Separated At Birth?
One is allegedly 1/32 Cherokee, the other allegedly 1/32 coherent, yet they both have something in common. Namely, they both believe in the absolute and inviolable right of one group of people to plunder as much of the property of another group as they can get away with. Here are some samples of their mental gymnastics, along with a few observations:
From Elizabeth Warren:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you! …You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of the police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. [The top 5 percent of wage earners, …those who can afford to build factories…, pay 59 percent of federal taxes in this country. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of the bill. Care to guess again on who paid for those roads, schools, police and fire fighters?] You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. …"[Evidently you've missed the headlines about marauding bands of EPA and DOA swat teams wrecking havoc at private businesses.]
Taking a cue from Ms. Warren's smoke signals, Obama sermonized:
You didn't get their on your own. [Neither did you, Mr. Frequent Flier. And we who pay for Air Force One are growing tired of funding your flights of derision against the productive sector.] I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart," [Says the man who thinks he and a group of like-minded puppet masters inside the beltway have the intelligence to manage the healthcare of over 300 million Americans.] There are a lot of smart people out there [whose judgement to manage their own lives you don't trust.] 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. [whose pockets you will pick bare] If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. [My undying gratitude to dear Mrs. Arp, who encouraged my writing back in 8th grade does not negate my subsequent efforts nor entitle you to transfer my earnings to unconstitutional initiatives.] Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. [That would be the Founders, whose work you have made it your life's work to undo.] Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.
While both Ms. Warren and Mr. Obama start out largely in sync, at the end of his remarks, the inertia of the President's hyperbole sweeps him clean off the reservation where he lands on his rump and blames George Bush. To say that economic cooperation in the form of infrastructure, for example, helps provide the conditions in which entrepreneurs can thrive is a reasonable supposition. But to leap from that to the proposition that it wasn't the entrepreneur who built his own business is 32/32's nonsense. Who put their savings and future at risk? Who is responsible for payroll? Who pays the light bill, the property taxes, the licenses and fees, the rent, the insurance? Who gets the bloody tax bill from you, Mr. President? Somebody else? And to insinuate that there is no discernible difference between paying for police, fire, and roads, and subsidizing federally funded solar panel boondoggles at the point of the IRS's gun is to add insult to incoherence.
The President neglects to mention that "somebody else" is there with the entrepreneur, every step of the way. When someone steps out to build a business, someone is there demanding an environmental impact study. If and when the entrepreneur is actually permitted to build a business, that someone will be there to check for the proper licenses, credentials, fees, ad nauseum. And when that businessman earns a dollar, that same someone will be there to collect his portion under threat of force. Actually, that last statement isn't quite true. The government won't be there to collect their portion, because Barack Obama believes that it is all the government's portion. The government just decides what portion the business owner is allowed to keep, which is why he keeps referring to tax cuts as government expenditures.
The business of demonizing productive people and fomenting envy between Americans is, alas, not very profitable. People don't risk their future to go broke, and so they look elsewhere prompting President Hopey Changey to blame outsourcing on, ...Mitt Romney? The man who was creating jobs when Barack Obama was smoking weed? The man who Obama's surrogate accuses of being a felon when it's as obvious as his wife's belated pride in her country that if Romney had been a felon, he would have been invited to Obama's inner circle along with Rezko and Ayers?
Mr. President, somebody else built this country, not you. Other people fought for it and saved it, not you. Other people made this the freest, most prosperous nation in all of human history, not you. It wasn't yours to fundamentally transform. You have no constitutional power to do so. Your oath requires that you make sure the laws are faithfully executed. You swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, and you have abrogated that oath. No one else did that for you… you did it on your own. And you will be held accountable at the ballot box in November because, despite your best efforts, the concept of personal accountability still remains.
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Comments:
Mar '12
Re: Separated At Birth?
Dave, as always a fantastic post. If anybody in Mr. Romney’s inner circle is reading Ricochet, you should have gotten a few calls by now asking you for material for his speeches.
Thanks again, also, for lifting the spirits of those of us living in socialist Europe. Do not let them destroy America. Ship them over here if they love Europe that much and they will blend in straight away. I will personally pick up a council home for the Obamas in Burnley. It’s all “free” there. Free food, free accommodation, free stabbings and rapes. They are going to love it...
Mar '11
Re: Separated At Birth?
In France they call a Socialist a Socialist, and he gets elected promising a 75% tax rate for the "rich" (who are now leaving the country, as a result).
Mr Obama's (and Ms Warren's) 31/32 verbal incoherence is a way of saying he wants a 75% top rate, including for capital gains, without saying so - because that would give the game away. He might prefer 100%, in his heart of hearts.
I must have missed the 1/32 verbal coherence - when did that happen?
Mar '12
Re: Separated At Birth?
different tribes
Mar '12
Re: Separated At Birth?
same values
Jul '10
Re: Separated At Birth?
There is nothing as satisfying as a good Dave Carter stemwinder.
Edited on July 17, 2012 at 8:08pmApr '11
Re: Separated At Birth?
The more I read the Obama passage, the more it makes no sense (besides being completely offensive to anyone with an entrepeneurial spirit). Take for example the great teacher argument. Didn't my parents' taxes pay for that teacher WHILE I WAS IN FREAKING SCHOOL?!?! So what does that have anything to do with me now that I am a grown-up? I assume my current taxes are paying for the current teachers, so what's the point? You say you need more, why? If I'm not special, and I am successful, than why do you need more? Isn't my success proof that it can be done w/o spending more? And what the heck does basic infrastructure have to do with nationalized health care? Or Solyndra boondoggles?
For God's sake, my brain hurts, I need a drink!!
Re: Separated At Birth?
High praise indeed, coming from you, Mollie. Thank you.
Re: Separated At Birth?
Thank you, Diane! I'd be happy to read it to him myself,...at 1/32d speed of course.
Re: Separated At Birth?
Eric Voegelin: Dave, you need a much bigger venue for your writing.
Being able to write that was one of the top reasons for my joining. · 2 hours ago
One day, Eric,...one day. And thank you very much, sir.
Re: Separated At Birth?
Geshundheit.
Sincerelyus,
Davus
Re: Separated At Birth?
Haven't heard anything yet. Perhaps my formulations are a bit too robust? But phone lines are open and operators are standing... bye!!
Dec '10
Re: Separated At Birth?
Dave Carter
Thank you, Diane! I'd be happy to read it to him myself,...at 1/32d speed of course. · 4 minutes ago
Since you are 1280/32d correct, if you read it to him at 1/32d speed, that amount of concentrated truth would probably cause his teleprompter to short circuit and start smoking.
Apr '11
Re: Separated At Birth?
Dave, Dave, Dave, you know darn well that all money is the governments and it is only through their benevolence that you get to keep any of it. So, they don't allow the more "fortunate" to keep as great a percentage as us workers is only because they in their infinite wisdom understand that to wrest away so much for themselves could only have occurred through less than honest means, and probably at the expense of less fortunate souls. The government does a service to all of us to keep such greedy individuals in check and to make society fair for all of us. Remember Grandpa Marx told us "all private property is theft" this includes the money you squirrel away in your paltry little savings accounts.
Aug '10
Re: Separated At Birth?
Fantastic post, Dave.
It comes at a good time for me, as my child just came home from summer school to inform me that he got a lecture on 'community' today, with the teacher making these very same points. She even used the phrase "it takes a village" (which my son has now heard so many times from his teachers that he rolls his eyes at it). That lecture was followed by a political rant from the teacher on the horrors of Republicans, because they want to take away teachers' job security.
A strange comment from a teacher in a Canadian school, but I guess 'progressives' are a global group.
Re: Separated At Birth?
Dan Hanson: Fantastic post, Dave.
It comes at a good time for me, as my child just came home from summer school to inform me that he got a lecture on 'community' today, with the teacher making these very same points. She even used the phrase "it takes a village" (which my son has now heard so many times from his teachers that he rolls his eyes at it). That lecture was followed by a political rant from the teacher on the horrors of Republicans, because they want to take away teachers' job security.
A strange comment from a teacher in a Canadian school, but I guess 'progressives' are a global group. · 31 minutes ago
Rush made a vital observation today that Obama's insistence that the community at large is responsible for the business owner's earnings makes it easier for him to justify the seizure of those earnings in the eyes of said community. Far from naive, the President's rhetoric is insidious and destructive of our most fundamental rights.
Mar '11
Re: Separated At Birth?
The 1/32 Cherokee and the 50% Mau Mau share a wrong end of the telescope view of what used to be covered by the concept of equality of opportunity. It is not as ludicrous as it at first appears. It is a disguised way of stating they prefer equality of outcome to equality of opportunity.
Aug '10
Re: Separated At Birth?
You. Are. So. Very. Right.
Aug '10
Re: Separated At Birth?
Another great post, Dave. Though it's a little creepy how you have obviously been reading the very inner thoughts of so many Ricochet members.
Nov '11
Re: Separated At Birth?
Isn't there something special we can do to honor this post? Have all new members read it and take a pop quiz before admittance? Make it a permanent first post, because it will never outlive its truths or its humor (something very rare indeed) ? It's really, really hard not being able to buy you a drink, Dave, or is there some way to do that, too?
Re: Separated At Birth?
I just keep telling myself, "Liberty works!" Pass it along... As for drinks,...I drive 70 hours a week! In a straight line no less!! But if I can get some time off and attend a Ricochet meet up, that's a different story.
Edited on July 19, 2012 at 1:06am