UNDERSTANDING PRESIDENT OBAMA

During President Obama’s recent speech in Roanoke, Virginia he told us two things that we needed to hear directly from him.

“- look, If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.” and “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

To the president’s dismay, his words have caused a lot of uproar.  The Obama campaign has spent much of the last week trying to explain away comments that offended and frightened many voters, including some Democrats.  The president’s handlers claim that he was taken out of context, and that he was just pointing out the importance of public infrastructure – things like highways, schools, police and fire departments.  That argument might make sense, if the president was talking about the success of our economy as a whole.  But he wasn’t.   The president’s speech was clearly about how Americans, as individuals, become successful.  And the point he was making is that, in his opinion, Americans become successful ONLY because of direct intervention by a big, central government.

It is in this context that President Obama has inadvertently told voters why and how he wants to “transform” America.  In Barack Obama’s world successful individuals, and business owners in particular, owe their success to the benevolence of government. In his European style universe government elites dole out other people’s money to fund private endeavors that they deem worthy. It is government that picks winners and losers and assures outcomes. That’s why Obama feels he has the right to take successful people’s money and “spread the wealth”.  He thinks they don’t deserve it in the the first place.  In his world, their success belongs to the government.

Ironically, the president’s defenders like to claim that Republicans want an economy that works from the top down. In reality it is progressive politicians like Barack Obama who think that a top down approach works best. In their model a powerful central government sits at the top calling the shots in every major industry – housing, energy, transportation, agriculture, banking and even healthcare.  And in their model, no entrepreneur, no small businessman, no start-up investor succeeds without the government’s help and approval.

Barack Obama doesn’t like the idea of American Exceptionalism.  He doesn’t want individuals to believe that they can succeed on their own.  He wants Americans to become dependent on government for their success and financial well-being.

The president’s speech in Roanoke was couched in rhetoric about the middle class, but his message was all about society as a collective unit, taking from successful individuals and expanding government.  It demonstrates his disdain for entrepeneurism and American capitalism.  And it is insulting to millions of Americans who've pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps to build businesses and professional careers as a means of ensuring their familys' financial independence.

Frankly, it’s a speech that would play better in France - or maybe Greece.