You Didn't Build That

First of all, I heard the whole quote, not just the two sentences that keep getting repeated.  There was no taking the President out of context.  He meant that any business owner did not build his business alone, without help from the government.  I'm immediately reminded of the movie Dune, you know where the elite fighting men are raised on a planet that is EXTREMELY harsh in order to make sure the men are tough?  That's the only help business men get these days...if you can make it through the red tape of Washington, you can survive anything.

Second of all, I am not a small business owner.  I tried Mary Kay, but I just don't do well as my own boss.  I need someone helping me to focus.  I did real well in the military, with a job description, couldn't get fired unless I really screwed up, and my own duties to attend to.

That said, I think it's ridiculous that the President of the United States would even SUGGEST that those men and women didn't build their business.  Do I feel, as a tax payer who paid for the roads, etc., that I should get a chunk of their wealth?  Absolutely not.  Not only did I pay taxes that went to roads and education and everything else the President said, BUT SO DID THOSE BUSINESSMEN AND WOMEN!  No one seems to be mentioning that.  These people not only paid on the houses they owned, with their property taxes, they had to pay property taxes on their businesses.  They are the ones who went to the bank and got the loan.  They are the ones that if their business failed would be put in bankruptcy court.  Not me.  Not the President.  If we all had an equal say in the matter, why don't business just fold in difficult times and spread that failure out over the entire city?  They could say, I didn't fail on my own, there was no one to help me, so they are all responsible, too.

Is that possibly the motivation behind this speech?  Next Obama might be saying, you're about to fail, here, let the government give you a hand up.  Oh, wait, he already did that with the stimulus bills.  He said, here's some free money from the tax payers to prop you up until you're on your feet again.  But wasn't he a bit conditional about those loans?  Like installing his own CEO of General Motors?  Like giving stimulus money to "green" companies who were then not really accountable to how they spent it?

Actually, I think his motivation is a bit darker than even that.  I've read his dad's paper on African Socialism.  He didn't believe in ownership of anything by the individual.  He basically said you can't own anything in society without someone else benefiting from it.  He wanted all business to be run by the government, and all land to be owned by the "collective."

Let's look at a world like that.  Actually we have one in history already, and it's the History of the United States.  The first colony here, Jamestown, was established as a community owned colony.  There were two types of people who came to that colony, the very rich "gentlemen" who didn't want to work because they had never worked in their lives, and the average Joe who had been a laborer all his life.  They split everyone into 3 categories: 1) those who raised crops to be put in the communal coffers, 2) those who defended the colony from natives and 3) those who went in search of gold.  Guess which one wasn't put in the general coffers? Yep the gold.  So instead of farming, the gentlemen slipped off in search of gold.  Instead of defending the colony, men slipped off to look for gold.  They ran out of food.

Then a captain came with reinforcements (sorry, don't have my book handy and can't remember his name).  He took one look at things and saw the problem right away.  He told everyone they had to grow their own food and had to give just a small portion (a tithe if you will) into the coffers for the general use of everyone.  If you didn't grow your own, you didn't pull from the stores when you were hungry.  He created ownership.  Now people actually owned their little plot of ground.  Things started turning around. 

I even read a story of one man who "smuggled" in tobacco seeds in order to grow his own tobacco.  England had made it illegal to possess tobacco seeds.  They knew it was fairly easy to grow, and they wanted a monopoly.  Sounds a bit familiar to me.  This guy started growing a small patch of tobacco on his plot of land.  Soon, others were asking if they could grow some.  Is this a true story?  I don't know for sure as it wasn't in the history book I have.  Is it plausible?  Most definitely.  If you don't believe that our government would squelch something because you can't patent it, look up B17.  And don't bother leaving me a comment on how you looked it up on Snopes and it wasn't true.  Snopes is the most liberal check point there is and they outright lie to make government look good.

So, to give a modern day example of ownership vs community, take a look at any government housing project....or the 'jects.  The poor (of all colors) are given housing for a much reduced rate.  They are usually also on food stamps, welfare and all kinds of other government hand outs.  Do they care about their house?  No, not usually.  Take a family who finally made it to the middle class with hard work and are finally buying their first house.  They take good care of that house.

I can give a personal example.  When I was a teenager I had that "give me" mentality.  We lived out in the country, a 15 minute drive from town.  I thought everything should be given to me.  (Are all liberals just teenagers that didn't grow up?)  I asked my dad for a car, all my friends' dads had bought them cars.  He said get a job and get one.  I couldn't get a job without a car, I argued.  So he bought me a piece of crap Gremlin with 3 inch rear wheel wells from all the bondo repair.  It was a V-8, though, and had some power.  That thing could back out of anywhere.  I got a part time job while I was in college, just enough to pay for gas, not to save for a better car.  I finally joined the Navy.  When I came home between boot camp and A-school, I sold that Gremlin for $50 and it was running on 7 cylinders with 2 flat tires.  I then had my dad co-sign a loan on a brand new Chevette.  Was it a "bad-a$$" car?  No.  It was what the bank would go a loan on.  But it had 6 miles on the odometer when I took it for a test drive.  I washed that car every weekend.

That's the difference between ownership and having to invest YOUR money in something as opposed to "paying" for the side benefits with your tax dollars.  No one has invested in those businesses what the people who started them have.  No one has sweated, given up things now to have better things down the road but those business men.

Mr. President, just because you had an education given to you that you didn't work for, just because you got free money as a community organizer, just because you abused the privileges we all start out with doesn't mean everyone did.