To: Dale Baker who wrote (194212 ) 7/18/2012 9:14:12 AM From: Sam Read Replies (4) | Respond to I NEVER agree with John Podhoretz. Or his father. Well, almost never, because I agree with him on this (see below). To some extent, anyway. He is, as is usual for him, over-stating the case. But he does at least point in the direction of truth this time. Obama made a rhetorical error when he said "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Looking at the full context of his speech, everyone knows what he means. And I have seen some Republicans honestly trying to respond to the real meaning of the speech, without much success that I've seen so far, although others--like Pohoretz below--wrench it out of context and use it in attack mode. However, it is crucial for Obama to work on how he says what he means with this, because, really, it gets to the heart of the difference between the current RW and Democrats, it gets to the question, what is govt for, what does govt do. The Libertarian wing of the Republican Party wants to reduce govt to defense and protection of private property and contracts. That is all. But Obama's statement is trying to show how we would all be poorer if that is all govt did. Someone on one of the RW threads said, "Oh, but who is to say that the internet wouldn't have been invented even without govt?" This is nonsense, but it has to be pointed out how much nonsense it is. But Democrats also have to give individual initiative and responsibility and success its due, and cannot belittle people who start and run businesses. So Obama has work on his speech, and get it right, and give a great speech at the convention that gets the balance right.The Biggest Mistake of Campaign 2012… John Podhoretz to him . ”If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that,” Obama said . “Somebody else made that happen.” Aside from the fact that this isn’t even remotely true—if you’re a taxpayer and government funds were used to “make something happen,” then by definition you paid for it—it was profoundly stupid politically. In 2007, the last year for which we have data, according to the Census Bureau , there were 21.7 million businesses in the United States with no employees—meaning they were sole proprietorships, or free-lance businesses employing only their owner. Of the six million remaining businesses in the U.S., more than 3 million had 1 to 4 employees, and 1 million had 5 to 9. So, all in all, small businesses run by one person employing fewer than ten numbered an astonishing 25 million .class of people to whom Perot appealed is far larger than it was then.commentarymagazine.com
