Obama: "Rich" not only undeserving Americans.

On July 13 Mr. Obama made what is becoming known as the Roanoke Statement.  The text of the Obama Roanoke Statement appears in its full context in the Washington Times.  Even America's first socialist President has not heretofore made such an explicit expression of his contempt for the nation's small business owners and successful entrepreneurs.  The WaTimes link has the "money shot", but if you don't click the link, simply read the following paragraphs.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. 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. 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.

What language could possibly make this Administration's utter contempt for the American experience and the concept of individualism more readily apparent? 

Mr. Obama, of course, reverses the American paradigm.  We, as a nation, came into existence for the purpose of exalting the individual.  The United States continues to exist for the singular purpose of empowering the individual.  Mr. Obama's Roanoke statement is the most explicit statement of the radical and, to this nation, revolutionary socialist paradigm that informs his world view and political action.  The Roanoke Statement pronounces the individual succeeds only because the collective allows them to succeed; without the collective the individual is helpless and worthless. 

But Obama's Roanoke Statement is more-it is a very personal expression of what socialism means for individual effort.  Regardless of the effort, the 80-100 hour weeks, the risk of failure (often married to a risk of homelessness because small business owners frequently mortgage their homes to start their business ventures); the sleeplessness, the stress, the ingenuity, success is only possible because we no longer reside in a Hobbesian state of nature and government exists, according to the Obama Roanoke Statement. 

The Roanoke Statement equates the existence of government-and its provision of the things only government can realistically provide (e.g. fire, police, roads and courts) with a hand out ("help"), that the otherwise successful individual beneficently received from the generous collective.  The Roanoke Statement ignores the successful individual not only funded their own business but also the existence of the government hand that provided the hand out: federal, state and in places like NYC, local income taxes, sales taxes, gasoline and diesel taxes, taxes on electricity and natural gas consumption, vehicle registration fees, cell phone taxes and fees (hardly an exhaustive list of the tax burden born by a financially successful American circa 2012)  and, not least significantly, a contribution to the retirement security of their employees through FICA taxes.  Without the success of individuals there would be no tax money for even basic government. 

Societies that exalt the collective and do not allow widespread success are common throughout the world of even the 21st Century.  Bolivia, Bangladesh or Rawanda present quite contemporary examples of such failed cultures.  So rare is success in such places that tax revenue fails to meet the basic needs of an organized society and police and fire protection are considered "hand outs" in a failed state.  The dire survivalist existence of a modern Rawandan or Somali appears as the only alternative Mr. Obama and the socialists perceive to the their mutant hybrid of Latin American revolutionary socialism and Western European corporate national socialism.  The traditional American (the most prosperous and educated and powerful nation in history) experience is not considered an alternate course of historical action in Obamaworld.

Mr. Obama, who has been the beneficiary of hand outs at every stage of his life (perhaps the reason for concealing his academic records) could not have been more articulate in the derision he feels for those who have not.   If you are in the class of successful people be assured, you owe it to the collective and its Dear Leader Obama, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have.