"You Didn't Build It"

     Politicians regularly spew outlandish ideas and absurd
lies.   Such are so commonplace that we grow immune to them. 
Still, occasionally a statement stands feet, ankles and waste deep
below others in the swamp of absurdity.  Obama's admonition to
businessmen that "You didn't build it" stands out as an absurdity
for the ages.

     If the entrepreneur didn't build the business, Who did? 
Would Ford Motor Company and automobiles have "just
happened" without Henry of Dearborn?  Who did build Ford
Motor and all of the other businesses that provide most of the
things we have and use?  Why aren't we all still independent
hunter-gathers picking berries and chasing rabbits for our next
meal?

     We don't need a pompous politician to tell us no one
does anything by himself.  If somebody hadn't provided you
with food and clothing, you wouldn't have survived to do
anything.

     I built a front porch on my house.  Of course, I didn't
build without assistance.  I bought materials and had some help
from family members.  Many of the ideas I  used I picked up
over the years from other people.  I don't even know the origin
of those ideas and many of the materials.  By myself I would
have trouble making a decent hammer.

     Without my making plans, collecting materials, and
directing the efforts I wouldn't have a porch.  My efforts were
indispensable for managing the building of my porch.  Quibble
about whether I built the porch, if you want to.  Without my
efforts as planner and director the porch wouldn't have
happened.

     Likewise Ford Motor Company, Target, Burger King,
John Deere, etc., etc. didn't just happen.  Someone had ideas and
resources which they put to work.  Such entrepreneurs are
behind the production of almost everything we consume in a
civilized trading society.  Even those who grow their own food
depend on others to provide tools, seed, fertilizer, etc.

     Without the entrepreneurs who make plans and bring
resources together to produce consumer goods, the world would
be populated (sparsely populated) by independent
hunter-gatherers.  We owe everything to those entrepreneurs to
whom Obama said "You didn't build it."

     The government of which Obama is so proud wouldn't
preside over anything more than a few rabbit chasers if it wasn't
for what entrepreneurs built.  Government lives as a parasite off
the production of the businesses that Obama demeans.  The
entrepreneurs could fairly say to Obama "You didn't build that
government."

     Government pays for some of the resources businesses
use.  Government pays with wealth taken from the private sector,
wealth created through the planning and direction of businesses. 
Government then uses that wealth to hire private businesses to
build highways, dams, etc.  Private businesses also build
highways, etc. on their own.  I drove on an expressway build by
Disney.

     Is Obama so ignorant and arrogant that he believes that
without government no one would build roads, etc.?  What does
Obama believe?  Does he do anything more that parrot whatever
someone sticks in his teleprompter?  As someone pointed out,
Obama didn't build that speech.

     The idea that businesses don't make indispensable
contributions to production is straight out of  Karl Marx's
Communism.  If Obama doesn't want to be called a Communist,
he shouldn't talk like one.

     One can learn far more about the importance of
entrepreneurs from Ayn Rand than from Obama.  I don't agree
with Rand on some points.  She was spot on in the defense of
entrepreneurship.

     In Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" the entrepreneurs quit.  As a
result the economy collapsed into strife and starvation.  The
parasitic government that Obama praises so much collapsed
under its own weight.  Mr. Obama, you have got it totally
backward on who is carrying whom.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284