{"id":15075,"date":"2012-07-23T17:19:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T17:19:36","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-07-23T17:19:36","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T17:19:36","slug":"an_incomprehensible_defense_of_obama_s_you_didn_t_build_that_philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/07\/23\/an_incomprehensible_defense_of_obama_s_you_didn_t_build_that_philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"An Incomprehensible Defense of Obama\u2019s “You Didn\u2019t Build That” Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Two Fridays ago, Barack Hussein Obama was in Roanoke, Virginia. I want you to grab audio sound bite number 17. This is hilarious, by the way, folks, what\u2019s coming up here. You\u2019ve heard Obama, it\u2019s what\u2019s coming up after Obama. I just want to repeat this, Barack Obama, Roanoke, Virginia, on July 13th, explaining to people that if they started a business, that they really didn\u2019t, that everybody else did it for \u2019em.<\/p>\n

OBAMA: If you\u2019ve been successful, you didn\u2019t get there on your own.<\/p>\n

RUSH: No.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

OBAMA: You didn\u2019t get there on your own. I\u2019m always struck by people who think, well, it must be \u2019cause 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. 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\u2019ve got a business, that — you didn\u2019t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn\u2019t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right, right, right. That created all kinds of problems for the president, and it led to a number of defenders. But you heard the attitude. He says that with — frankly, he\u2019s just being mean. The guy has an animus against people who are self-reliant. And he\u2019s hell-bent on telling them that they didn\u2019t do anything on their own. And what he means is that everybody who\u2019s successful ended up stealing the labor of other people, or actually stealing their money or tricked them out of their money, or cheated them in business, or what have you. He doesn\u2019t believe in it. He believes the state ought to pick winners and losers. <\/p>\n

So then the defenders came along, and said, “Well, you\u2019re taking him out of context. He was really talking about the roads and bridges, and not businesses, when he said business owners didn\u2019t build that, you didn\u2019t do that.” This roads and bridges garbage is also indicative of who these people are. Roads and bridges, infrastructure, roads and bridges. There\u2019s a road in front of everything. If having a road in front of a business meant that it was successful, there would be nothing but successful businesses. And if all you had to do to have a successful business is have a bridge nearby, then there\u2019d never be a business that was a failure. <\/p>\n

Well, the hits kept on coming and people kept pounding. And it took its toll. So last Friday in Jacksonville Obama was interviewed by WCTV Eyeball News correspondent Andy Alcock, and Andy Alcock of eyewitnesses in Florida said, “I want to talk to you about comments you make in Virginia the other day that caused a little bit of a stir, and I want to quote you exactly. Part of what you said, ‘If you\u2019ve got a business, you didn\u2019t build that. Somebody else made that happen.\u2019 On Tuesday, Governor Romney responded and said, ‘To say something like that is not only foolishness, it\u2019s insulting to every entrepreneur and every innovator.\u2019 What is your response, Mr. President?”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

OBAMA: Well, the problem is you left out the sentence that I made before. So what I said was, uh, together we build roads and we build bridges. And so if you\u2019ve got a business, you didn\u2019t build that, meaning the roads and the bridges, not your business. And anybody who actually watched the tape knows that\u2019s what I was referring to. That\u2019s a point I\u2019ve made millions of times and that\u2019s a point Mr. Romney has made as well. So this is just a bogus issue.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Right. Roads and bridges. The fact is, they did build the roads and bridges. It was their taxes who built the roads and bridges. He doesn\u2019t have terra firma on which to stand. But, anyway, this has caused, ladies and gentlemen, sheer panic in Obamaville. And three days ago in the Washington Post there was a piece by a guy named Dylan Matthews. I\u2019m almost reluctant to mention his name because it\u2019s incomprehensible. It is a piece on the Washington Post Wonk Blog entitled, “The Philosophy of ‘You Didn\u2019t Build That.'” It essentially is a dissertation on the philosophy of Obama\u2019s horrible speech on small business. What we have here is an intellectual trying to explain that Obama is so smart, he\u2019s so much smarter than we are that we cannot hope to keep up with him. We don\u2019t have a chance of truly understanding what he means. He is so above us, we are so beneath him. <\/p>\n

“By now you\u00c2\u2019ve surely heard about Barack Obama\u00c2\u2019s ‘you didn\u00c2\u2019t build that\u2019 line. In case you haven\u00c2\u2019t, here\u00c2\u2019s the full quote.” He gives the full quote. “The Romney campaign immediately seized on the moment for a campaign ad.” But as has been noted, “Obama\u00c2\u2019s speech is murky in terms of what values it expresses. Descriptively, it\u00c2\u2019s clear what Obama means: No one has even built a road on their own, and if they had, it wouldn\u00c2\u2019t be good enough to drive on.” Who says that somebody couldn\u2019t build a road? I don\u2019t want to get sidetracked here. <\/p>\n

“But let\u00c2\u2019s suppose you did build a road entirely on your own…” Keep in mind now, this piece is to defend Obama and what he said. “But let\u00c2\u2019s suppose you did build a road entirely on your own, and you charge tolls and you make a lot of money off it. Do you deserve that money? After all, you did all the work yourself. Then again, maybe you only know how to build a road because you had good parents who paid for good schools where you learned about civil engineering. And even if they hadn\u00c2\u2019t, maybe you\u00c2\u2019re only capable of understanding the concepts needed to build a road because you inherited DNA that gave you a brain that can understand those concepts. Maybe you wouldn\u00c2\u2019t even have had gotten into civil engineering unless an aunt had given you a book on it as a present, and if she had chosen to give you a book on rocketry instead you would have pursued that career. Do you still deserve that money?”<\/p>\n

Are you with me so far? Well, hang in there. <\/p>\n

“Political philosophers are sharply divided on these questions. Many do not like the idea that people ‘deserve\u2019 things at all. For one thing, most people think that to deserve something, a person must have done something to deserve it. That implies that there are actions that for which certain people are responsible. Seem obvious? A lot of metaphysicians don\u00c2\u2019t think so. For one thing, that claim presupposes the existence of free will. Some philosophers are what is called ‘hard determinists,\u2019 who deny that anything that could be called free will exists. Others, called compatibilists or ‘soft determinists,\u2019 believe that it is both true that free will exists and that every action is determined. They reason that free will exists if people can act according to their own motives without interference. Those motives are determined by factors outside those people, compatibilists argue, but they still have free will.”<\/p>\n