To
date, your faithful correspondent has not yet heard of anyone making
the most obvious response to President Obama's controversial "You
didn't build that"
speech. Here then, is that seemingly
obvious
response.
Mr.
President, everyone
had
everything
you
cited in your outrageous remarks.
Everyone
had access to the courts and could purchase eyeglasses; only one
person invented bifocals.
Everyone
knew about lightning;
only one person invented the lighting rod.
Everyone
had access to boats, roads and waterways; only
one
person invented the first commercially viable steam boat.
Everyone
had patent protection;
only one person
invented
interchangeable parts.
Everyone
had access to
roads, rivers, sickles and scythes; only one person invented the
reaper and revolutionized grain production.
Everyone
knew about electricity; only one person perfected
the electric light, founded the General Electric Company, electrified
the world, and almost single-handedly launched the modern era.
Everyone
had access to roads,
courts, and public schools; only one person invented the Model-T and
instituted
the first moving assembly line.
Everyone
had
music and "teachers
who helped them along the way;"
only one person invented the phonograph. Come
to think of it,
at age seven, three months after that person entered school, his
teachers called him "addled" (or, depending on the source,
"retarded"). He didn't have teachers
"helping
him along!" His mother home schooled him. Think about that
Barbara Streisand; a home schooled capitalist made your success
possible.
Everyone
had
access to all that went before them; only two people launched Apple
Computer.
Mr.
President, America
has flourished
and
led the world in inventions and commerce for over two centuries by
celebrating, fostering, and rewarding
success.
America did
not get
here by demonizing
the
successful.
The
peers of these American inventors had everything
they
had, including everything President Obama cited in his controversial
"You didn't build that" speech. Yet, only these few created
what they did. For the most part their success flowed from hard
work--often with a touch of genius tossed in. The same is true of the
vast majority of successful entrepreneurs.
Perhaps
if President Obama understood what built America, he would recognize
that businesses principally spring forth and succeed through the
motivated
efforts
of entrepreneurs, not through underhanded scheming, and "exploiting
downtrodden workers." Perhaps if the President understood free
market economics,
he would have come up with a recovery plan that worked.
