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#27 Jul 17 2012 at 11:04 AM Rating: Excellent
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Actually this was quite high quality for ThiefX. I'm impressed, he's not usually this coherent! Well done! Maybe he picked up the brain cell that varrus was using.
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#28 Jul 17 2012 at 1:33 PM Rating: Good
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Actually this was quite high quality for ThiefX. I'm impressed, he's not usually this coherent! Well done! Maybe he picked up the brain cell that varrus was using.

You shouldn't leave brain cells just lying around. Someone could poke an eye out.
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#29 Jul 17 2012 at 4:47 PM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
I'd imagine he'd use the blood of liberals.



Same thing, silly.

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#30 Jul 17 2012 at 5:33 PM Rating: Decent
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Elinda wrote:
I listened, then went back are read the transcript. It seemed to me like he was saying that someone else built the bridge or the road that was necessary for you to build your business - you didn't do it by yourself. Sloppy grammar by both the Pres and transcriptionists could lead to lots of different interpretations of that statement. I'm glad you posted here as a party-line toting sensationalist to explain tell us what idea Barry really wanted to express.


It's fairly clear that he was defending his proposed plan to increase taxes on those earning more than $250k/year and countering the criticism that this affects a bunch of small business owners by arguing that their success is owed to the government anyway, so they ought to be paying an even bigger share than they already do. It's abundantly clear that when he says "someone helped you", he means "government helped you". Just look at the examples he gives: Teachers, the "unbelievable American system", roads and bridges (a recurring theme with him when talking about government spending), government funding for research creating the internet, etc.

What he fails to mention is that schools are most funded by local taxes, which mostly comes from businesses and property owners. Ditto for roads and bridges (especially the ones that small businesses might most rely on). But he's advocating for an increase in income tax. Bit of a bait and switch IMO.

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I'm sure what the president meant to say was, "I'm a dirty socialist."


/shrug

Interpretations may vary, but the whole "you didn't really succeed on your own" argument is a common one on the left (heard it many many times on this forum). But it fails to address the core issue. It's not about whether someone's success was possible because of other factors, but to what degree those factors mattered, how much is "owed", and perhaps most importantly, whether or not the kinds of things Obama would spend money on with the increased tax revenue would be the sorts of things that help people create and grow their businesses.


I just find it somewhat disingenuous for him to repeatedly talk about how he wants people to succeed and be able to enjoy the fruits of that success, while stumping for increased taxes on that same success. So he wants people to succeed, but not too much? And if that's the real position, then isn't that somewhat socialist? I guess I'd buy the whole "we're just taking some of your success in order to ensure that the next generation can succeed as well" if I believed that the taxes he's proposing would actually help others succeed. But I just don't see that happening, and his record to date sure doesn't fill me with confidence either.

Quote:
Don't be scared. We're here for you.


We're the government and we're here to help!

Edited, Jul 17th 2012 4:34pm by gbaji
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#31 Jul 17 2012 at 5:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Quote:
Don't be scared. We're here for you.
We're the government and we're here to help!

Scariest words those people ever heard!
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#32 Jul 17 2012 at 6:15 PM Rating: Decent
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Atomicflea wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
The hardest part was hewing his own Dixie cups with only an oaken log and a sharp stone.
Not to mention dyeing them red with the blood of infidels.

Fortunately the wax for the paper cups was the easiest to obtain - it came from his own ears.
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#33 Jul 18 2012 at 7:23 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Interpretations may vary,
Ranging from "realistic" to "gbaji."
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#34 Jul 18 2012 at 9:15 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:

I just find it somewhat disingenuous for him to repeatedly talk about how he wants people to succeed and be able to enjoy the fruits of that success, while stumping for increased taxes on that same success. So he wants people to succeed, but not too much? And if that's the real position, then isn't that somewhat socialist? I guess I'd buy the whole "we're just taking some of your success in order to ensure that the next generation can succeed as well" if I believed that the taxes he's proposing would actually help others succeed. But I just don't see that happening, and his record to date sure doesn't fill me with confidence either.


Discovering Politics 101 workbook, page 107: "I want you to succeed so I can give your money to the people who voted for me." Smiley: nod
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#35 Jul 18 2012 at 8:31 PM Rating: Good
He wants people to succeed, but not succeed so well they end up like Romney and pay no taxes at all some years.
#36 Jul 20 2012 at 2:31 PM Rating: Default
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catwho wrote:
He wants people to succeed, but not succeed so well they end up like Romney and pay no taxes at all some years.


Wow! You managed to throw an excluded middle *and* complex question fallacy into one single sentence. Amazing!
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#37 Jul 20 2012 at 3:44 PM Rating: Good
gbaji wrote:
catwho wrote:
He wants people to succeed, but not succeed so well they end up like Romney and pay no taxes at all some years.


Wow! You managed to throw an excluded middle *and* complex question fallacy into one single sentence. Amazing!


And you, amazingly enough, have still managed to keel your sarcasm detection skill far, far below acceptable human levels.

Either that or you're just trolling.

It's hard to tell which, with you.
#38 Jul 23 2012 at 4:01 PM Rating: Good
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Obligatory lulz...
Political Wire wrote:
In a Mitt Romney ad last week, a stern Jack Gilchrist of Gilchrist Metal Fabricating tells President Obama that his family -- and not the government -- built his company.

But John DiStaso reports Gilchrist "did receive some government help for his business" in 1999 when the company received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds "to set up a second manufacturing plant and purchase equipment to produce high definition television broadcasting equipment."

In addition, Gilchrist Metal received a U.S. Small Business Administration loan of around $500,000 in the 1980s and has received several sub-contracts from the U.S. Navy.
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#39 Jul 23 2012 at 4:33 PM Rating: Default
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Were those things (just like roads, teachers, etc) available to businesses which maybe didn't become successful and make sufficient profit to put them in the crosshairs of Obama's proposed tax increase? So perhaps what made that business successful might just possibly have something to do with the choices and decisions and actions of those who ran it and not so much the Government?

No one's arguing that the government doesn't provide valuable services that benefit everyone. What people have taken issue with is Obama's insinuation that those services somehow were what made your business successful. So much so that you owe the government back. Well, can't that argument be made for everyone? We could use the same logic to argue that everyone owes their job, their homes, their relationships, their families, their children, their cars, their TVs, their computers, and everything else to government "help". So it's a pretty crappy argument to make to justify a tax targeted at just one set of people, isn't it?


And it also ignores that it's not like the government gave just that one set of people a special deal. Anyone could have done what they did and would have gotten the same "help". That some people do this and are successful clearly owes far more to their own actions than to anything that the government did and it really shows how warped Obama's concept of free enterprise is that he thinks differently. He's completely out of touch with what most Americans assume about their own actions and choices.
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#40 Jul 23 2012 at 4:41 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
No one's arguing that the government doesn't provide valuable services that benefit everyone. What people have taken issue with is Obama's insinuation that those services somehow were what made your business successful.

"Made it"? No. Were an essential part in it becoming successful? Almost certainly. Unless you're running a business without roads, sewers, fire protection, government backed loans, use of government backed financial institutions, etc.
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So much so that you owe the government back. Well, can't that argument be made for everyone?

Sure. It's called taxes. Everyone pays them in some form or another. If not direct income tax then in sales tax, property tax, vehicle taxes and so on.

So now that we agree that everyone is benefiting and everyone should pay something back, the question is just how much per person. Which is the crux of the whole tax debate.

For the record, I don't begrudge the dude in the Romney commercial the assistance he's received. I'm amused though by his pouting insistence that he did it all by himself. Maybe he's just intentionally lying. Maybe he has that little understanding of how things work. Maybe he's convinced himself that it really was all him and no one else because he needs to feel that level of self-validation., Who knows. But I can't imagine how you apply for and receive small business loans and not know about it (unless he had no clue the were government based which goes back to my "ignorant about how things work" guess).
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#41 Jul 23 2012 at 7:09 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
No one's arguing that the government doesn't provide valuable services that benefit everyone. What people have taken issue with is Obama's insinuation that those services somehow were what made your business successful.

"Made it"? No. Were an essential part in it becoming successful? Almost certainly.


You left the "not" off the end of the sentence.

Quote:
Unless you're running a business without roads, sewers, fire protection, government backed loans, use of government backed financial institutions, etc.


Which had nothing to do with why some businesses succeed while others, which had access to the exact same roads, sewers, fire protection, government backed loans, financial institutions, etc failed. Thus, while those things provide an environment in which success is possible, they are not the reason businesses succeed. In more or less the same way the guys who build and maintain football stadiums didn't cause a given team to win the championship.


Quote:
Quote:
So much so that you owe the government back. Well, can't that argument be made for everyone?

Sure. It's called taxes. Everyone pays them in some form or another. If not direct income tax then in sales tax, property tax, vehicle taxes and so on.


Yup. And those guys already pay for the roads, firefighters, sewers, government backed loans and financial institutions, etc. The question is whether they should pay *more* and whether Obama's argument why they should make any damn sense.

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So now that we agree that everyone is benefiting and everyone should pay something back, the question is just how much per person. Which is the crux of the whole tax debate.


Then by all means, make the argument about people who make more being more able to pay. But don't try to sell some BS about how their success wasn't really their own doing in the first place, or that they somehow owe more to the government. They don't.

Quote:
For the record, I don't begrudge the dude in the Romney commercial the assistance he's received. I'm amused though by his pouting insistence that he did it all by himself.


Excluded middle though. No one's saying that we live on isolated islands or something. We're saying that the reasons people succeed have nothing to do with the government.

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Maybe he's just intentionally lying. Maybe he has that little understanding of how things work.


Are you saying that Obama understands what it takes to build a successful business more than he does? That's funny.

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Maybe he's convinced himself that it really was all him and no one else because he needs to feel that level of self-validation., Who knows. But I can't imagine how you apply for and receive small business loans and not know about it (unless he had no clue the were government based which goes back to my "ignorant about how things work" guess).


And? The existence of the business loans didn't make his business succeed Joph. How many times do I need to say this? How many businesses get loans and then fail? Lots, right? So clearly the mere existence of loans doesn't magically make you succeed. There's something else. And it's more than unfair to point to the guys who did take those loans, made a profit, paid the loans back (with interest) and say after the fact that they owe you even more money. Why? If the government thinks they're giving people too good a deal, then by all means increase the rates on those loans. But don't offer a loan, with a specific set of conditions, and then try to claim you're owed any more money than the terms agreed to when that loan was made.


What would you think if after paying off the mortgage on your house, the bank decided that you owed them more because they helped you own your home. You'd be pretty pissed I would think. No one would buy that "you didn't do it on your own" line in that case, right? So why buy it here?
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#42 Jul 23 2012 at 8:00 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
You left the "not" off the end of the sentence.

Well, if you're going to insist on being delusional, I'm not sure where you want to go with this.

Quote:
Which had nothing to do with why some businesses succeed while others, which had access to the exact same roads, sewers, fire protection, government backed loans, financial institutions, etc failed.

That's not the question. the question is whether or not it would have succeeded without roads, banks, fire protection, yadda yadda yadda.

This is where you want to insert your "not".

Quote:
Quote:
For the record, I don't begrudge the dude in the Romney commercial the assistance he's received. I'm amused though by his pouting insistence that he did it all by himself.

Excluded middle though

There's no excluded middle. His words are that he did it "through hard work and a little bit of luck". That's not accurate. Hell, it's not even accurate if you exclude the roads and firemen... he had direct government assistance in creating his company.

You keep wanting to say "This didn't do it!" and "That didn't do it!!!" yet he did, in fact, use those very exact things to make his company succeed. You waving your arms around and pretending that they didn't happen won't make that so. Go find me the guy who made his company succeed without any of those things and we'll talk.
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#43 Jul 23 2012 at 8:55 PM Rating: Excellent
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Someone not being able to effectively use government assistance doesn't mean that people who were able to effectively leverage it somehow didn't use it.
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#44 Jul 24 2012 at 2:48 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Quote:
Which had nothing to do with why some businesses succeed while others, which had access to the exact same roads, sewers, fire protection, government backed loans, financial institutions, etc failed.

That's not the question. the question is whether or not it would have succeeded without roads, banks, fire protection, yadda yadda yadda.


That's a stupid question though. It's like asking whether you could have gotten a good score on your SATs without a #2 pencil and then arguing that you owe your college degree, your job, your house, and everything that followed that test to the Ticonderoga company or something. It's a nutty nutty argument to make. Obama was an idiot to make it and it's hard to believe that people are actually trying to defend it.


Quote:
His words are that he did it "through hard work and a little bit of luck". That's not accurate. Hell, it's not even accurate if you exclude the roads and firemen... he had direct government assistance in creating his company.


Again. Same things were available to everyone else. Just like a #2 pencil might be available to everyone taking the SAT. The issue isn't that other factors were involved, but that Obama is grossly overestimating the degree to which the federal government had a direct impact on his businesses success, and grossly underestimating the degree to which the individual business owner's own actions affected that outcome.

Quote:
You keep wanting to say "This didn't do it!" and "That didn't do it!!!" yet he did, in fact, use those very exact things to make his company succeed.


Ok. So lets eliminate those loan programs Joph. Guess what? Some people will still succeed more than others. The government didn't make that guy making over $250k/year that wealthy. Get it? In the absence of any federal government assistance at all, you will still have some people making more money than others. Hell. We can argue that the primary impact the federal government has in business is to attempt to limit that gap. It's just somewhat absurd for the same people who argue that government regulation is necessary to prevent a small percentage of wealthy people from becoming more wealthy at the expense of everyone else to simultaneously claim that it's the federal government that directly and primarily caused that very situation.

Does the government create an environment in which people can succeed? Yes. Does the government create that success? No. The issue is about the degree to which the government's role plays a part. And I don't think that the federal government's contribution to his companies success equals an additional 4.6% of all income over $250k/year. And at the end of the day *that* is what Obama is arguing for.


Quote:
You waving your arms around and pretending that they didn't happen won't make that so. Go find me the guy who made his company succeed without any of those things and we'll talk.


Irrelevant. Those things exist. If they didn't, some people would still succeed, right? I mean, lots of wealthy people did very well in the late 19century in the frontier states of the US Joph. And they did it without fire departments, or police, or roads, or government loans. Of course, they often set themselves up as rulers of their own towns, with their own guys acting as police, and them deciding who got water, or land, or protection. But clearly government isn't necessary for success. Certainly, not our modern federal government. As I said earlier, most of what our rules and regulations do is prevent those private parties powers from getting out of hand. It's moronic to argue that the thing we regulate against can't happen without the same regulatory body existing in the first place.


History shows us that government is absolutely not necessary for success. The fact that we live in an age where government does involve itself more in business and fire departments, and police and education does not mean that those things caused "success".

Edited, Jul 24th 2012 1:57pm by gbaji
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#45 Jul 24 2012 at 2:56 PM Rating: Decent
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Someone not being able to effectively use government assistance doesn't mean that people who were able to effectively leverage it somehow didn't use it.


Correct. But then shouldn't the lion's share of credit for success go, not to the government assistance, but to the people who were able to effectively leverage it? Let's not forget that it's not like these guys aren't already paying taxes, and aren't already in fact paying higher taxes than those who weren't able to leverage that assistance. Let's also not forget that said assistance that came in the form of loans was paid back by those who succeeded, while often not paid back by those who fail. Thus, the costs are born even more by those who succeed since they're essentially paying for the cost of their loans *plus* the money lost on loans to businesses who failed. And then let's not forget that most of that assistance came from funding at local and state levels (where those successful businesses also pay well more than their fair share).


So explain to me how the federal government assisted those guys so much that they owe an additional 4.6% of their income over $250k on top of what they already pay? Let's not forget that this is what Obama is arguing. Context matters.

Edited, Jul 24th 2012 1:56pm by gbaji
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#46 Jul 24 2012 at 3:57 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
That's a stupid question though

When people are throwing hissy fits saying "HOW DARE HE SAY I DIDN'T DO THIS ALL BY MYSELF!!!" it's exactly the question.

Although it gave me many smug smiles to read later interviews with the guy from the commercial pretty much admitting that Obama was 100% correct while trying his hardest to avoid admitting that Obama was 100% correct.

I'll admit I skipped the rest of your post. I usually do that when your very first sentence is so amazing erroneous.

Edited, Jul 24th 2012 4:58pm by Jophiel
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#47 Jul 24 2012 at 4:13 PM Rating: Excellent
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It was basically

"Since everyone has access to these services, they don't count"

you didn't miss much.

Edited, Jul 24th 2012 5:15pm by Xsarus
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#48 Jul 24 2012 at 6:56 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
That's a stupid question though

When people are throwing hissy fits saying "HOW DARE HE SAY I DIDN'T DO THIS ALL BY MYSELF!!!" it's exactly the question.


That's the strawman though. No one's saying they did it "all by myself". They're saying that they are the primary reason their businesses succeeded, and it's insulting for Obama to suggest that they didn't do it (not, there's no "all by myself" in there), and that their success is really owed to the government. I know it's hard for you to look past a single line quote, but try to understand the whole issue and not just one or two soundbites.

Quote:
Although it gave me many smug smiles to read later interviews with the guy from the commercial pretty much admitting that Obama was 100% correct while trying his hardest to avoid admitting that Obama was 100% correct.


Admitting that he had help with his business? Toss the strawman out, and you'll see why that's not the point. You're missing the part where Obama is using this to justify raising federal income taxes on those people.


You really need to step outside the liberal echo chamber some time. I watched some smarmy guy on the Maddow show last night basically making the same sort of "focus on the words, while missing the context" argument you're making. Then he went on (with big idiotic smile on his face) to run a clip from Romney telling Olympians that they had help along the way to their successes, so Romney really agrees with Obama too! Um... Way to miss the fact that Romney was just asking folks to give a round of applause for all the people who helped them, while Obama is attempting to pass a law which will force people to give more of their earnings to the federal government (which frankly provided very very little of that help in the first place).


But hey! Way to miss the contextual forest for the semantic trees.

Edited, Jul 24th 2012 5:56pm by gbaji
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#49 Jul 24 2012 at 7:19 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
I know it's hard for you to look past a single line quote, but try to understand the whole issue and not just one or two soundbites.

Ironic since not a single GOP whine-fest about this has included the line "The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."

But then they would have to admit that they actually agree with the president and what would they tell people like you to jump up and down about?
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#50 Jul 24 2012 at 7:55 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I know it's hard for you to look past a single line quote, but try to understand the whole issue and not just one or two soundbites.

Ironic since not a single GOP whine-fest about this has included the line "The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."


Another straw man. I didn't say that. No one is denying that people who succeed have help along the way. No one's an island and it's absurd to claim that's what anyone is saying. The issue is with Obama basically taking credit with the government for 100% of that help, and demanding additional payment from those people. The issue is with Obama saying that the individual who succeeds succeeded *because* of that help and for no other reason. Clearly, the help helped, but it's not what made one person succeed while another failed.


And if we're going to talk about GOP whiners, can we agree that Rush is the whiniest of them all? So what does he say?

Limbaugh wrote:
As I've mentioned a bunch of times, he's literally saying to this audience and to the people he hopes are a majority of the country: "The people who've succeeded and the people who've achieved and the people who have wealth don't deserve it. They did it stealing from you. They used work or labor from you that they didn't pay you for, not fairly. Or they ran businesses that cheated people or overcharged. Or they made too big a profit. They're no smarter than you are, and I'm here to get it back for you!


Strange how he's not claiming that people who succeeded did so without any help at all. Hmmm... He's saying what everyone without liberal tinted glasses heard when Obama made that statement: That individual's don't deserve success and if they get it, should pay as much back to "the people who helped them" (the federal government apparently) as possible.

Limbaugh wrote:
This roads-and-bridges stuff is just liberal claptrap. What he's doing, what he's setting the stage for is trying to socialize profit so that he can claim it. What he wants people to conclude is that profit was not possible, is not possible, without government first making it possible. And, therefore, government owns it. It's government's profit. He wants to socialize the profit, and that's then the vehicle for going after everybody's money via higher taxes, a wealth tax, or whatever technique that he tries.


Yup. Still not claiming people didn't have any help. Looks like he's talking about government taking the money. Just like I've been saying all along.

Perhaps you should listen to what conservative are actually saying instead of what liberals say conservatives are saying? It might just open your eyes on the issue.

Here. Let's look at a transcript from Hannity

Quote:
WILLIAMS: But yes, you know what Sean Hannity did this all by himself? No. And to suggest that somehow in America a country that had political stability --


Williams tosses out the same strawman you're repeating.

Quote:
SUNUNU: Look, there are lots of countries with roads and bridges and sewers but they don't create jobs and businesses like America. This is different. We have entrepreneurs here who have a spirit of being willing to make the sacrifice of taking a second mortgage going out and hiring a few people and taking a chance and creating a lot of jobs. And all the president has been doing is condemning success.


The guest makes the same point I made (and it's the first real point made in the transcript really).

Quote:
MITT ROMNEY, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: To say that Steve Jobs didn't build Apple, that Henry Ford didn't build Ford Motor, that Papa John didn't build Papa John Pizza, that Ray Crock didn't build McDonalds, that Bill Gates didn't build Microsoft, you go down the list, that Joe and his colleagues didn't build this enterprise, to say something like that is not just foolishness, it's insulting to every entrepreneur, every innovator in America. It's wrong.

It also extends to everybody in America that wants to lift themselves up a little further. That goes back to school to get a degree and see if they can get a little better job, to somebody who wants to get new skills and get a little higher income.

The president would say, well, you didn't do of that. All right? You couldn't have gone to school without the roads the government build for you and you couldn't have gone to school without teachers. So, you didn't -- you are not responsible for that success.

Look, President Obama attacks success and therefore under President Obama we have less success and I will change that. I've got to be honest. I don't think anyone could have said what he said who had actually started a business or been in the business.


Hell. Even the Mitt Romney quote in there makes the same point I'm making. He's not saying that roads and teachers didn't help. He's saying that those things didn't cause someone to be successful. Lots of people go to school. Lots of people have roads and bridges. They don't all succeed to the same level. To tell someone who is successful that their success isn't really their own, but is owed to everyone else around them is well outside the mainstream thought. Which is why this is getting such a large backlash. In that statement, Obama let slip a bit of his collectivist ideology. Something liberal politicians usually work very heard to conceal. That's why it's relevant.


And no. It's not about whether or not someone else helped you at all. It's about how much is owed to those people, and more specifically whether the government should be able to tell people how much they owe other people for their success and take it from them.



Quote:
But then they would have to admit that they actually agree with the president and what would they tell people like you to jump up and down about?


No one's disagreeing that people who succeed have help along the way Joph. I've explained this to you at least 4 times so far. So why keep repeating it? The issue isn't with the statement that people had help, but what he's arguing that people owe for that help and downplaying the role the actions and decisions of those who did succeed had in their success. He's also taking credit at the federal government level for things that have nothing to do with the federal government (or very very very little).


It's more than just the words, but the ideology behind them that people take exception to.
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#51 Jul 24 2012 at 8:08 PM Rating: Default
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For those who want the TL;DR version:

Conservative pundits are not making a big deal out of this because they disagree with the assertion that people who succeed had help along the way, but that they disagree with the assertion that their success isn't their own because they got that help and so the government should be the arbiter of who helped you and how much money it should take from you and who to give it to as a reward. Clear enough? No one's insisting that people succeed in a vacuum. The fact that every liberal pundit seems to be trying to push that particular straw man speaks volumes about how desperately they want to distract this from the real problems with what Obama said.

Edited, Jul 24th 2012 7:09pm by gbaji
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