How Obama’s “You Didn’t Build That” Comment Was Wrong “In Context”

Team Obama and all the little OFA lemmings are out in full force crying “context! context!” over Obama’s ridiculous comments last Friday. For the sake of sanity, and to provide you with an easy way to combat their latest attempt at damage control, here’s how Obama’s comments were wrong, no matter how you look at it.

First, the comments… in full context.

We’ve already made a trillion dollars’ worth of cuts.  We can make some more cuts in programs that don’t work, and make government work more efficiently…We can make another trillion or trillion-two, and what we then do is ask for the wealthy to pay a little bit more …

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.  They know they didn’t -look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.  You didn’t get there on your own.  I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.  There are a lot of smart people out there.  It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.  Let me tell you something – there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business. you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

Obama’s first mistake was erecting a gigantic strawman to knock down. No one is arguing that we don’t need government. No one. This is a common strawman used by far left moonbats like Obama. “Limited government” has never meant, nor does it mean now, “no government.” It’s a ridiculous argument used by those who wish to pretend that conservatives, who favor limited government, are really anarchists, who favor no government.

The second mistake was this notion that business owners (aka “the rich”) aren’t paying their fair share for the stuff tax payers pay for, like roads, bridges, etc. Contrary to Leftist dogma, the “rich” pay more than their fair share.

 

(This graphic was made by the great @PoliticalMath who you should all be following on Twitter.)

This is why you never actually hear Obama or any other Leftist put a number on what they think is a “fair share.” It just means “more than they’re already paying because everyone likes someone else paying for stuff.”

When you actually look at who pays the most for all these things Obama is claiming the government pays for, it’s obvious the very people Obama is scolding are already paying for it. So yes, Mr. Obama, those people did, in fact, “build that” too. Now you’re criticizing them for it.

The third mistake Obama made was revealing his government-centric view of the world. In his mind, government is the innovator and people simply do what the government instructs them to do. It’s profoundly unamerican. This country is great because of the ideals upon which it was founded: Life. Liberty. And the pursuit of happiness. Obama thinks that is only made possible by government. It’s exactly backwards. Our government is only made possible by the people who make this country great. Free people. Free enterprise.

That’s who “built that.”