Did YOU build it alone?

The only people who can claim that they “did it all by themselves” are stone age primitives before fire, spears, stone tools, or clothes made from animal skins were discovered.
Everyone else after that, used inventions and discoveries that have been made by others.

Inventions and discoveries….and help.

So? Who’s arguing for anarchy? It’s a straw man argument.

@Dutchess_III
I think you will find the the statements being made by Mr. Obama in the ad for Mr. Romney were “cut and pasted” together by Mr. Romney’s spin doctors not what was said as far as content, classic case of taken out of context.

Sure, but in the actual speech Obama DID say, “You didn’t do it alone. Government helped,” or something along those lines.

A shown in the ad and portrayed by speaker as a son of owner. It was the President said we didn’t start the business my father and I owned.

No. This is a baseless talking point and it’s not worth losing sleep over. No one has done anything on their own. They’re sanctimonious platitudes and nothing more.

@Blackberry You just got me a little hot with your “sanctimonious platitudes” talk. Where’s @gailcalled? She’s loves that kind of vocabulary too ; – ) We both love intelligent fellows such as yourself.

@Tropical_Willie… What? I lot you man.

They did it with Help and Infrastructure. They used the roads to get to work, the power plants to light their home and run the factories and schools, they even used the oil companies to make the gasoline for their vehicles.

Here is a relevant quote from Elizabeth Warren that seemed to get some conservatives riled up.

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you!

But I want to be clear. 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 police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that maurauding 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. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

And she is totally correct.

I think Elizabeth Warren should pay back the hunk she took masquerading as a Cherokee.

I’m not sure how that is relevant. But I am not surprised that was your response.

She shouldn’t have to pay it all back, though. She didn’t take it on her own.

The infrastructure, schools, and help programs etc are a some of the tools that people use to make a success of their lives. Just having the tools alone are not going to get you where you want to go. You also need a dream, a burning desire, be willing to take risks plus be willing to do a lot of hard work and sacrifice. No amount of social programs and infrastructure can be a substitute for working your butt off. And when you are finally successful, then the tax man gets his cut of your success (Pay-back time).

@gondwanalon Well, of course! But no amount of dreaming, or burning desire, willingness to take risks, and to work your ass off will get you anywhere if the infrastructure isn’t in place! I’m sure there are tons of people in Somalia and the Congo who have those qualities…and they can’t do jack with them.

And I don’t mind the “tax man” taking a “cut” of my success…it’s how my kids and grandkids are going to make THEIR success.

@Dutchess_III: “Obama is catching flack for pointing out that small business didn’t build themselves all by themselves, without help.”

Jesus H. Christ. Obama, please don’t make the mistake of calling the sky blue. You’ll never hear the end of it.

@Dutchess_III, individual people working together with other like minded people put the infrastructure together in America. I think people who are offended by Obama’s comment realize it took people, not government officials, to make their businesses successful. The government isn’t the source of people’s prosperity. Of course in all fairness, if you’ve always worked for the government in some capacity that may be a little difficult to understand.

Actually, I think he meant that without people (employees, consumers) you would’t even have a b’ness.. He might have included g’ment but I built my b’ness alone (no g’ment help) THEN my customers made it what it became (a thriving b’ness). People can read multitudes of scenarios out of a small sentence.. Even the bible isn’t exempt. I’m saying I understood what he meant and it wasn’t an insult to industry.. And..

@bkcunningham… Tell that to Trump, Peroit and all the other welfare moguls who looked toward g’ment bail outs when one of their businesses folded. Trump alone filed for bankruptcy with millions in the bank.

Tell what to Trump, Peroit or the other welfare moguls, @chewhorse? I’m not following your logic. Sorry, I have no idea what laws allowing Trump’s bankruptcies have to do with people building this country and their lives without being beholden to government officials.

It is interesting to me that so many people think government does nothing. They totally discount the evidence of their eyes. Worse, they believe that if the government does it, it is done badly or wrong and certainly most inefficiently. Anything good that government does, they attribute to something else.

It is all about ideology, of course. Ideology colors how you see the world so strongly, that if you believe the government can do no good, then you can not see any good that comes from it. Except the military, of course. And the INS. Or is that Homeland Security?

That is a leap, @wundayatta.

@bkcunningham Yes, for you it is. You seem to find it a stretch to understand the role that ideology plays in people’s understanding of the world. I’d help you with that if I could.

Oh, I just realized what @chewhorse meant about the government helping Trump with his businesses by allowing him to file bankruptcy. And that is a good thing?

Specifically, I was referring to your, “The government isn’t the source of people’s prosperity.” statement.. Meaning, in some situations you don’t have to be affiliated with g’ment to profit from the g’ment. Which refers to what doors you know to go through and the average person doesn’t have that information so they must rely on others for success. Sorry for the confusion.

Romney’s stump speech amounts to a deliberate lie constituted by selecting just two sentences out of a full speech and leaving out all the context. Romney knows it is a lie, he knows the true context, yet he continues to tell the lie over and over again. He’s using the Big Lie tactic perfected by early 20th century Fascism—and for very similar reasons. He wants to sell a policy that, if explained honestly, would be enormously unpopular.

The lie can be maintained among those he wants to reach because they are information poor. They either get no political news except from his speech, or they get their “news” exclusively from the right-wing echo chamber, meaning Fox “News”, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Chuck Colson, Drudge, Breitbart, Redstate, etc. All of these outlets have been running the edited lie continuously after getting their talking points from the RNC. Here’s the Fox “News” version. They know the context. They all know they are lying.

Seems a bit lousy though. The government would be doing what it was doing regardless of whether or not the business was founded. And now that it is, the government wants a cut. It would be like you coming up with a gizmo to make the a/c in your place more efficient, only for the landlord to come by and demand some of the money you’re saving, ‘cos that new TV isn’t going to pay itself off.

@Nullo Government can’t do ANYTHING without a “cut”. No roads, no Internet, no Air Traffic Control System, no police, no fire department, no education, no libraries, no regulatory agencies to ensure that those who lend to your business don’t just steal it entirely for themselves. How many currently successful businesses would have gotten where they are if they had to devote their own money to providing all those things along with trying to get their business off the ground?

Your analogy is specious. In it, the landlord had nothing to do with your invention, and so would have no claim on the profits it gave you. But if you didn’t happen to own a full-featured manufacturing operation capable of making your invention, marketing it, and distributing it to customers; then you better believe that the company doing all that for you would want a cut. Same goes for government when they supply so much of the infrastructure and educational capital that allows an entrepreneur to prosper.

It’s not like they are asking for all the profits. You get to keep most of it. You just have a moral duty to pay a small part of your bonanza forward so the next kid that comes along with an entrepreneurial spirit can get the education and infrastructure s/he needs to keep the American Dream alive for another generation.

@ETpro Yes, thank you, I am aware. My point is that they were doing all of that before, too, and if they’re constantly searching for more blood maybe they ought to re-think their MO.
Crazy thought: how about as the tax base grows the individual burden is lessened for person as payer
Honestly, it’s a bit odd that Obama is grousing at all. These guys are paying their taxes, aren’t they? They’re law-abiding citizens, and they’re going to pay their taxes even if they don’t like the administration. We know this because they’re doing that.

There was a piece on Morning Edition today about this speech. They quoted some researcher from Duke who said that people don’t mind if their horse lies. It’s the other guy who gives them problems. It’s all psychology and ideology. There are relatively few people in the middle who can be swayed, and they can be swayed by lies as easily as by science.

@Nullo Cute video, but the fact is taxes are at the lowest rate as a percent of GDP that they have hit in 60 years. So unless you are far older than you present yourself to be, I do not believe you are on firm ground claiming that taxes are always going up. The precipitous drop in actual corporate taxes as a percent of GDP is a major portion of the trouble, but the Bush Tax cuts hurt as well, as this article clearly demonstrates.

People keep wanting something for nothing. They may vote to get something for nothing. But the Universe just doesn’t work that way. What we have gotten is crumbling bridges and highways, massive unemployment, and skyrocketing national debt—definitely not something good for nothing.

Another cute video.

@wundayatta IMO, those in the middle can be more easily swayed by lies than science. The nature of lies involves emotion, and that’s what sways them. The emotional appeal.

@Nullo I missed the crazy idea about tax cuts being tied to growth of the population. Yeah, that’s pretty crazy. It would work great if we actually lived in the alternate universe where you do get something for nothing. As population grows, the extra roads, schools, libraries and first responders would just magically poof into existence for all the extra people as we all don’t pay for them. I too wish we lived in such a universe. I think we both know we do not. Our roads won’t even go so far as to repair themselves for free as highway usage grows. No extra lanes magically appear as traffic loads increase. Boo, hiss. How unfair!

@bkcunningham The lies spin on. No straw man argument except the one the liars on the right are erecting.

Trust me. Somalia will never be thriving, at least not in your life time. No matter if people do it alone or not.

But the answer to your question is yes. I did it alone.

I also paid taxes and fees at the same time. Others drove on the same roads and used the same utilities and paid nothing. Plus I paid interest on loans and paid them back on time. I did not take government handouts or favors, only to collect a big salary and declare bancruptcy.

The president is choosing his words based on the liklihood that a sizeable chunk of his constituency does not even work, much less have started a business.

Maybe he spoke out of context.

@josie That’s pure BS. You either haven’t listened to the context, or you are willfully not comprehending plain English. The President was clearly saying that we value entrepreneurs, and what they do, but they do stand on the shoulders of others. Mitt Romney “said as much”;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Yp9SVSWJU regarding the Olympians at the Salt Lake City games. You could grab a couple of sentences out of that speech just as Faux “News” did and make it look like he was saying that winning a gold medal has nothing to do with individual effort.

Spin all you want, but lies are lies and truth is truth. People don’t speak out of context. Others take their words out of context.

People aren’t stupid, @ETpro. Let the POTUS speak for himself. See for yourself every word he said.

@bkcunningham People are often biased. The link I posted is the POTUS speaking for himself. What he is obviously saying is that an entrepreneur did not build the bridges, roads, rails and air-transport system that supports his business, nor educate the workforce. He never said, as Fox claims, that government built all businesses. You want to talk about straw men, there’s your straw man.

@ETpro Just to avoid misunderstanding, I’m not in the habit of willfully not comprehending plain English.
And “Maybe he spoke out of context” is a play on words. A subtle joke. Too subtle I guess.

People are biased, @ETpro. What show on Fox were you watching when you heard them make that claim?

@josie Why won’t Somalia ever thrive?

@Dutchess_III
I qualified and said not in your lifetime.
Having established that, you almost have to go there and see it to totally understand. Effectively no central legal authority, no real national economy, no banking system, no institutionalized education, no investment in infrastructure, etc. all held together with an ongoing civil war that is now about 20 years old. Lots of guns, lots of gangs, lots of tribal and religious passion and jealousies, no law enforcement except by people with guns and passions and jealousies. Per capita income about $300. Nearly all of them are Salafi Muslims, which makes them particularly xenophobic and antigonistic to any outside influence even if it is attempting to be helpful. Plus, predictably, women do not participate in the economy or society so on top of everything else, half the team is sitting on the bench. Shit in the streets, kids playing it etc.
Maybe someday, but not in your lifetime.

In other words, their government is almost non-existent, and what IS there is corrupt and couldn’t care about their people. But according to your logic, that shouldn’t affect anyone in that country who wants to build a business. They should be able to do it all alone, just like you did. The infrastructure of the United States, which our government oversees, had nothing to do with your success. So you say. The education you got, which was provided by the government, at least up to your senior year in High School and quite probably beyond, had nothing to do with it. You did it allll by yourself.

@Dutchess_III
Fluther has a particular and predictable eventuality on many of the threads. I am not sure if the phenomenon has a real name, so I call it “cat chasing it’s tail”.

It happens alot around here.

The chicken/egg conundrum about what came first, human enterprise or government, always starts a cat chasing it’s tail. It is a vexation to the spirit. And you are clearly inviting such a session, and nothing I say will ever make a difference.

So forget it.

Nope it wouldn’t. I’m not an arrogant fool who is convinced that that she has super powers.

@bkcunningham Here you go. The discussion there is just total lying. And here’s Romney lying about it.

Romeny is such an asshat. Somalian citizen: There, but for our government, go I. Our government is what makes us the greatest nation in the world (if that’s still true.)

You know, when Romney’s father’s parents left Mexico, when the revolution started, they spent some months in Texas on government relief. I’d say that George Romeny, Mitt’s dad, built his own empire…but would it have been possible if there hadn’t been a safety net for his family when he was young?

George Romeny seems like an upstanding guy. How did he raise such an ass like Mitt.

@josie Oh…BTW…you said “Fluther has a particular and predictable eventuality on many of the threads. I am not sure if the phenomenon has a real name, so I call it “cat chasing it’s tail”.” No…it’s called setting a trap! And you took it, hook, line and sinker!

Huh, @Dutchess_III? What was the trap he took hook, line and sinker? I am confused.

What are the lies in that Fox piece you posted, @ETpro? I didn’t hear a single lie. I heard opinions because that what the show is all about. It isn’t a news show, it is an opinion/discussion show. I still didn’t hear any lies though. The same with Mitt Romney’s campaign stomp.

I asked Why won’t Somalia ever thrive? knowing full well what the answer was—it’s because of their government, or lack thereof. We are inherently no different than any Somalian citizen…except for our government. We can’t do “it” without our government.

@bkcunningham Oh, Romney was throwing out phrases like, “We learned what Obama REALLY thinks of America,” and inflammatory nonsense like that. I didn’t listen to all of it, but I’m sure the whole speech was along those same lines, that Obama hates America and doesn’t know what it’s like to be a US citizen, yadda yadda yadda. He isn’t ANYTHING like I imagine his father was. I don’t get how his dad could have raised such an asshat.

LOL, okay, @Dutchess_III. Thank you.

You know, news sites go around spinning things out of context. You would hope the more reputable ones wouldn’t do that, but I guess MSN did it to Romney—took something he said completely out of context to try and make him appear stupid. I was SO disappointed in them.

That is why I think it is so very important to read things from a wide variety of reliable sources and then research, research, research, @Dutchess_III.

I agree.

@bkcunningham Romney uses the out-of-context two sentences in Obama’s speech to claim that Obama doesn’t understand what it is to be an American. He’s the other. Then there was the Romney lie about “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to loose. Here’s what Romeny claimed the president meant. Here’s what Obama actually said.

The entire Romney campaign seems to be built on shameless lies. That is concerning.

I thought when the Obama camp criticized Romney for saying “I like being able to fire people, that this was taken out of context. But after the constant use of spin and outright lies, and the insistence of continuing to run them after caught in the lie, there is no way I could vote for etch-a-sketch.

Yes, yes, I know. @ETpro. Etch-a-Sketch, I heard you the first five times you called Romney that name.

@bkcunningham Here’s a perfect mashup to show the deliberate deception Romney’s using in his attack ad. And that one ad is not the exception, it’s the rule with Romney. Truth is unimportant to him. If you want someone who will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear then Romney’s your man.

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” Barack Obama How does Romney saying, “We value teachers, firefighters, people who build roads….” compare to Obama’s Progressive views on the role of government in our lives. That is what it really comes down to, @ETpro.

@ETpro I had to LOL! I kind of doubt that the Jews or the Poles wanted to hear one of Romney’s aides use foul language in a place that was supposed to be honoring the WWII soldiers who died! If it can be screwed up, seems that Romney and his camp will screw it up.

@bkcunningham
And that was referencing the bridges he was talking about the VERY SENTENCE BEFORE.
More dishonest quotemining, as expected.

Ah! I didn’t realize he was referencing a bridge, @ragingloli! Thank you! Yep. Without bridges, I wouldn’t have been able to have a small business.

@ragingloli, I quoted directed from the video @ETpro posted. What are you talking about?

@bkcunningham—you quoted directly from a video that @ETpro posted, to underscore Romney taking quotes out of context! Here is the video that Romney sliced and diced and took out of context. When Obama talked about “You didn’t build that” he was talking about Public Works—bridges, in particular. As a small business owner, I have to say this is true. I can’t tell you how many of our customers had to cross, literally cross a bridge, to frequent my business.

@Dutchess_III I’ve posted the full context numerous times. @bkcunningham knows what was actually being said, but refuses to let go of grabbing a 12 second fragment that makes the whole speech seem like it’s saying just the opposite of what it is saying. This is just pure partisan refusal to hear what she doesn’t want to hear.

And it’s not just bridges. It’s roads. It’s the Internet. It’s an educated workforce. It’s police and fire protection. It’s a regulated banking system that just can’t blatantly rip your business off. Without all those things in place, American entrepreneurs would find what they do difficult to impossible.

I have been a small business owner now for 25 years. I am proud of what I built, and I busted hump to do it. But I understand that there’s no earthly way I could have done it all without any help, and that good governance has a very important role in establishing the conditions where I can grow my business.

@ETpro I posted the transcript and the video of Obama in its entirety. You on the other hand posted a 2 minute 54 second video several times and several BS pieces of propaganda. Now, if you posted the video in its entirety like I did, point it out and I’ll apologize. Otherwise, stop twisting things.

I had a small business too @ETpro. Worked my ass off. Couldn’t have done it if we didn’t live in a country that allowed others to work their ass off and get paid a fair wage, which allowed them to buy the products and services we provided.

Couldn’t have done it in Somlia.

OK, @bkcunningham….so what are your final thoughts on Obama pointing out that no small business could have thrived without the infrastructure that our government provided or allowed? Do you agree with that?

Also, @ETPro…post the whole video. I’m not sure what video she is referring to.

@bkcunningham Nice try, but it’s still you who are twisting things. Whether a 2:54 minute clip or a hald hour speech, you have continued to ignore the context and focus only on 12 seconds, claiming that the entire meaning of the speech was contained therein. Anyone who listens to it and isn’t a partisan hack will realize that is not true. Romney continuing to claim it is true is called lying. He did the same with the Obama speech from 2008 when Romney claimed Obama said, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” In that lie, he left out the rest of the sentence, which was actually “Sen. McCain’s campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’”

Even after being exposed for pants on fire, Romney still is running that lie. His life is built on lies about his time at Bain Capital, where he actually lived with he ran for Governor of Massachusetts, his taxes, his offshoring efforts, etc. And his advertising clearly shows the character fault. Even when exposed, he double’s down on the lies.

I know that lots of politicians stretch the truth and use spin. But when one bases his whole appeal on Big Lie strategy, watch out. He’s up to something that he knows would make his winning impossible, and that’s why it must constantly be covered by lies.

@Dutchess_III I cannot find any video of the full speech, nor can I find anywhere that @bkcunningham posted such a link. I chose to post the clip that was just under 3 minutes because of was the fullest video clip I could find, and it supplied the full context of the President’s remarks that were being mischaracterized by the right. Here is the written transcript. It shows clearly Romney is editing the comments to reverse their meaning.

Oh, I’ve seen the speech by Obama. I understand exactly what he meant when he said, “You didn’t build that,” and I totally agree with him.
I meant that @bkcunningham wants you to post the full speech that includes Romney twisting Obama’s meaning.

@bkcunningham…. Could you post that whole speech of Romney’s? I’d like to see if his comment / insult to Obama was taken out of context, too.

@Dutchess_III Here’s the longest clip I found in a quick search. I’m about to fall asleep on the keyboard here.

Thanks. Hopefully @bkcunningham will be satisfied as well. WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!