Those who can, do.
I work in the public sector. I've got a job working for taxpayer dollars. So, incidentally, does my wife. I have worked for private companies before, but I have never made a company, risked my money, and built it up.
If I had done so, I could claim that I had been helped along the way to any success. But I haven't, even though I've got a pretty decent education.
My wife's father dropped out of school in junior high. He worked as a mechanic's assistant, and bought a near worthless piece of land and put a salvage yard on it. To drag cars to his yard, he welded up an A-frame on the back of a pickup, and installed a winch. He got married. His wife (my mother-in-law) pointed out that he could always be making money if he towed cars for a living, and had him sell the salvage yard. He bought another piece of land, and fenced it. This was his impound lot. He began putting on barbecues, and inviting local lawmen (especially the constables) to it. He got a lot of tows. He bought proper purpose-built tow trucks. He hired drivers. Soon, the man had a wrecker empire. While buying wreckers, he bought an ambulance. He got his EMT certification, and began running it to emergencies, and doing transfers.
Then he paved a five acre strip of land, and put up storage buildings, to make a U-Store-It facility. Then he passed away, sadly before I ever got to meet the man. Before he died, he had taken a modified pickup and a scrap of land and turned it into three businesses worth an accumulated million dollars, on an 8th grade education, by the late 1980s. Oh, he rightfully shared his success with someone: his wife. She minded the house, reared his kids, handled the office, performed vehicle releases, insisted on cash payments at night while he was on a call-out with a Beretta .32 in her robe pocket. There is little doubt that she was an indispensable keystone to his business success. She was his spouse. His partner in all things.
But I don't think that our president was talking about your marital partner, when he told us that our successes in private business are derived not from our own labors. Sorry, Bernie. All of those countless times that you got out of bed to go impound a vehicle for a deputy making an arrest, or to pull out a car that went too far on the shoreline-- THOSE don't mean as much as your high school English teacher. You know-- if you'd ever gone to high school.
Labels: disorganization, economy, family, liberal
posted by Matt G @ 8:52 AM
11 Comments:
Amen.
Pathetic, and he is TRULY out of touch with the REAL America!!!
What your father-in-law didn't build was the roads that let his customers get to his businesses, the fuel supply line that gave him access to gasoline, the power plants that provided him with electricity , and the thousand other infrastructure items that Obama was actually talking about. His comment is being deliberately taken out of context in a rather clumsy attempt to smear him.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/07/obama-romney-business-you-didnt-built.php
If you're going to criticize Obama, there are many legitimate reasons to do so. Posting something so disingenuous sort of suggests that you can't think of any.
Chip, I actually get what the President wants to say in that speech, even better than you do.
Mr. Obama's statements in context could be taken to mean that the "that" was the infrastructure that makes our success possible. And you know what? I agree, to an extent. As a police officer, I contribute to the infrastructure that helps to makes it possible.
But you know what's funny? The same people that talk about what a great communicator that President Obama is, are finding it necessary to "explain" what he really meant. Chip, I give our sitting President and his speech writers perhaps more credit than you do. I believe that he intended that speech to ring with some in one one, and with others in another. Remember that our President wishes to express the need to share the wealth. That our President wishes to have the rich pay for the poor.
Chip, I agree that there's a lot of specious criticism made, just because people don't like the guy, but that's not my case, here. I believe that Barry O's message is that you cannot go on without the nanny government taking your money and doing what it considers useful with it.
Your wife has intersting parents and every right to be proud of them (and yes your FIL is no longer with us...but memory keeps him alive in your heart)
I have trouble understanding the scope of Chip's thinking but your answer to him is articulate and right on the mark.
It's also worth noting that infrastructure is not a gift from the government; it's build with our labor and paid for with our money. My gratitude for it is tempered; far too much of that labor and money is wasted.
That he is pointing out the benefits, as a reason to keep the waste, is a sad commentary on what our government has become. Obama started his presidency with the support of the people, and very little support from either party; he had the rare opportunity to demand REAL change and hold Congress' feet to the fire, because he didn't owe his soul to the usual PTBs. He chose instead to become part of the problem, and he is very sadly transparent.
Ah, bless Bernie and all the women and men like him. And damn the eyes of anyone who rushes to take credit for the sweat off someone else's brow.
The stuff mentioned by Chip wasn't built by the government either, but by other entrepreneurs. Including the roads. The government provided financing for roads using newly-printed dollars, borrowed money, and tax dollars (including gasoline taxes) after taking a cut.
"What your father-in-law didn't build was the roads that let his customers get to his businesses, the fuel supply line that gave him access to gasoline, the power plants that provided him with electricity , and the thousand other infrastructure items that Obama was actually talking about. His comment is being deliberately taken out of context in a rather clumsy attempt to smear him."
he smears himself. The government didn't provide a single one of those things, ever, and never will. Every single thing that the "Government" provided has been paid for, as Suz and others have said, by taxpayers, including Matt's fatherinlaw. End of discussion. The Government does not provide, produce, or manufacture anything, it consumes. Great post, Matt.
"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."
The critical remarks are quite in context. Until the spin started.
Oh, honestly. The government is not an alien being. It is a whole crapload of fellow americans being subsidized by american dollars.
As for Obama... You understood him, but you saw an opportunity to grind an axe by pretending not to. Hmm.
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