The Truth Behind "You Didn't Build That"

When Obama made his now infamous "You didn't build that," speech, we got a deeper insight into the true beliefs and motivations of this president.  As Daren Jonescu points out in his article in the American Thinker, Obama is espousing a central tenet of communist doctrine, namely, there is no private ownership of property.

It was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who first proposed the idea that "property is theft" in his book What Is Property.  An excerpt from this book gives the basis of the doctrine:

"If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?"

As you can see here, Proudhon called property ownership robbery and drew a direct equivalency between private property ownership and slavery and murder.  It was this same book that led Karl Marx to call for the abolishment of all private property.  

Another of the fathers of communist thought, Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a similar assertion when he said, "The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody."

 This has been a standard mantra for collectivists and central planners throughout the years...and Obama carries the banner forward.  As Jonescu points out, "The 'fundamental transformation' Obama seeks to impose on America has many practical manifestations, but all his sundry means relate to one basic end. This is the permanent 'transformation' of a nation grounded in the principle of individual self-ownership (the philosophical foundation of property rights) into a nation grounded in the principle that everything you have is merely on loan to you from the great gods of collectivism -- 'society,' 'history,' and 'government.' "  As much as they try to deny it, Obama is a communist/socialist/ collectivist/central planner.  These are all just labels for the same basic worldview with roots in the political philosophy of writers like Proudhon and Rousseau.

This philosophy is in direct opposition to the foundational principles of our country.  The United States was based, in no small part, on the idea of personal property rights.  One of the key philosophers who influenced the American founders was John Locke.  As Jonescu points out, Locke had a completely different view of property.  Lock stated that  "Though the earth and all inferior creatures be common to all men [in the state of nature], yet every man has a 'property' in his own 'person.' This nobody has any right to but himself."  Additionally, Locke said, "The 'labour' of his body and the 'work' of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men."  In other words, Your body is your own...all that your labor has earned belongs to you...and not to anyone else.

But, Obama and his fellow communists believe, that all property is held in common, and, therefore, it is only natural that someone who has more should have to give up what he has to those who have less. This is his point when he says. "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."  He is just repeating what he has learned through his life being influenced by communist thought.  We know that he sought out Marxist professors in college...that he has been mentored by Marxists like Frank Marshall Davis and Bill Ayers.  He believes in redistribution of wealth, and that allowing people to keep their own money is equivalent to government spending, as if all money belongs to government to begin with.  So..."You didn't build that," shouldn't surprise us.  In his mind, nothing can be done outside the collective and without a central government...and that, my friends, is communism, pure and simple.

Jonescu summarizes:

"The reason why one has no right to the fruit of another man's labor is not to be casually glossed, and it cannot be overemphasized: the other man's labor is itself his property, derived from his most fundamental property, namely himself.  (This explains why state-controlled medicine is the ultimate policy prize of leftists; it directly attacks the heart of property rights, the right to the use and preservation of your own person.)"

"This brings us back to modern progressivism, and its chief mouthpiece, Barack Obama.  By denying the inviolable right of the 'successful' to the legitimately acquired result of their intellectual and physical efforts, Obama and his cohorts are denying the successful man's ownership of himself."

Today, Obama only calls for the fruits of those he deems as "rich."  This is the essence of class warfare.  But, if "the rich" can have their property so casually confiscated, what will keep them for coming for yours and mine?  Communist philosophy has never in the history of the world lead to societies with more freedom and prosperity.  It has only lead to totalitarianism by a group of elite central rulers at the expense of the masses. 

Obama and his cohorts represent a clear and present danger to our liberties.  They stand against the founding principles of this great country and on the shoulders of their Marxist mentors.  They must be defeated, both politically and in the hearts and minds of the people.  

Obama must be voted out of office in November!

It's A Miraculous Life

No need to add anything.  Whittle nails it.