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Romney, GOP Assail Obama for Telling Truth about Social Contract

Some of my conservative neighbors are having fun exploding President Barack Obama's statement of an obvious political truth into a declaration of war on God and fealty to the total state. The President spoke in Roanoke last Friday. He made the following observation about the usefulness of the social contract:

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. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires [President Barack Hussein Obama, campaign speech, Roanoke, Virginia, 2012.07.13].

Romney and conservatives (and those two may be disjoint sets) have pounced on one line, "...you didn't build that...," as a rejection of faith in the individual entrepreneur. However, the President was making an utterly uncontroversial point: modern business doesn't happen without a social contract. Government helps business start and grow by educating workers, maintaining roads, enforcing contracts, and extending bankruptcy protection. That reality may not sit well with folks John Galt fantasists who fancy hiding out under a cloaking screen in the Rockies, but it's a simple truth: we get things done by working together.

34 Comments

  1. Donald Pay 2012.07.18

    Name one thing Romney actually built.

    He earned his money by ruining companies by piling debt and taking companies apart, stealing pension funds and sticking the taxpayer with the responsibility to bail him out. Romney is Exhibit A, as a 1% leach who depended on the federal government for most of his wealth.

  2. Bill Fleming 2012.07.18

    Mitt misses the obvious. In order to become President, half of the voters must vote for him. The Presidency, like everything else, is a success measured in terms of acceptance in the marketplace. Only a fool would argue otherwise.

  3. Paul Koopman 2012.07.18

    Human nature - everyone wants credit for success, and wants to blame someone or something else for failure. If I win, it's because I am awesome. If I fail, it's because of bad luck, or someone harmed me, or something else beyond my control. I suspect that's why the narrative about Obama's "socialism" is so appealing. People don't really want to think they're not in control of their own success (even though most will consistently explain away their own failure).

  4. Steve Sibson 2012.07.18

    "Government helps business start and grow by educating workers, maintaining roads, enforcing contracts, and extending bankruptcy protection."
    Add: by using regulations to stamp out competition, by bailing out banks that made bad loans, by buying out car companies, by banning light bulbs made in America forcing us to buy those made in China.

  5. Steve Sibson 2012.07.18

    "Human nature – everyone wants credit for success, and wants to blame someone or something else for failure."

    Right, depraved humanity creating a social contract is a bad idea.

  6. Rorschach 2012.07.18

    It's good for each of us to reflect from time to time on all the people and the policies who helped us get to where we are. Without hearing the rest of President Obama's speech I wonder if he asked everybody to think about that.

    As to policies that we all benefit from, in addition to roads, airports, parks, police, firefighters, jails, the military, there are Stafford student loans, state support for public schools and public colleges, tax credits for employer-sponsored health insurance, medicaid, medicare, food stamps, housing assistance, minimum wage laws, unemployment benefits, the list goes on. We have an amazing country with most of the social contract brought to you by Democrats. Thank a Democrat when you see him or her for making America strong!

  7. Paul Koopman 2012.07.18

    "Right, depraved humanity creating a social contract is a bad idea."

    Really? Would it be a better idea for depraved humanity to stay in the "every man for himself" social construct?

  8. Steve Sibson 2012.07.18

    "Would it be a better idea for depraved humanity to stay in the “every man for himself” social construct?"

    No, depraved humanity cannot govern himself individually or collectively.

  9. PrairieLady 2012.07.18

    As usual, Mitt's memory is fading. Bain received many dollars in tax subsidies from state, local and county and federal government. Look at Steel Dynamics and GS Industries for starters.

    Oh.....I could be wrong because maybe all the assistance did not help him "build" the business because many of them went bankrupt. (How is that for thinking like a Republican?)

  10. Bill Fleming 2012.07.18

    This is where Sibson's arguments breakdown (not to mention his central nervous system.) If he were right, none of us would be here to notice. Instead, we have approx. 30,000 years of continuous human civilization (more or less) ...and counting. Time for your thorazine, Sibby.

  11. Brother Beaker 2012.07.18

    We give Obama great credit for being a skilled and intelligent orator...so I have trouble believing that he was not aware of the difference between the phrases: "you didn't build that" and "you didn't build that alone," or: "somebody else made that happen" and "you needed somebody else to help make that happen."

    One of the things that is most frightening to those of us with Libertarian inclinations is that the idea that government supports development is becoming increasingly true, which means that government also directs development. Tax inequities are not so much a result of maximum theoretical rates as they are of perfectly legal loopholes, bought and paid for by narrow constituencies.

    Under any guise, crony capitalism grows when the role of government grows. Obama and the Dems may send verbal jabs at the 1%, but the bail-outs and convoluted tax schemes are proof positive that the battle is for show, not for blood.

  12. Bill Fleming 2012.07.18

    The "that" in "you didn't build that" refers to "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."

    Obviously.

    Unless you want to be a moron, ignore the context and pretend otherwise.

  13. Bill Fleming 2012.07.18

    Three choices for misunderstanding Obama's intention:

    1. Attention Deficit Disorder
    2. Subhuman intelligence quotient
    3. Intellectual dishonesty

    Take your pick.

  14. Frank James 2012.07.18

    I completely agree with President Obama's statement. To me it's a call to us all to be humble about how we've advanced as a nation and individually. I can point to many government policies that have helped me and my family along the way. I can also point to my family who have helped me through tough times. The point is we're better when we're together. Otherwise sharpen your pointy sticks and get ready because we will be jabbing each other with them soon.

  15. Troy 2012.07.18

    On one hand, I agree what some think the President was trying to articulate: We live in community and nearly everything includes cooperation from others.

    However, I don't think that was what Obama was trying to articulate. Politicians (all of them) speak in the context of their over-riding goals. Obama wants greater involvement of government (forced cooperation) and to do so is to minimize unforced cooperation, including throught the marketplace.

    This "context" is was a call for greater government forced cooperation which is why there has been a visceral reaction against what the President said. In a society that is changing at a pace faster than ever been in history, transferring power and influence to the most immovable and least capable to react to change outside its control is contrary to the movement of history. While the role of government remains, it is imperative that power and influence is transferred to the smaller, more nimble entities (states, counties, cities and even below). To do otherwise only impedes the capacity of our society via the social contract to deliver on the expectatoins of society's participants.

  16. Brother Beaker 2012.07.18

    Ahhh, the defense of the indefinite antecedent. At the risk of being labeled ADD, sub-human or dishonest, I did not read the reference back that way...and neither have most of the supporters weighing in here. Can I pick ADD?

    I am not sure whether to be dismayed that the Coffee Party has abandoned its pretense of civility. Let me mull that one over.

  17. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.07.18

    Frank: humility! Sounds like a good Christian value.

  18. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.07.18

    Brother Beaker, crony capitalism may tie in to this discussion, but crony capitalism is not what the President is talking about. We can do the social contract wrong (I won't go so far as to sat that humanity is depraved, but we do make mistakes), but as Paul notes, a good social contract makes possible economic blessings that can't happen in the jungle.

  19. Charlie Hoffman 2012.07.18

    Bill Fleming;

    Three reasons for voting for Obama;

    1. Attention Deficit Disorder
    2. Subhuman intelligence quotient
    3. Intellectual dishonesty

    Hoffschwartz

  20. Brother Beaker 2012.07.18

    I think that crony capitalism is more than tied in. It is the inevitable result of an ever-expanding government role in business, whether that is Halliburton or Solyndra, subsidizing high-speed rail in Phoenix or granting a TIF in Rapid City. One group of the affluent gets an advantage over another group of the affluent while the rest of us foot the bill.

    Since I am already branded a moron, I will let you clarify whether you view the government as the primary (or even sole) embodiment of the social contract. You seem to suggest it, but I would hate to miss another indefinite antecedent.

  21. larry kurtz 2012.07.18

    Celebrity women have affairs if they're married to men whom suffer from:

    1. Attention Deficit Disorder
    2. Subhuman intelligence quotient
    3. Intellectual dishonesty

  22. Brother Beaker 2012.07.18

    Now, now, Charlie...this is why Cory can't have nice things on his blog.

  23. Charlie Hoffman 2012.07.18

    Brother Beaker; Just having a bit of fun with Flemdog.

    (Though you do know my post is totally relevant to the truth while Bill's is totally subject to subjective reasoning beyond any cognizant relevance.)

  24. Steve Sibson 2012.07.18

    Charlie Hoffman:

    Three reasons for voting for Romney;

    1. Attention Deficit Disorder
    2. Subhuman intelligence quotient
    3. Intellectual dishonesty

    Hoffschwartz

  25. Bill Fleming 2012.07.18

    Most fun blog in South Dakota... maybe even beyond. (Sibby, there IS a beyond, right?) LOL. Thanks all.

  26. Charlie Hoffman 2012.07.18

    Knowing that we can influence about .00000000000000000001% of the American electorate is humbling. Knowing that we can change the discussion in South Dakota though keeps most of us pretty damn honest. And that is what I truly love about you Flemdog.

    Just a thought but; blustery wind swept praries covered with snow , long dark evenings, frosty frozen aired mornings, finger drifts popping over the grade ,steamy near frozen breath extending feet above you on a calm winter day ----who in SD doesn't miss them in these dog days of summer??????????

  27. Justin 2012.07.20

    “To fail to experience gratitude when walking through the corridors of the Metropolitan Museum, when listening to the music of Bach or Beethoven, when exercising our freedom to speak, or ... to give, or withhold, our assent, is to fail to recognize how much we have received from the great wellsprings of human talent and concern that gave us Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, our parents, our friends. We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us, living and, mostly, dead. The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and in our prayers; and in our deeds.”
    ― William F. Buckley Jr.

  28. Fred Garvin 2012.07.23

    "However, the President was making an utterly uncontroversial point: modern business doesn’t happen without a social contract."

    It's no surprise that liberals would find this nutty fantasy about a"social contract" to be noncontroversial.

  29. Fred Garvin 2012.07.23

    "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."

    So, when the Aurora killer used that gov't created internets (BHO's pronunciation of course) to learn how to create homemade bombs and booby traps, can we then conclude that the gov't has (and regularly does) failed to keep up its "social contract"?

    Really, where do we go when the gov't (or "society") fails to keep up its end of that precious "social contract"?

  30. Fred Garvin 2012.07.23

    Social contracts: Does anyone appreciate the difference between a gov't funding its end of the "social contract" by compulsory taxation of those whom it FORCES into this "social contract", and a private business CREATING wealth and jobs, thereby providing a base for the gov't to tax?

    How can there be a "social contract" when one party to this "contract" FORCES the other to enter into it AND to fund it? That's not a contract!!!

  31. caheidelberger Post author | 2012.07.23

    You aren't suffering under any terrible compulsion, "Fred" (and I want a real name here darn quick). You can leave America any time. You can go off the grid, live in the wilderness, grow your own food, make your own dirt paths, survive only by handmade goods never transported over public roads or built in factories using public utilities.

    You don't understand the social contract or the fact that the economy runs best when we work through a strong government to provide infrastructure, education, and legal safeguards and procedures for all market participants. Try this Business Week essay that explains the value government adds to production: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-22/sorry-mitt-businesses-arent-built-on-their-own

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