"You didn't build that"

[Guru]

Obama's recent off teleprompter moment revealed a lot didn't it?

He was talking about entrepreneurs and saying that what they built was somehow not theirs alone ... that their success was made possible by public school teachers that taught them, or the workers that build the road that connect to their business and perhaps the mail man that delivered their payments checks from customers... by golly, we are all connected and our lives are enabled by all these hardworking govt. employees ....

I was really shocked by what I heard. I am not an entrepreneur and yet it upset me at many levels ... so I began to think about why is this so upsetting to me?

I know that whatever I have in a bank or in a house today is my property and mine alone. If I had debt, that would be mine too. Only I know of the lifelong penny pinching, hard work, doing jobs that others wouldn't do. Yes, I was fortunate to be smart, did well in school, but only I remember how hard I worked while I heard partying next door. I am reminded of the little red hen best retold by Ronald Reagan... an absolute gem... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQAwdEdAT3Y
It is so sad that I was a liberal when Reagan was around.

Even if I had made my money in a casino, it would be still my money. I risked my dollar and nobody would have given me the dollar back if I had lost. I would have no obligation to the casino owner, the people who made the slot machine... would I? and neither would they if I had lost... that is real fairness in America. We have the right to make choices… not a right to success or a piece of others’ success.

Growing up in India, I saw a lot of poverty and thought that I had the solutions to help the poor and needy. I thought it was the obligation of the rich and wealthy to take care of the feeble and sick. I only in the past years have realized, yes, it is indeed my choice and each individual's willful choice to help others. Charity, done as free and willing choice, makes us better human beings. Forced giving through taxation creates resentment and hardens our souls.

This is a wonderful country. When I came here first, I could see the opportunity to work, earn money and lead a good life ... thought that was why America was great. Now, I know it is because of private property rights. My human person (body & mind), its labor and the fruits of my labor are solely mine. Yes, I had help from others... but I paid them in full per their contracts every week/ month. I own what I have free and clear ..no liens, no obligations, no forced guilt, only willful agreements. Nobody can say they own a piece of what I have unless they have a contractual right that I had agreed to. I know it sounds cold to some ... for me, this is freedom ... this is what is great about America. Willful, voluntary interactions between citizens for mutual benefit … not coerced by the government or anybody else.

People left to themselves and their decisions with a minimal government only acting to enforce the right to private property (incl. our primary property which is our human person) and enforcing contracts - would this really work? Would we not have old, sick and disabled dying on the streets like the liberals claim? Or would we have neighbor helping neighbor further enhancing innate goodness in ourselves after all? What would be the result? Things have moved so far off track that most people now believe that we need government to do the former. Have we lost faith in ourselves as inherently good, fair and decent individual human beings and believe that we need to be coerced to pay up so that we can take care of the less fortunate?

I have come to my senses and I have faith that others will too. Obama will have a nice long retirement on the government dole starting soon in November.