‘If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen”: President Obama’s words last week are likely to haunt his campaign and possibly cost him the election.
The line insulted millions of entrepreneurs, small-business owners, garage inventors and plain old dreamers. (The Post reported this week on a few of the New Yorkers who took exception.)
Of course, Obama supporters have relentlessly pointed out that the instantly viral head-scratcher was preceded by some no-man-is-an-island boilerplate. “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. . . somebody along the line gave you some help,” the president said.
And: “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.”
But “you didn’t build that” still stands as...
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The telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, the light bulb, the MacBook, the iPhone and the iPad all disprove his thesis. Great inventions are most often conceived by private individuals, sitting alone in a room, not government bureaucrats.
And that’s why Obama’s “gaffe” could well become a focal point of the election — a sharp line of demarcation between a party that stands for collectivism and one that not only celebrates the individual but also gets out of his way.
The president’s been promising “fundamental transformation” of the country since 2008. Altering the relationship between citizen and state is certainly part of that.
Which is why Romney gets to the heart of the matter when he asks: “Do we believe in an America that is great because of government or do we believe in an America that is great because of free people allowed to pursue their dreams?”
And that’s the fall election in a nutshell.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
