“Somebody Made That Happen”

 

Here’s all you need to know about what, exactly, Barack Obama thinks about business — the small kind, the large kind, the family kind, the any kind:

It’s almost too perfect, isn’t it?  And I especially love that turn of phrase —  “somebody made that happen.”

It’s always somebody for the left, isn’t it?  Somebody will pay.  Somebody will do it.

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  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @Todd
    George Savage

    FightinInPhilly: Sorry to be lame- but is there a longer version of the quote? 4 hours ago

    It is too long to post here, but The Washington Times has the complete quote.  In my opinion, greater length doesn’t do more than reinforce the Castro-in-English feel. · 4 minutes ago

    It’s one straw man argument after another. He is basically saying that no one can succeed completely on their own, an idea that no one would dispute.

    But the debate isn’t about extreme individualism vs. people doing things together. To me, it’s about what is the best way to coordinate people – through top down centralized planning or through a decentralized “market” process.  As smart as Obama claims to be, I honestly don’t think he understands this.

    He simply can’t fathom the notion that people will work together and coordinate their activities without a central authority in command of it all. 

    And he certainly won’t accept the possibility that a decentralized market process will produce better outcomes.

    • #31
  2. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @FightinInPhilly
    “If UBL was killed, I didn’t do that.  Somebody else made that happen.” · 2 hours ago

    Ben, I like where you’re going here- but in this case, someone else DID make that happen! :) Nice work SEAL Team 6 !!

    • #32
  3. Profile Photo Member
    @MollieHemingway
    CoolHand

    Stop quoting the rules, it makes you look like an [expletive]. · 2 hours ago

    No, it doesn’t. It helps keep the environment of Ricochet civil. We all need to redouble our efforts, time to time, to keep the spirit and letter of the CoC.

    • #33
  4. Profile Photo Podcaster
    @DaveCarter

    But if “somebody else” made the business “happen,” why is it the business owner who gets stuck with the taxes?

    • #34
  5. Profile Photo Inactive
    @CoolHand
    Mollie Hemingway, Ed.

    No, it doesn’t. It helps keep the environment of Ricochet civil. We all need to redouble our efforts, time to time, to keep the spirit and letter of the CoC.

    It appears that your sense of humor is broken.

    Might want to see to that.

    • #35
  6. Profile Photo Inactive
    @LowcountryJoe
    John Marzan: sounds like elizabeth warren.

    althouse thinks this election is going to be about Capitalism vs Socialism. Is mitt romney up to the task in defending Capitalism? · 5 hours ago

    In all fairness to Romney, there are way too many conservatives who also have trouble defending capitalism.  It really is a shame.

    • #36
  7. Profile Photo Thatcher
    @Concretevol
    Dave Carter: But if “somebody else” made the business “happen,” why is it the business owner who gets stuck with the taxes? · 12 hours ago

    Aggghhh, Dave I hate it when you not only beat me to the punch but also say it better than I would have!!  Well said!

    • #37
  8. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @ChrisCampion

    The other thing “somebody made happen” were grants to cowboy poetry festivals in Utah.  Somebody shut down the Keystone pipeline.  Somebody passed the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized nations.  Somebody threw “stimulus” money around to the states, which then used it to shore up their currently unsustainable spending levels.

    This “somebody” is a politician who will gladly spend trillions of dollars he himself doesn’t have to stay in office, and then will chastise you for asking whether or not it’s a good idea to pursue these policies. 

    This way leads to madness, and destruction.  He’s essentially arguing that you can’t argue with him, simply because it’s so.  This is like a day spending roughly 185% of his income, then telling his wife and kids, “Hey, somebody made that happen”.

    Barry is infantilism run wild.  He is the distilled product of demonstrably broken educational system/industry.  Somebody made that happen, too – we did, by allowing it to continue unchecked as it traveled this path into lunacy.

    • #38
  9. Profile Photo Inactive
    @HVTs
    Todd

    To me, it’s about what is the best way to coordinate people – through top down centralized planning or through a decentralized “market” process.  As smart as Obama claims to be,I honestly don’t think he understands this.

    What Obama understands is that without top-down planning controlled by an educated elite who think like him, his side loses. You think this is about the most effective way to get to desirable ends like full employment. Obama thinks about who wields power, who calls the shots … in Lenin’s famous question “kto – kogo?”—a Russian grammatical construction which means ‘who [takes action toward] whom.’  Preeminent concern for power relationships is the hallmark of Leftist thinking. Obama doesn’t seek your sort of ‘understanding’ about what works “best” in the ‘real world.’  Obama said he’d accept less tax revenues if it meant the rich paid more taxes since that would be more “fair.” This is exactly the point Margaret Thatcher makes about socialists in the link at comment #19. Uneconomical outcomes do not concern Leftists, a critical point to grasp if you want to comprehend the Soviet Union, Castro’s Cuba or Obama’s America.

    • #39
  10. Profile Photo Member
    @GeorgeSavage
    Dave Carter: But if “somebody else” made the business “happen,” why is it the business owner who gets stuck with the taxes? · 24 minutes ago

    Brilliant riposte, absolutely brilliant.

    • #40
  11. Profile Photo Inactive
    @HVTs
    George Savage

    Dave Carter: But if “somebody else” made the business “happen,” why is it the business owner who gets stuck with the taxes?

    Brilliant riposte, absolutely brilliant.

    Except, in truth, the consumer of whatever is being bought and sold pays those taxes . . . businesses just collect them for the government.  Those taxes get passed on in the cost of everything we buy.  It can’t be otherwise or there really would be a free lunch.

    • #41
  12. Profile Photo Inactive
    @CorneliusJuliusSebastian
    CoolHand

    James Of England

    It does violate the CoC….

    It might not seem important, but the distinctive Ricochet culture of politeness is maintained, in part, by a broken windows policy. The concept of acceptable breaches undermines the bright line rule, and it’s an important line to maintain. · 21 minutes ago

    Stop quoting the rules, it makes you look like an [expletive]. · 15 hours ago

    LOL, Sorry I started this side argument!  Luke, appreciate your sense of humor, brother, but I am well rebuked by James and Mollie.   Never thought of Malcolm Gladwell’s broken window theory (actually I can’t remember if he coined that phrase or just popularized it) applied to blogs/internet posts, but the analogy is apt. I suffer from the effects of two and a half decades of Army Infantry and Combat Engineer influence on my vocabulary.  There is a euphemism for fornicating which, in the Army, serves as noun/verb/adjective/adverb for responding to full on stupidity.  I’m trying to break the habit but the POTUS’ comment sent me into full [expletive] mode.  I’m conscious of the hypocrisy I display by not taming my tongue (and typing). Please pray for me!

    • #42
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    @jameslileks

    Here’s the graf in which the idiocy was deposited:

         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. 

    Especially if the fire spread to his army of straw men.

    • #43
  14. Profile Photo Thatcher
    @Concretevol

    They have really latched onto this thing where we owe our success to the government building roads…just before that remark he says: “Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”  Does he really think that before the federal interstate system was built people just stayed home, wishing the government would help them get from place to place???  He’s basically saying that without government assistance, we are too stupid to succeed.

    • #44
  15. Profile Photo Thatcher
    @Concretevol
    James Lileks: Here’s the graf in which the idiocy was deposited:

         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. 

    Especially if the fire spread to his army of straw men. · 24 minutes ago

    It takes a freaking village

    • #45
  16. Profile Photo Inactive
    @PConn

    James Taggert himself couldnt have set it better;

    [James] “You have always been opposed to every progressive social measure. I seem to remember that you predicted disaster when we passed the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule — but the disaster has not come.” “Because I [Dagny] saved you, you rotten fools! I won’t be able to save you this time!” He had shrugged, not looking at her. “And if I [Dagny] don’t, who will?” He had not answered.

    h/t http://smous.biz/aynrand_atlasshrugged.html

    • #46
  17. Profile Photo Inactive
    @CorneliusJuliusSebastian
    Cornelius Julius Sebastian: [redacted for CoC] · 6 hours ago

    Edited 6 hours ago

    Sorry! He really set me off on that one.  

    • #47
  18. Profile Photo Inactive
    @CorneliusJuliusSebastian

    How can people who support him not see that this is absolutely anathema to what this country was founded on?  This is outright contempt for free enterprise.  The man is a socialist, who can deny it any longer?!?!!??!!?

    • #48
  19. Profile Photo Inactive
    @GreatGhostofGodel
    Cornelius Julius Sebastian: The man is a socialist, who can deny it any longer?!?!!??!!? · 6 minutes ago

    I can.

    Since the Obama administration does not generally support government ownership of the means of production, but rather sees itself as financier and regulator of privately-held enterprise, the term you’re actually looking for is fascist.

    Signed,

    Your Friendly Neighborhood Pedant

    • #49
  20. Profile Photo Inactive
    @FrozenChosen

    I would assume that those great teachers and roads are used by everyone, or at least a good number of people – how come only a very few of them create successful businesses?  Must be random chance.

    If the people of this country reject a successful businessman who has helped produce hundreds of successful businesses which in turn employ thousands of people in favor of a clueless Marxist than they will get exactly the economy they deserve – the crappy one we now have.

    • #50
  21. Profile Photo Thatcher
    @DanHanson

    This is boilerplate leftist twaddle, which I hear all the time when talking to my left-wing friends.  We’re all one big giant community, and therefore, no one succeeds alone. 

    If you’re smart, it’s because the community raised you, educated you, and kept you safe and nourished during your formative years.

    If you come up with a good idea and start a business, you’re leaning on the community to succeed.  The more success you have, the more of the community’s resources you are using up.  You put more trucks on the roads, you need an educated workforce (educated in public schools), you need the government to protect you, etc.

    Therefore, the more success you have, the more indebted you are to the people around you, and it’s only good and proper that you should pay more in taxes to compensate them for all they’ve done to make your success happen.

    Of course, this ignores the fact that those employees were hired through mutual agreement and paid a fair wage, that your trucks pay gasoline taxes, and that you are providing a product that already benefits the ‘community’ or they wouldn’t buy it.

    • #51
  22. Profile Photo Thatcher
    @DanHanson

    <Cont’d>  But Obama’s remarks are a very clear example of how the right and left differ, and it goes all the way back to Rousseau vs Locke.  Are we free people born with the innate right to make our way through life by engaging in commerce and other activities in mutual agreement with fellow free citizens, and with no one having the right to take what we earn or coerce us into activities we choose not to do?  Or are we born as members of a collective with responsibilities to an entity greater than ourselves?

    The left believes the latter.  They believe that if people don’t succeed, it’s because they were exploited or because they are unlucky enough to have talents that society doesn’t reward, and therefore they are victims of unfairness.  

    On the other hand, if you are successful it’s because society lifted you up,  and you therefore owe society.  In the meantime, the rights of the collective trump the rights of the individual, so long as the ‘greater good’ can be invoked.

    Romney should fight this battle from first principles, and tear Obama apart for saying what he did.

    • #52
  23. Profile Photo Inactive
    @wilberforge

    Perhaps the same applies to the mans biography Ghostwriter and Obamas book sales.

    • #53
  24. Profile Photo Coolidge
    @ChrisO

    Maybe it’s because I’ve answered too many life questions on LinkedIn lately, but Obama’s comments struck me as particularly revealing. Not in his attitude toward business, but his attitude toward intelligence or, perhaps, ambition.

    The picture is one of a person who, at least in his own mind, never measured up to his peers.

    He doesn’t credit the individual because that is an arena where he fears to compete. He hasn’t had to, groups around him always insulated him from that competition. Now, he’s in a contest with a guy who understands business, who has competed successfully in that arena. The president, instead of trying to overcome his deficiency, takes the approach of a ten year-old and says, “Oh, yeah, well business is stupid! Nyah, nyah!”

    I feel sorry for the guy. Let’s all take a little pressure off of him in November.

    • #54
  25. Profile Photo Inactive
    @CorneliusJuliusSebastian
    Paul Snively

    Cornelius Julius Sebastian: The man is a socialist, who can deny it any longer?!?!!??!!? · 6 minutes ago

    I can.

    Since the Obama administration does not generally support government ownership of the means of production, but rather sees itself as financier and regulator of privately-held enterprise, the term you’re actually looking for isfascist.

    Signed,

    Your Friendly Neighborhood Pedant · 59 minutes ago

    Fair enough, though I think it is a small step for him to get there with that comment.  It borders on, if it is not already, a tacit assertion that there can be no such thing as private property.

    • #55
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    @WhiskeySam

    Regardless of where he was born, Obama’s sentiments are flatly un-American.

    • #56
  27. Profile Photo Inactive
    @JohnMarzan

    sounds like elizabeth warren.

    althouse thinks this election is going to be about Capitalism vs Socialism. Is mitt romney up to the task in defending Capitalism?

    • #57
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    @CorneliusJuliusSebastian

    [redacted for CoC]

    • #58
  29. Profile Photo Member
    @
    Todd: And this could easily be turned right back against them. 

    “You want to provide free MRI’s and free vaccines and free health care?  Where do they think these things came from?  Somebody made that happen!” · 49 minutes ago

    “If UBL was killed, I didn’t do that.  Somebody else made that happen.”

    • #59
  30. Profile Photo Inactive
    @JamesOfEngland
    Cornelius Julius Sebastian: [redacted for CoC]

    It does violate the CoC.

    Obscenities and vulgarities, even using various symbols for letters, or shorthand (e.g., text messaging abbreviations). Ricochet style is to use [expletive].

    It might not seem important, but the distinctive Ricochet culture of politeness is maintained, in part, by a broken windows policy. The concept of acceptable breaches undermines the bright line rule, and it’s an important line to maintain.

    • #60
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