From the article I can't say I argue with a single line there. No one is "entitled" to be successful, though everyone certainly has the right to strive for success. I still ain't votin' for him.
Ya gotta read between the lines: he's advocating that the rich are somehow evil. Sure...we want the middle class to prosper, but that doesn't mean the rich can't prosper either. Instead, he wants them punished through taxes. JMO
"This country doesn’t just succeed when just a few are doing well at the top. It succeeds when the middle class gets bigger. Our economy doesn’t grow from the top down -- it grows from the middle out. We don’t believe that anybody is entitled to success in this country," said Obama. "But we do believe in opportunity. We believe in a country where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded, and everybody is getting a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody is playing by the same rules." I actually don't see anything wrong with that particular section of his speech. He says, "entitled to success" - No; "we do believe in opportunity" - Yes. I can agree with that. We have too many folks who think they are "entitled" to a lot of things, including success, as well as being entitled to a big screen TV, a nice house, and government handouts. I see lots of folks with a good idea for a product or service start a small business, and fall flat on their faces. In part, because they assume that a good idea is all that's required for them to succeed. As a small business owner myself, I know how much more it takes to make a business work. I see lots of kids graduating college with a degree in their hands who assume that their little piece of paper entitles them to success. It entitles them to the opportunity to try, and that is about it. So, I don't like a lot of things that I hear from Obama, but I can't fault him for that particular speech.
All election politics: class warfare....the rich are bad and they're somehow at fault. We all know where the entitlement group gets their paychecks. Yes, the words sound good if spoken by a better man, but his intentions are not noble. He's suggesting that if one group succeeds, other groups can't. In a meritocracy, everyone could prosper.
You don't start off being Rich in the most basic of circumstances. Someone had to become rich in order for you to get that job. In reality, EVERYTHING is built with a base structure first.
Where the major disagreement kicks in is 0bama believes in sharing; if one person in five makes $10, then each gets $2. To help sell a book, 0bama was born in Kenya. To get tuition assistance, 0bama was a foreign exchange student. 0bama was born in Hawaii. Based on those three statements, the only conclusion is 0bama is a boldfaced liar who says anything to get what he wants. So, why would I believe in anything he says even if I agree with him?
If I am going to condemn someone, it will be for what they say and what they do. I will not condemn them for my interpretation of what their remarks might mean to them, or to anyone else. Whether I generally agree with someone's remarks or not, I will consider each remark or action on its own merits. In a hundred other cases, I can condemn Obama; but in this one, I cannot. I try to respond to people the way I would want to be responded to.
I'm not talking about how others may interpret what he said, I'm talking about how people define the terms they use. It's kind of like when I talk to people who say they believe in God. That means something to me. But when those people define their god in a way that clearly has no basis in the Bible, I then know they are really talking about worshipping themselves, not God. Definitions are important, and the left defines opportunity differently than the dictionary does. If you want proof, look at affirmative action.
Did no one see the Freudian slip?? That 2 he's made in a week. That was my point in posting this..... You can say that this was just a gaff, but it goes along with his actions of past. And, FWIW, you can have a large middle class or a small middle class, but, if there are no suitable jobs--provided by business owners--that pay a middle-class wage, you're not going to have a middle class anymore. You can't create a psuedo-middleclass by bringing the lower class up with tax dollars taken from the upper and middle classes because they aren't sustainable. The parasite only lives so long as the host is alive.
#1 slip: http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-everybodys-getting-fair-share_653590.html Yes, we give some people the benefit of the doubt, but not him. He's proven by action and deed his socialist ways.
I would agree with DW and tulian....success is not an entitlement. people may have an expectation of gaining success, though the degree to which that expectation may be achieved will vary widely. People should be entitled to pursue success if that is what they as individuals or communities wish to aspire to. Governments, depending on their policies and the effectiveness of their governance may help or hinder the pursuit of success,, but they cannot assure success by way of entitlement. You will note that in the United States Declaration of Independance, the unalienable rights listed within it are "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness....". Just as no person can be assured of happiness by way of entitlement, no person can be assured of success by way of entitlement. Both success and happiness are to be found through the striving and achievement by the seeker, not by the doling out of it to them by others as a right. Dr Ivan Misner puts it this way..... Although for many people, hard work and effort is often the way to success; success often enough does not always follow from hard work and effort, no matter how much deserved.
The single greatest difference between the Right and the Left is that the Right believes in "Equal opportunity", being able to work hard for our money and ability to support our families. The Left believes in "Equality of outcome", that each person no matter if they work hard or sit on their butts dropping welfare babies, deserves the same money, benefits, etc. obama is of the latter group.
I've been actively trying to get a definition of middle class for quite a while, seems like no one wanted to provide a guess or range for even a starting point until last week. Always seemed to me that it was a bit ephemeral, foggy, blurry, or open to interpretation by whoever. Last week, I tied a leftist guy's hands in a debate on another site, and got him to say that "middle class" has an income between 40K and 250K, but couldn't get him to say if that was a household of 1 or 20. Couldn't get him to narrow down his definition of "fair share" either, he just insisted that it had to be a progressive tax at some undefined rate sufficient to support spending on whatever dot gov wanted to spend on. The concept of outgo not exceeding income just didn't register. I'm not done with that clown yet, but I think he's beginning to smell what he's stepped in. No way he'll admit it, but I think he might not vote for zero this time; he's waffling.
