At Heritage Around the Country
Quick Thoughts
| We, the Government
The Democratic National Convention kicks off in Charlotte, NC today. The tagline for the week is “We make it possible.” Who is this "we"? Is it government, the party, the city, or perhaps private citizens?
Intentionally or not, the line echoes President Obama’s off-the-prompter remarks during a speech in Roanoke, VA. in July.
“[L]ook, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there,” the President said.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. 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.”
Commentators have tried to downplay his comments, insisting that, taken in context, his remarks amount to a statement that individual business owners didn’t build the “roads, bridges, infrastructure, education, emergency services and law and order” that make it possible to run a business.
Yet, no one is arguing for eliminating roads and bridges.
Though rarely stated so bluntly today, this sentiment of "you didn't build that" is typically progressive. Theodore Roosevelt used the meme back in 1912, based on the collective work of Herbert Croly. Government is the mother milk of human flourishing. The perfect case in point is the “Julia” campaign, which traces a fictional woman’s life and ascribed all good things in it to federal—and Obama administration—initiatives. In this world, Julia’s good life wasn’t built by her, or her parents, or her community, but by the government. Unless the government builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.
The audacity of this argument is rare. Progressives usually prefer to advance their ideology under the cloak of non-ideological pragmatism—liberals are just doing “what works.”
But, the tagline combined with President Obama’s comments—“We make it possible” because “you didn’t build that”—reveal how limitless the progressive vision of government is.
This isn’t about “what works.” The current national debate is about the meaning of the American project and self government and whether we should reject the inherent limits on government outlined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. This is an important debate about our past—and our future.
Recognize what is at stake.
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Let me make our goal . . . very clear: jobs, jobs, jobs, and more jobs . . . . Our policy has been and will continue to be: What is good for the American workers is good for America.
~ Ronald Reagan
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