Here's an ad by Romney that gets right to the heart of America and what makes her great.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Let the RIP Begin
Last week in Roanoke, Virginia, Obama revealed the essence of the collectivist's world view: Individuals don't exist and don't get any credit for what they do. He went out of his way to point this out - in a snarky way, I might add. Why the snarkiness, Barack? Where does that come from?
To be fair to the context of this, this is the whole little segment of what he said: (If you want to watch a longer video of the event, go here.)
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. 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.
What Obama wants us to acknowledge is not his to compel. Perhaps this is why he is snarky. Far and away the primary piece of any accomplishment is the will of the man who does it. And that, whether Obama likes it or not, is what he cannot compel. No one can force a mind - not even his own. Atlas Shrugged taught its readers one primary thing: The ultimate power rests with the producer. If he stops, all that depends on him stops. No amount of government force can motivate a man to produce. The ultimate trump card is not held by the government. And besides, anyone who succeeds at something knows the people who were there for him and most are quick to acknowledge them.
What Obama reveals is his puny collectivist soul. He needs people. But he doesn't trust people to value him, so he has to rope them and draw them near even if they don't want to be there. His means is to induce guilt - particularly in the individuals who have a mind of their own. Those are the ones he directs his snarky "let me tell you something" remarks to. Those who like him and his tactics cheer him.
This is all revealed because he has to go out of his way to make a point of this. Most people draw people to them because those people value who they are and what they say and/or do. But not Obama. He draws people to him by singling out some other people and driving them away. He gets snarky with the "outside" people. His supporters being of like mind, certainly don't want any individuals to think they are smart or work really hard. Oh, my God no! (This really is disgusting, isn't it?)
Poor little President. He can't just be himself and know that people will come to him. It is as though he insists there be no freedom from people - no freedom to have one's own life. Is it that he doesn't trust people to value him unless he reminds them that they don't accomplish anything without other people - maybe even him? Maybe that is why he insists we accept his food stamps. I don't know. It's all so Mao. (And so evil. Can you imagine him telling his daughters when they bring home a good grade, "Just remember, you didn't do that. Somebody else made that happen." Wow.)
He apparently fears they will have a purpose which excludes him. I remember the question Ellsworth Toohey, the collectivist intellectual of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, asked of Howard Roark, "What do you think of me?"
Roark replied, "But I don't think of you."
Could this be Barack's worst nightmare? The existence of a person who could be as independent as Roark?
At any rate, Barack's disrespect of individual achievement has caught on and fueled a website called "You Didn't Build That." Check it out.
To be fair to the context of this, this is the whole little segment of what he said: (If you want to watch a longer video of the event, go here.)
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. 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.
What Obama wants us to acknowledge is not his to compel. Perhaps this is why he is snarky. Far and away the primary piece of any accomplishment is the will of the man who does it. And that, whether Obama likes it or not, is what he cannot compel. No one can force a mind - not even his own. Atlas Shrugged taught its readers one primary thing: The ultimate power rests with the producer. If he stops, all that depends on him stops. No amount of government force can motivate a man to produce. The ultimate trump card is not held by the government. And besides, anyone who succeeds at something knows the people who were there for him and most are quick to acknowledge them.
What Obama reveals is his puny collectivist soul. He needs people. But he doesn't trust people to value him, so he has to rope them and draw them near even if they don't want to be there. His means is to induce guilt - particularly in the individuals who have a mind of their own. Those are the ones he directs his snarky "let me tell you something" remarks to. Those who like him and his tactics cheer him.
This is all revealed because he has to go out of his way to make a point of this. Most people draw people to them because those people value who they are and what they say and/or do. But not Obama. He draws people to him by singling out some other people and driving them away. He gets snarky with the "outside" people. His supporters being of like mind, certainly don't want any individuals to think they are smart or work really hard. Oh, my God no! (This really is disgusting, isn't it?)
Poor little President. He can't just be himself and know that people will come to him. It is as though he insists there be no freedom from people - no freedom to have one's own life. Is it that he doesn't trust people to value him unless he reminds them that they don't accomplish anything without other people - maybe even him? Maybe that is why he insists we accept his food stamps. I don't know. It's all so Mao. (And so evil. Can you imagine him telling his daughters when they bring home a good grade, "Just remember, you didn't do that. Somebody else made that happen." Wow.)
He apparently fears they will have a purpose which excludes him. I remember the question Ellsworth Toohey, the collectivist intellectual of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, asked of Howard Roark, "What do you think of me?"
Roark replied, "But I don't think of you."
Could this be Barack's worst nightmare? The existence of a person who could be as independent as Roark?
At any rate, Barack's disrespect of individual achievement has caught on and fueled a website called "You Didn't Build That." Check it out.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Fight For Liberty is Moving into The Moral Realm
Harry Binswanger, of the Ayn Rand Institute, is upping the moral outrage against government force. Thank God.* It’s about time someone let it rip.
People have been using economic arguments to upend our runaway government. They make no difference. THEY ARE NOT WORKING!
Why? They don’t strike at your core – the very reason why you would want to do anything. Striking at your core is to hit the pay dirt of your moral power - the source of your energy - your love of what you value that has life worth living. (Notice how every person who does tap into this moral power is immediately destroyed by the Leftist media. They know these people have a power they don't.) In South Carolina, Newt Gingrich, whether you like him or not, struck pay dirt one night and won the election by the next night. That is its power. It gets people off their ass and to the voting booth. Palin strikes there for many people.
As an aside, I've never thought Obama hit moral pay dirt - at least in any positive sense. His power has been to offer retribution for the victims. And I would have had to grant him something related to a victim to have voted for him last time. But you can't build a country on victims - morally or existentially. (The quick course on why Marxism fails.) So now that he's got the country in worse shape than he found it and prostituted himself as originally presented, he's given up this approach and is instead going for the dark blood of the jugular - hatred of value fueled by envy. Pit man against man. Black against white, poor against rich, illegal immigrant against immigrant, women against conservatives, etc., etc.
Now, I'm pissed, but not irrationally pissed. If I'm going to destroy anything, it's the length of Obama's term as President, not the country. I'm tired of sitting fallow - it's time to build.
The fight for freedom is getting more and more specific. The battle is in the use of words. Freedom = Absence of force. Right now the government has its gun in practically every aspect of our lives. (When you go to the doctor or your architect or your pharmacist or your massage therapist, there is an invisible man with a gun in the corner of the room.) This destroys human beings at their root – their ability to want to work for the things they want and make sense for them – not what the government tells them they want. (Binswanger gets into the area that interests me a lot – motivation and the desire to achieve value – and how one keeps it and reconstructs it if necessary. He doesn’t say it the way I would, but it amounts to the same thing.) Enjoy.
Binswanger’s interview starts about 1/8 to 1/7 of the way in and runs to about the halfway point of the program. Go here. (Scroll down to 7/2, the 7:00am show.)
(*Well, actually, Thank Harry! I use the word God in the sense that the time is ripe for this. And not ripe for raw anger which can be interpreted in many contexts, but an outrage in the context of what is possible and how wrong the current direction events are taking is.)
People have been using economic arguments to upend our runaway government. They make no difference. THEY ARE NOT WORKING!
Why? They don’t strike at your core – the very reason why you would want to do anything. Striking at your core is to hit the pay dirt of your moral power - the source of your energy - your love of what you value that has life worth living. (Notice how every person who does tap into this moral power is immediately destroyed by the Leftist media. They know these people have a power they don't.) In South Carolina, Newt Gingrich, whether you like him or not, struck pay dirt one night and won the election by the next night. That is its power. It gets people off their ass and to the voting booth. Palin strikes there for many people.
As an aside, I've never thought Obama hit moral pay dirt - at least in any positive sense. His power has been to offer retribution for the victims. And I would have had to grant him something related to a victim to have voted for him last time. But you can't build a country on victims - morally or existentially. (The quick course on why Marxism fails.) So now that he's got the country in worse shape than he found it and prostituted himself as originally presented, he's given up this approach and is instead going for the dark blood of the jugular - hatred of value fueled by envy. Pit man against man. Black against white, poor against rich, illegal immigrant against immigrant, women against conservatives, etc., etc.
Now, I'm pissed, but not irrationally pissed. If I'm going to destroy anything, it's the length of Obama's term as President, not the country. I'm tired of sitting fallow - it's time to build.
The fight for freedom is getting more and more specific. The battle is in the use of words. Freedom = Absence of force. Right now the government has its gun in practically every aspect of our lives. (When you go to the doctor or your architect or your pharmacist or your massage therapist, there is an invisible man with a gun in the corner of the room.) This destroys human beings at their root – their ability to want to work for the things they want and make sense for them – not what the government tells them they want. (Binswanger gets into the area that interests me a lot – motivation and the desire to achieve value – and how one keeps it and reconstructs it if necessary. He doesn’t say it the way I would, but it amounts to the same thing.) Enjoy.
Binswanger’s interview starts about 1/8 to 1/7 of the way in and runs to about the halfway point of the program. Go here. (Scroll down to 7/2, the 7:00am show.)
(*Well, actually, Thank Harry! I use the word God in the sense that the time is ripe for this. And not ripe for raw anger which can be interpreted in many contexts, but an outrage in the context of what is possible and how wrong the current direction events are taking is.)
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