I was too easy on Barack Obama in “Barack Channels Princess SummerFall WinterSpring.” It’s not that I gave him a pass for denigrating the accomplishments of successful businesspersons. Far from it. But the Obama piñata deserves another good beating.
This beating is prompted by Jason Brennan’s tone-deaf post, “On Quoting Out of Context and the Right-Wing Smear Machine,” at Bleeding Heart Libertarians. Referring to Obama’s remarks in Roanoke, Virginia, on July 13. Brennan writes:
If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…
If you are 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 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 then 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.
The right-wing smear machine quotes this out of context, as follows:
If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Wow, notice how quoting out of context changes the apparent meaning of those two sentences. In context, the sentences mean: If you own a business, you relied upon background institutions, infrastructure, and help from others to build that business. Your success depended upon many of the rest of us and on government. You didn’t create everything from scratch. The bolded “that” refers to “this unbelievable American System” and “roads and bridges”. This is what Obama actually said.
Out of context, the sentences seem to mean: You didn’t build your business; someone else did. Quoting him out of context makes it seem like the bolded “that” refers to your business.
Well, as it happens, the only way to interpret Obama’s statement — in or out of context — is to read it exactly as the so-called right-wing smear machine interprets it. To help Brennan understand that, I hereby reproduce the paragraph from the official White House source:
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.
Note that the official source places an em-dash where Brennan places a comma. I will come to the em-dash in a moment.
The pronoun “that” in the fourth sentence unambiguously refers to “business,” which (in context) is the antecedent of “that.” And the em-dash that sets off the clause “you didn’t build that” makes it all the clearer that “that” refers to “business.” For it is the task of an emphatic clause set off by an em-dash to make an additional or clarifying statement about what immediately precedes the clause.
Further, having introduced the “that” in the fourth sentence, Obama repeats it in the next sentence. So, what Obama says in the fourth and fifth sentence of the paragraph is this:
If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that [business]. Somebody else made that [business] happen.
One doesn’t have to be a right-winger to see through Obama’s rhetoric.
It may be legitimate to say that (almost) nothing is accomplished (these days) by individuals working on their own. But Obama is trying, not so subtly, to denigrate those who are successful in business (e.g., Mitt Romney) and to make a case for redistributionism. The latter rests on Obama’s (barely concealed) premise that the fruits of a collective enterprise should be shared on some basis other than market valuations of individual contributions. (Brennan seems to share that view, so perhaps he is not altogether unsympathetic to Obama’s aims.)
It is (or should be) obvious that Obama’s agenda is the advancement of collectivist statism. I will credit Obama for the sincerity of his belief in collectivist statism, but his sincerity only underscores and how dangerous he is. (Note to Jason Brennan: “his” and “he” refer to “Obama.”)
Thomas Sowell, “Obama’s Rhetoric,” Townhall.com, July 19, 2012
Thomas Sowell, “Trashing Achievements,” JWR Insight, July 19, 2012
Mark J. Perry, “Milton Friedman Responds to Obama’s Claim That There Is No Such Thing As Individual Achievement,” Carpe Diem, July 20, 2012
Mark Steyn, “Golden Gateway to Dependency,” National Review Online, July 21, 2012
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A Short Course in Economics
Addendum to a Short Course in Economics
The Price of Government
The Price of Government Redux
The Real Burden of Government
The Illusion of Prosperity and Stability
Estimating the Rahn Curve: Or, How Government Inhibits Economic Growth
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More about Taxing the Rich
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The Keynesian Fallacy and Regime Uncertainty
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The “Jobs Speech” That Obama Should Have Given
Say’s Law, Government, and Unemployment
The Real Multiplier
Vulgar Keynesianism and Capitalism
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The Real Multiplier (II)
Lay My (Regulatory) Burden Down
The Burden of Government
Economic Growth Since World War II
More Evidence for the Rahn Curve
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Don’t Use the “S” Word When the “F” Word Will Do
Barack Channels Princess SummerFall WinterSpring
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