Obama Lays Out His Core Belief (Finally): None of Us Make It On Our Own Without Government Help

Why would he say this? Well, he believes it. But he's also a coward who doesn't lead.

He's saying this because Elizabeth Warren said it in her campaign for Senate -- "Mr. Big Factory Man wouldn't be rich without the government protecting him from armed marauders," or words to that effect -- and electrified the leftist base with it.

So now comes Obama, leading from behind.

"Now, I want to be very clear here. Nobody wants to punish success in America. The Republicans talk about class warfare. That’s — our goal is to make success available for everybody. What’s great about this country is you’ve got a good idea, you’ve got a service that nobody else has thought of, you know what, go out there, start a business. Make money. I want everybody out there to be rich. That’s great. Anybody in America should be able to make it if they try."

"But none of us make it on our own. Somebody — an outstanding entrepreneur like a Steve Jobs — somewhere along the line he had a teacher who helped inspire him. All those great Internet businesses wouldn’t have succeeded unless somebody had invested in the government research that helped to create the Internet. We don’t succeed on our own."

Video at the link.

To some extent, this is unobjectionable and irrefutable: The entire point of civilization is to permit things like secure ownership of property and a stable and predictable system of law and so forth, all of which engenders economic activity. Look at failed states, full of civil war and civic violence, looting and shooting, and you'll notice that none of them are prosperous. Their economies are limited to minor agriculture and mining and other fairly basic and primitive endeavors.

But it's clear he means more than that. He means that government directly, by specific intervention, causes people to succeed. (Shouldn't that also mean it causes people to fail? )

This will be a very black-and-white election. This is good.

Assuming we win. If we lose, with the terms outlined so starkly, then it will be disastrous.

posted by Ace at 01:12 PM

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