I was going to write an article for this blog centered around President Obama’s comments on American Small Business. After all, he did (albeit mistakenly, and I’m sure in his view regrettably) expose himself for exactly what he is and for exactly what he thinks of the spirit that built our country.
But as I was preparing to write that article, I realized that this video , (see below) and the looks on the faces of average Americans said everything I wanted to say in a manner so eloquent that it really doesn’t need further comment.
What a slap in the face to us all.
Phil July 27, 2012
“All the high-flown talk about how people who are successful in business should “give back” to the community that created the things that facilitated their success is, again, something that sounds plausible to people who do not stop and think through what is being said. After years of dumbed-down education, that apparently includes a lot of people.
Take Obama’s example of the business that benefits from being able to ship their products on roads that the government built. How does that create a need to “give back”? Did the taxpayers, including business taxpayers, not pay for that road when it was built? Why should they have to pay for it twice?
What about the workers that businesses hire, whose education is usually created in government-financed schools? The government doesn’t have any wealth of its own, except what it takes from taxpayers, whether individuals or businesses. They have already paid for that education. It is not a gift that they have to “give back” by letting politicians take more of their money and freedom.
When businesses hire highly educated people, such as chemists or engineers, competition in the labor market forces them to pay higher salaries for people with longer years of valuable education. That education is not a government gift to the employers. It is paid for while it is being created in schools and universities, and it is paid for in higher salaries when highly educated people are hired.
One of the tricks of professional magicians is to distract the audience’s attention from what they are doing while they are creating an illusion of magic. Pious talk about “giving back” distracts our attention from the cold fact that politicians are taking away more and more of our money and our freedom.”
~Thomas Sowell
Just a quote to remind us to think critically.