"You Olympians, however, know you didn't get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities. All right! [pumps fist].” - Mitt Romney 2002
Exactly the message the President was giving business-folk last week when the Gov. decided to take him completely out-of-context.
Motivation, enterprise, innovation, invention, entrepreneurship, hard work, are so important, and this President has taken every opportunity to promote those qualities in the young people who look up so to him. But he also recognizes, as everyone should, that NO ONE achieves great success in any area solely on his own. We all owe our success also to ... well you know much of the list, and that a good deal of that list includes many many things we as a people have decided that we want to covenant together to provide for each other like [clears his throat] roads and bridges ... and even "communities built venues".
So very true. No man is an island, not even a Koch brother or a Romney. Likewise, no great company is an agglomeration of independent contractors. Every military unit that's effective and not a menace to its own soldiers is a model of teamwork, of shared risk and sacrifice. And, no nation of educated, enlightened and decent people organizes its economy and society around the law of the jungle.
ReplyDeleteWe're only greater than the sum of our parts as a cooperative and, yes, caring whole.
Romney seems to have forgotten more than he ever knew about these things. That he's done so with cold political calculation, alone, disqualifies him as worthy of the highest office of our government.
Someone who well understood what I said above included this in his inaugural address: "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."
Romney and his new running mate would do well to ponder John F. Kennedy's humanity, wisdom and family wealth.
Motivation, enterprise, innovation, invention, entrepreneurship, hard work, are so important, and this President has taken every opportunity to promote those qualities in the young people who look up so to him.
ReplyDeleteHe has? Can you share any examples? From what I see, Obama gives stuff away and tells people that government will come in and solve their problems, so sit back, relax, and vote D.
While we're at the task of discounting the efforts of businessmen and athletes, maybe we could dial back some of the love showered on politicians by the likes of this blog and SW Anderson's vanity efforts.