Obama’s remarks at Roanoke, Virginia, July 13, 2012, were more than a faux pas.
With these remarks, Obama has outed himself as a most odious collectivist, who believes that government predation is a condition for production:
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. (Applause.)
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.
That snot Obama uttered these words in a place carrying the name Roanoke. I’m probably in a minority, but the place name makes me think of John Randolph of Roanoke, the great Southern agrarian, radical proponent of the states’ rights doctrine. John Randolph would have driven the parasite Obama off the commonwealth with force, if need be:
“Randolph was especially critical of the commerce clause and the general welfare clause of the Constitution. He predicted that the great extension of the power of centralized government would someday occur through these legal avenues. Time has proven him correct.” John Randolph of Roanoke [was] an eccentric genius, unwilling to admit the slightest compromise with the new order. Randolph feared the results of excessive centralization and the impersonality of a government too far removed from the varieties of local experience. Discussing the House of Representatives, he asked: ‘But, Sir, how shall a man from Mackinaw or the Yellow Stone River respond to the sentiments of the people who live in New Hampshire? It is as great a mockery — a greater mockery, than it was to talk to those colonies about their virtual representation in the British parliament. I have no hesitation in saying that the liberties of the colonies were safer in the custody of the British parliament than they will be in any portion of this country, if all the powers of the states as well as those of the general government are devolved upon this House.'”
“Russell Kirk makes Randolph’s attitude completely clear when he writes, ‘For Randolph, the real people of a country were its substantial citizenry, its men of some property, its farmers and merchants and men of skill and learning; upon their shoulders rested a country’s duties, and in their hands should repose its government.’ It is John Randolph who developed much of the political framework later brought to fruition by John Calhoun. The primary emphasis in that framework as it developed rested upon the doctrine of states’ rights, a position not without validity. Indeed, an earlier biographer of John Randolph, the almost equally eccentric and irascible Henry Adams, has suggested that the doctrine of states’ rights was in itself a sound and true doctrine: ‘As a starting point of American history and constitutional law, there is no other which will bear a moment’s examination.’
Randolph was especially critical of the commerce clause and the general welfare clause of the Constitution. He predicted that the great extension of the power of centralized government would someday occur through these legal avenues. Time has proven him correct.” (“American Federalism: History,” by George Charles Roche III)
UPDATE (July 18): The Law by Frédéric Bastiat:
When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.
