably be said to represent everyone: the state. And just now, he's in charge of it.
He is replicating the Progressive campaigns. Is this by imitation or is this just the logic of his argument.
ReplyDeletePerhaps both, but I think more the latter. Actually, none of this is a surprise. From his autobiography to his 2008 campaign, there is remarkable ideological consistency.
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