Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Yes I did build that

(Has anyone seen my goat?)

So anyone that knows me knows I am no fan of Barack Obama. Given any political viewpoint and virtually any speech and statement he has made I can be counted on pretty much to disagree upon virtually every word including “and,” and “the.” No, Barack Obama and I just see the world differently: probably always have, and most likely always will. So it will surely come as no surprise that I disagree wholeheartedly with his latest blather on who is responsible for the success of business’s and people in America. So our disagreement is axiomatic on this issue but to say that I vehemently disagree on this latest stupidity would be a profound understatement. The very fact that such absurdity would even require a rebuttal is disheartening enough. The fact that there are people who would bob their empty heads in vacuous sycophantic union is maddening.





So the gist, for those who might have missed it, is that the infrastructure, the roads, bridges, the (public) schools, teachers, electricity, the internet… that so many rely on to survive and to thrive is “provided” by the government. He goes on to explain that the self-congratulatory dynamic of so many business owners and other successful people is misguided, and that none could succeed without these collective enhancements to success “provided” by the government.
So this one really got my goat, and the business community, the entrepreneurs, the successful workers, managers, and executives, who are understandably apoplectic about this latest slap-in-the-face to their myriad boundless hard work and personal sacrifice that has now been declared only incidental to their success. So now, not only has poor personal choices been removed by the left from the equation of success and failure but also hard work, diligence, sacrifice, and good choices.

And yet with all of the hand-wringing by the outraged successful, ranting to the media with newfound fury, I find few really adequately parsing this latest drivel for its inherent absurdity. Lucky for you however, you have me to add some perspective.  :)
So “The government” built the roads, the bridges, the electric grids, the schools, and myriad other infrastructure that provides the backbone for the success of the people?  Uh….no.  I really don’t think I have heard anything so absurdly and myopically backward in all of my 48 years, and that is saying a lot.  

No government anywhere, at any time, has ever “built” anything, “created” anything, or “provided” anything to anyone.

The government did not create the internet. It did not ever build a road, a bridge, a power dam, or electric grid. We did that. Contrary to Barack Obama’s ridiculous claims we the people built it, created it, provided it. We the people collectively and individually did every single last thing to which Barack Obama now gives this ethereal entity of “Government” the bulk of the credit. The government does one thing, and one thing alone. It takes. It takes the fruits and the intellectual wealth of the people it governs and distributes and invests the people’s wealth, mostly poorly, in infrastructure, government, friends and supporters of those in power, pipe dreams, and more government. Not one thin red dime has the government “provided” to anyone or anything anywhere ever.
Those same people that Obama is now lambasting for their “taking” so much from the collective pot while “giving back” so little have given, and given, and will give even after they are dead, to that government and Barack Obama’s ilk who have the audacity to then berate them for not “giving back their fair share.” Firstly, one cannot “give back” if one has not been “given” in the first place. The government or the collective people behind it have not “given” anything to these. The people, and the businesses that rely on all of these things are the ones who really provided them. These worked, and created wondrous and majestic things from their intellect, their sacrifices, their diligence, their hard work; and when they used those resources (and even when they don’t) that Barack Obama misguidedly gives government, or the collective credit for, they have paid, and paid, and paid. They have paid in federal, state, and local taxes, fees, assessments, and every other creative terminology governments and statists can think of for the taking of the fruits of the people’s work and intellect. These businesses pay handsomely for every collective resource they use. They pay property taxes, road taxes, gas taxes, electric grid taxes, phone grid (internet) taxes, “federal usage” taxes, “state usage” taxes, …  They then hire the rest of the people and pay boundless taxes to the government in way of employer contributions, as well as providing a massive employee earnings pool that is again taxed in endless myriad creative ways. When these business owners are through with their business taxation and business expenses, including much of the earnings of the collective people, should there be anything left for the principles of that company they are again taxed, now on a personal level, at every turn, from their own federal, state, and local taxes, to their property taxes, capital gains taxes(should they be so evil as to invest some of what is left at a profit), and on and on. Should that person then have the audacity to actually have something left for their own children the government then takes half of what is left.
To all of this the Barack Obamas of the world proclaim that businesses have a heavier usage and take a heavier toll than do individuals of the collective who have provided them. Again, uh, no. Businesses pay vastly larger amounts, both in ratio and volume to their individual counterparts.  Actually the volume of money taken from these businesses for their infrastructure usage is breathtaking. In actuality and quite obviously if one thinks about it nothing the government has ever done could have been done without funding from the backs of the people. Those government employees that researched and “created the internet” were paid for their employment from all of us who use that internet. No road, and no bridge could ever be built without monies first taken from the people to build them.
An analogy: I raid your bank account. With those funds I buy you a car (and cars for a bunch of other, less-fortunate people). Because I have “provided” you a car I now ask you to “give back your fair share” for using that car. After all you could not have gotten to work to earn a living without the car “I provided.” And really, you should be more grateful for all I have done for you and “give back” your fair share.
As I think on this however, perhaps I have misstated that government actually creates nothing out of thin air. Actually government does create the laws that control us, for good and for bad. (Although we pay for them to do so).  The one thing though that I have forgotten in all of this is that Government can create majestic debt, for us, and for those yet to be born, who have no say in the matter. And of those yet to be born will, as always be of two camps: those who are diligent, steadfast, hard-working, who make good choices, who will be rewarded (and taxed relentlessly) for it, and those with none of these qualities, who will be the next fodder and excuse for squeezing every last possible tax and fee from the productive. These will rise early, work diligently and incredibly hard, make wise choices; sacrifice and many will become, even after ceaseless, ruthless taxation, “wealthy.” These above all will provide the infrastructure that the entire collective will use, deservedly or not, and just as the sun rises in the east and progressive statists forever crave the wealth of others, these will be told that they need to “start” to “give back their fair share.” And to this there will just as assuredly as today, be those willfully ignorant masses bobbing their heads in vacuous fervent agreement, and lust for other peoples money.

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