http://keithhennessey.com/2012/07/26/th ... uild-that/Quote:
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THE PRESIDENT: 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. (Applause.)
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. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
President Obama and his allies say Governor Romney and his allies are taking the President out of context by quoting only the sentences in red. How, then, do the President and his defenders explain the bold sentences of the first paragraph shown above? Here the President dismisses the importance of intellect and effort as contributors to success. Is there any more charitable way to interpret this text?
While in the Roanoke remarks President Obama stresses the importance of government as a contributor to the economic success of businesses, in other contexts he emphasizes the importance of luck in economic success. He frequently refers to the rich as “blessed” and “fortunate.”
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In these cases and many others President Obama describes the rich as passive recipients of blessings or good fortune. He rarely credits skill, intelligence, savvy, hard work, or risk-taking as contributors to economic success. According to the President’s language, the rich are that way because they are blessed and fortunate (i.e., lucky), not because they worked harder than others, or were smarter, or savvier, or took bigger risks or sacrificed more. In this framework, success is given to you, not earned by you.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away
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