Back on the campaign trail, on July 13, 2012, President Obama said: "look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own…. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that." Soon thereafter, a firestorm of protest was built up, over this speech from the President, to which it appeared, at best that Obama was stating that if you are successful, you shouldn't claim all of that success on your own, and that if you've established your own successful business, you should recognize that you didn't build the infrastructure that surrounds your business, such as the roads, bridges, and the internet that are utilized to move goods around in America. To a certain extent, most people realize as a given, that their success in life, has come from their ability to as Sir Isaac Newton stated, "… If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants," but unfortunately and disappointingly Obama's speech lacks any of the poetry, humility, and the simple clear brilliance of Sir Isaac.
Obama's "you didn't build that," does on a basic level, claims that you, as a person, as an American, are in actuality, no matter your accomplishments or ability, in essence just a cog in the big picture, to which your life should be dedicated and sacrificed to the State. In other words, the State cares only about you to the extent that your life and your performance has helped to further the State as a whole, and the State does not want you to ever forget that every good deed, and that every good action that you have ever accomplished, in one form or another is because of it, the State. The State wishes to submit to you, that no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears that you have provided it over your many years, no matter how much wisdom you have imparted, no matter the good advice that you have given, you are no better than anyone else, that in the eyes of the State, we are all equal, no matter what.
If, in fact, none of us gets there on their own; if, in fact, none of us builds anything on our own, this, in essence, means that the State should decide our destiny, our fate, our salary, our work, our house, our health, our religion, our family, our life, and our death. We are, in fact, nothing, nothing, nothing, without the omnipresent State, the omnipotent State, and the Omniscience State. You didn't build that and you didn't get there on your own, means that you should therefore check your initiative, check your determination, check your effort, check your morality, and just passively obey the State and its dictates.
The real irony of the matter is that you can never have the audacity to speak the words that "you didn't get there on your own, and that you didn't build that," only in a country that because of the greatness of its citizens, because of the bravery of its people, and because of the brilliance of its population, has become one nation, united, and under one God, a country that has risen above mediocrity, above superstition, and above ignorance of all types, to become a nation truly blessed by the hand of God, and yes those people of that country did get there on their own and they did build that.