If You're Upset About The Quote "If you've got a business...you didn't build that", Then You Must Be A Moron

You've seen it, I'm sure, the "If you've got a business...you didn't build that" Obama quote. It's plastered all over Facebook and more than likely, in your inbox. You've probably even re-shared it with your friends, enraged by the audacity of our president to make such a condescending claim. But did you read or hear the rest of his speech? That quote, in context, is clearly not the message depicted in two sentences:

"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.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires."

The point he's making isn't that small business owners don't exist or that they don't deserve the credit for being successful. In fact, he said the opposite, "we succeed because of our individual initative". If you want to make something happen, it's up to you to make it happen.  If you're successful, you should be proud of your success.  The point he's making is that there were people in your life who helped you get where you are today. Either you went to school and learned how a business works, you had a mentor, you had people who invested money into your start-up business, you had parents who taught you, you read books, etc. No one is successful without having the knowledge to get there, and no one is born with knowledge in their brain of how to start a business. It is learned through study or experience. Someone wrote the textbook that you read, or taught you how it's done. 


You cannot wake up one day and invent quantum physics without having studied or been taught the underlying principles that allow you to arrive at the conclusion. Maybe it was Einstein's teacher who told him he would never amount to anything that pushed him to be inquisitive, fueled with creativity, and broadened his horizons just to prove his teacher wrong.  He wasn't born with the theory of relativity in his head, there were people and prior knowledge out there that aided him in the discovery that ultimately, with his individual initiative, reached. 

By posting a meme like that you are displaying your own ignorance. It shows that you, just like FOX and CNN, only read the first line of a report and make false judgments, or like a million other people on Facebook, you can't think for yourself. I don't care if you like Obama, or Romney, or Ron Paul; HAVE AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT. If you have such a strong opinion about a topic, you had better know the topic before you preach it. 

Just because I disagree with what you may believe does not mean that I think you're wrong. If you feel strongly about something, wonderful, tell me why you believe that so strongly. If you do not have a logical explanation with real facts to support your belief, than you make it very difficult for me to respect you or your opinion. I can't respect your insistence on having a voice when you insist on being an uniformed puppet of propaganda. 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.
Besides, this speech has been given before: