Who makes arguments like this? And if you say "me" under your breath, I will go to your home and slap you. :)
"Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive," Obama said Friday, citing the teachers and people who build "roads and bridges." He continued: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Romney seized on Obama's comment, calling it "foolishness" and "insulting to every entrepreneur and every innovator in America."
Typical individualist bias. Of course people like Romney are winners just because they are personally so awesome, right? They deserve all the credit. It didn't have anything to do with the facts that he:
- Was born the son of a governor, and grew up in a peaceful community, stable home, and with good role models
- Was born a white, heterosexual, Christian, rich male with no major physical or mental handicaps (except for being lame and boring to a clinical degree)
- Was born in an advanced nation with functional institutions, rule of law, and markets
- Attended elite schools (through merit and connections)
- Didn't have to go to Vietnam
You're a stellar guy Mitt, but other people made you who you are also. Don't act like it's not true. You got so much help on the way up (on top of the people you stepped on or out-competed in order to win), it's not even funny. That's why more average Americans can relate to your opponent, a half-black guy who grew up on tropical islands and has the middle name of Hussein. He actually had to struggle against disadvantages to reach the pinnacle of success (with some luck along the way too), and never forgot to thank the people who made it possible. He wants to use his time in office to give more people a fair chance, not to help the rich get richer like you want. That's why you can't connect to the average voter. Ignorant frustration over the economy and media misinformation are the only things keeping you in this race.
"I'm ashamed to say that we're seeing our president hand out money to the businesses of campaign contributors," Romney said at one point.
Wow, like that's never happened before, especially under Republican leadership.
"President Obama attacks success. And, therefore, under President Obama, we have less success," Romney said. "I will change that." ...But Romney largely focused on the larger picture of what he called Obama's hostility toward business—which he argued has been a setback to efforts to revive the economy and has, in turn, made life tougher for struggling Americans. He accused Obama of "crushing economic freedom" in the country with burdensome regulations.
Increasing access to college, extending the Bush tax cuts, and enacting several new private sector tax cuts of his own were such terrible attacks on success. Hostility towards business huh? That must be why the S&P500 has risen 50% over the last 3 years under Obama (not that the president controls stock prices, but you'd think a leader who is so anti-business wouldn't preside over such huge equity growth). And which is it Mitt? First you say Obama is giving $ away to his allies' businesses, and now you say he's anti-business?
And I think the abuses enabled by 3 decades of steady deregulation have made life tougher for struggling Americans than any new regs Obama has pushed through (most of his campaign proposals didn't pass Congress of course).
"I'm convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success," Romney declared. "I want Americans to welcome and celebrate success and to encourage people to reach as high as they can. … I don't want government to take credit for what the individuals of America accomplish."
Great deductive logic. No comments needed here, the guy is just a textbook d-bag.
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Follow-up to this thread from the 7/25 Daily Show:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
"Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely f**ked and they know they have no argument!" - Jon Stewart
Basically the DS described how the MSM misrepresented Obama's recent comments about society enabling individual businesses to succeed, presumably to reduce the significance of Romney's private sector success record and legitimacy of his minimal government model for prosperity. They made it sound like Obama was suggesting that business owners don't get credit for their success, as it was due to the government only. Anyone with half a brain would know that Obama would never make such a claim, and the confusion was due to a "slight grammatical error" as he chose to say "You didn't build that" instead of "those" (referring to roads, bridges, internet, and other state-funded infrastructure that enable commerce). "That" could be misconstrued as Obama claiming that businesspeople didn't actually build their businesses, which of course doesn't make sense. And if you read or listen to the speech uncut (see link at end), you can grasp the context of his comments and would never jump to that erroneous conclusion. But of course the conservatives and Romney campaign pounced on it hard. The president is saying that the government is the economy, not the small business owners! Apparently the Romney camp is even selling shirts and other merchandise saying "I built my business, Mr. President!"
So the Romney campaign is showing its true colors (and FNC too - by busting out their "big guns" interview with child lemonade stand owners!). They don't have a legit plan for improving the economy and employment for the sub-rich, so they are resorting to misrepresenting the president's words (or should I say word singular, out of the thousands of words he has uttered about the economy over his short political career) in order to make him look like an anti-business, Marxist a-hole. Unfortunately many people do not see through this, and may even buy their argument.
I was surprised that "The Ticket" by Yahoo! News (source of the article I cited originally) was no better than Faux News. They failed to provide context for Obama's quote, and did not include his key summary statement of, "The point is when we succeed... we succeed from our individual initiative, but also because we do things together." Why exclude a sentence starting with "The point is..."!?! Actually that sentence was all they needed to show, and there wouldn't have been any criticism (actually Romney said basically the same thing during a campaign speech too). But they didn't, because twisting the message makes this a more juicy, buzzworthy story. I doubt that was part of a big anti-Obama, Koch-funded conspiracy, as probably the author just wanted to ignite a fire where there isn't even smoke. Still, it's reprehensible and shameful "journalism". It's also a sad reflection on the MSM that we needed the Daily Show to point this out. However, despite Y! News not providing context for the Obama quote, I could clearly understand what the president was trying to say. It's not exactly cryptic or novel. So the conservatives actually had to exert a lot of effort to twist his statement into something offensive and untrue. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. They're resorting to desperation attacks yet the polling is enigmatically neck-and-neck. Maybe if Obama's lucky, they'll swing for a home run with the VP pick a la Palin style, and select a total loser like Jindal or something.
Obama's unedited comments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
It's actually kind of sad that in 2012 Obama still has to explain the obvious, but laissez-faire classical propaganda has been working hard since the Guilded Age.
Right wing media's take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
FNC host: "[Obama's statements are] all in an effort to justify increasing taxes on the so-called 'rich' in this country... Joining me now for a 'fair and balanced' debate..." She then introduces the panel guests, of course a hot blonde conservative chick who hosts another FNC program and a black small business owner (see the GOP is diverse!) vs. an old, ugly, meek liberal former Clinton-Gore strategist (and she even pronounces his name wrong, despite him being a repeat FNC guest a.k.a. self-hating Democrat punching bag).
Argh typical crap from their playbook... I haven't watched FNC in years so I forgot how bad it was. #1 cable news network, booyeah!!
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