Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
This link came to via The Transom, Ben Domenech's morning email. When I read the post, it made me cry. Written by Hunter Baker, it's about a boss who shaped him:
When I heard President Obama’s comments about people who start businesses, how they didn’t do it by themselves, how they aren’t smarter, and how they don’t work harder, I thought about Bob Brunton. When he started his drug store, Bob had to take all the financial risk of failure. He had to stay open long hours each day and worked weekends, too, for years until he had a solid client base and could afford to work fewer hours. But even when I was there, Bob was putting in a lot of time. He didn’t take off for lunch. He just heated a little container in the microwave and kept going.
Baker had taken the job to save up much needed money for graduate school. You really need the post to get a taste for what made Brunton special. He sounds like an amazing man. And because he put so much of himself into his business, he didn't live long after he retired. Baker ends:
The president talked about how we can’t take credit because somebody helped us along the way. I think he was thinking mostly about the state when he made the remark. I can tell you that Bob Brunton helped me. He made a big impression both in his work ethic and in how he treated me. On my final day, it was time to close the store. Bob and I were the only people still on the premises. He gave me my final paycheck. Then, he pulled out a second check. Before he gave it to me, he said, “This is not a gift. This is not a loan. This is an obligation. When you are successful someday and you can help a young person, I expect you to do it.” He handed me a check for an additional $500. At that time, my pay for the part-time job was $120.
The president can build up the role of government all he wants. I concede that it is important. But he really should not downplay the contribution of the small businessmen and women who do so much to make our country great. But if that is the case the president wants to make, he’s got a long way to go to convince me, because I worked for Bob Brunton of Decatur, Alabama who ran a drug store.
President Obama's remarks belittling entrepreneurship have struck a nerve with many of my small business-running friends. But I've also noticed that my friends without ties to small businesses are confused as to why the remarks have bothered others. I'd encourage them to read Hunter Baker's post about Bob Brunton.
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Aug '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Wonderful story. Reminds me of the "civic culture" that Charles Murray talks about. This belongs in a Romney campaign spot.
Sep '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
I think the most effective rebuttal to King Barack of Taxalot and his composite minions is to just have folks dressed up like Joe the Plumber who look at the camera and say:
"You've never had a real job in your entire life have you Mr. President?"
Jan '11
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
It's important to remember that Barack Obama wasn't speaking ... to ... business owners. He wasn't addressing his remarks to the business ownership community. It had that form, since he was saying "you didn't do this" and "you didn't do that," but he really wasn't speaking to business owners. Nor was he speaking academically about business ownership in general.
He was addressing his own supporters. He was justifying higher taxes. He was rationalizing to his political base why it will be OK to take money from the rich.
It has become ever more clear that Barack Obama's economic plan is that wealth will happen only when society is fair and just. Like the old peace-justice mantra, "if you want peace, seek justice" - Obama merely substituted the word wealth for peace. And in Obama's one-dimensional mind, economic justice means that no one should start out with more than anyone else. If some people are rich and others poor, they must be made equal first, even if it means outright redistribution. Obama can't comprehend how a society could be "just" when some start out rich and others poor.
Oct '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
I don't think O cares about creating wealth, because he thinks it'll just happen - because of the pathological tendencies of entrepreneurs, or the magical pixie-dust of government 'investment', or the laws of dialectical materialism, or something.
He cares about 'justice' and 'fairness', which obviously requires taking stuff from them as has, and giving it to them as ain't.
And because he knows he is a good man - because he believes in 'justice' and 'fairness' - he knows that anything he does is good, no matter what lies and distortions it may require.
And how this relates to Mollie's post I've now forgotten!
Apr '12
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
"But I've also noticed that my friends without ties to small businesses are confused as to why the remarks have bothered others."
This is central to the increasing rift in US politics. The collective vs. individualist. Those who feel the government should define your social environment vs. those who prefer to choose their own social environment. The belief that we are victims of circumstance vs. the belief that we are responsible for our own lives.
If people aren't responsible for themselves to begin with, how can they take credit for their successes?
Obama is not the source of fatalism in the US, he is it's manifestation and main spokesman.
Feb '11
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: .....
But I've also noticed that my friends without ties to small businesses are confused as to why the remarks have bothered others. .....
Your friends without ties to small businesses are confused because there is some truth in what the president said, particularly about individual success depending to some degree on a society that values and supports life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Mollie's confused friends also probably identify with the truth that intelligence and hard work aren't always enough for success. Where Obama goes off the rails is when he uses these truths as evidence that successful people owe the rest of us for their success, when he assumes that society provides this structure out of the goodness of its heart without gaining anything in the process, when he assumes that freedom and success necessarily come at the expense of others rather than to the mutual benefit of all, when he assumes that entrepreneurs aren't already paying their fair share and are somehow taking advantage of the rest of us. Mollie's confused friends need Romney to guide them through these fundamental questions, acknowledging the truths while correcting Obama's wayward extrapolations.
Feb '11
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Obama is dumb. This latest just nails it. Anyone who is at this level of power and doesn't understand what it takes to build something is dumb, dumb, dumb. I'm tired of his stupid actions and words being forgiven, excused as misguided ideology (socialist/marxist), narrow background (academia/government), or inexperience. At this level, after 3.5 years in office to utter those words means he is stupid (or evil and I'm not yet ready to go there). We have a blithering moron as a President. Just look at the parade of embarrassments he's given us on the national and international stage. That doesn't mean he doesn't have the rat-like cunning of a mobster or some other parasite, but he is a moron and a fool.
Though impassioned and pointed, mine are not ad hominen attacks on our Dear Leader. They are a pungent analysis of the intellectual capacity of the 44th President of the USA.
May '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Wealth is created through private enterprise. Government can only function by removing a portion of that wealth for use in collective enterprises (taxes). Mr. President, wealth creators do not owe their success to government. Government owes its existence to wealth creators.
Nov '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Government can play a critical role in maintaining infrastructure and regulating the general boundaries of civil, free society. But that was clearly not what BHO was arguing. The following analogy springs to mind.
I am a professor of Mathematics; although I also teach and perform service to the university and broader community as part of my job, the heart and soul of my career is my research. It's what makes the distinction between a Professor and an Instructor. It is what distinguishes a University from a Community College. And it is almost an exact analogue to the role of the entrepreneur and innovator in society versus government.
In recent years we've seen a vast expansion of the role of administration in university life and in the government granting process -- and a simultaneous stifling of research initiative. The bigger they get the harder it is for us to do the job that makes the university what it is supposed to be in society.
It is not janitors, deans and senior admins, nor government grant adjuticators who do the job of research. Yes, they all play a role, but their best contribution is to stay out of the way.
Apr '11
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Who can make the best, most informed decision regarding where that money goes and why? Where will it do the most good? Whose property was that $500 until the check was written?
Would that $500 have been better spent as tax dollars? That’s what the President is selling.
Hayek, Hunter Baker and I all disagree.
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Has there ever been an example of an entrepreneur who succeeded without heroic self-sacrifice? Even one?
My two brothers have been working six or seven days a week for decades. In the last decade, they've worked their way up to one or two weeks of vacation per year. They may have slow times when they only work a half day on Saturdays. They'd rather work a full day. They employ 40 or 50 people in a small town.
The President is an ingrate.
Edited on July 18, 2012 at 7:20pmFeb '11
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Western Chauvinist: Has there ever been an example of an entrepreneur who succeededwithout heroic self-sacrifice? Even one?
The president is an ingrate. · 23 minutes ago
...and it's not only self-sacrifice, it's toughness of mind and strength of spirit. You have to be able to keep moving forward when everything is in your way and nothing is going right. Some call it grit, whatever you call it, it's not luck. Luck is an ingredient, but you make your own luck for the most part.
Everyone gets the "benefit" of the same roads, schools, police & fire, military (Oh if only that was all government did). So why doesn't everyone create an Apple, Inc.? Because it takes so much more than that. The only rational reason why anyone would try is because the potential payoff (meaning in the currency that matters to you) is so big. Even of those few who try, over 90% of all new business attempts in the first 2 years.
Edited on July 19, 2012 at 7:44pmDec '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
No Caesar
Western Chauvinist: Has there ever been an example of an entrepreneur who succeededwithout heroic self-sacrifice? Even one?
The president is an ingrate. · 23 minutes ago
.... The only rational reason why anyone would try is because the potential payoff is so big. Even of those few who try, over 90% of all new business attempts in the first 2 years.
But, it's not even a big payoff most of these people are going for. My brothers don't expect their company to become Apple. They just want to earn a living doing something they like to do, which consequentially provides the opportunity for others to earn a living as well.
The big payoff for guys like them is having enough to pay someone else to repair the car (they were both grease monkeys as teenagers), or to cook a nice dinner for them (one brother also was a cook as a teenager and still insists on cooking the turkeys for the family's Thanksgiving, although he caters the rest). You might say they enjoy spreading the wealth around. Fortunately, it's their own wealth created by the sweat of their brows.
Obama has got to go.
Sep '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
This is what happens when In God We Trust becomes In Hegel We Trust. No room for a God who died on a cross but ample preaching time for a God who nurses an eternal grudge.
McTaggart, Hegelian Cosmology (link is to a site on www.marxists.org)
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Either that or he is convinced the majority of voters are.
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Yet more evidence that our country is doomed.
Jul '11
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
“He didn't invent iron ore and blast furnaces, did he?”
“Who?”
“Rearden. He didn't invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn't have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it's his? Why does he think it's his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.”
She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn't anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?”
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Jun '12
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Freeven
Either that or he is convinced the majority of voters are. · 1 minute ago
Or both.
May '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
Imagine the difference in impact on a young persons life: a) getting a $500 check from a faceless bureaucrat in the Dept. of Education, or b) getting a $500 check from a Bob Brunton, who you know and respect, who knows and cares for you as a person, and who challenges you to be successful and then give back. That's why the welfare state is a complete and utter failure. Not for lack of concern and compassion, but for lack of relationship and accountability.
Dec '10
Re: Barack Obama Vs. Bob Brunton Of Decatur, Alabama (Who Ran A Drug Store)
“Who?”
“Rearden. He didn't invent smelting and chemistry and air compression. He couldn't have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it's his? Why does he think it's his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything.”
She said, puzzled, “But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn't anybody else make that Metal, but Mr. Rearden did?”
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged · 1 hour ago
Please tell me that you're single and into grumpy round men.
I re-read Atlas Shrugged a couple of months ago, and it is increasing scary how closely reality is tracking the plot of the book.
I just hope we manage to stop the process before we get too much farther in, because things get mighty sporty for the folks who aren't able to retreat to Galt's Gulch.
Edited on July 18, 2012 at 10:46pm