Monday, March 18, AD 2024 10:41pm

President Obama: No One Actually Achieves Anything On Their Own

That’s a paraphrase, but I don’t think I’m too far off from what the president actually said.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, 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. (Applause.)

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.

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.

Here is some video from the speech:

As just about the entire internet has noted, Obama is echoing Elizabeth Warren, who made similar remarks last year.

“You built a factory out there? Good for you,” she says. “But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.”

What Warren and Obama conveniently ignore is that the very same people they are castigating are the ones who paid for those roads, bridges and police through their taxes. Considering that approximately half of all Americans do not pay any net federal income taxes, I wonder who the “we” here are supposed to represent.

To be sure, no man is an island, and successful entrepreneurs generally have assistance at some point in their lives. But the idea that successful businessmen are not ultimately the ones responsible for the success of their business is absurd. Obama suggests that the wealthy only achieve their success through luck – at least that is the implication of this little tirade.

President Obama’s demagoguery is all an attempt to continue his narrative: rich people (especially a certain well-coiffed Mormon rich person) bad. In fact, the narrative is even more pernicious, because what Obama is attempting to do is argue that the rich are only rich because of the government. As Ace puts it:

So the top 1% pay 40.6% of all government costs, the next 4% pay about another 20%, and the bottom 95% pay less than 40% of all government costs.

So when Obama says that the wealthy wouldn’t be where they are if not for “The Government” building roads and maintaining police — the wealthy ought to agree, and say, “Yes, and you’re welcome. We paid 40 cents out of every dollar spent on those things.”

“The Government” spends money, but it has no money of its own. What it has is the power to coercively extract money from citizens. And it coerces a lot of it from the wealthy — the wealthy pay a disproportionate amount for the roads and police and armed forces, even though they don’t really use such things much more than anyone else.

Yet Obama seems to think “The Government” just came by its trillions (and borrowed trillions) by happenstance, and spent itsmoney out of its own good heart. And he wants to be compensated for his benevolence.

Yuval Levin also comments on the speech, and notes that the President based most of his speech on a strawman.

The first thing to say about the president’s argument is that most of it is true, and is very, very obvious. No one would disagree with the specific things he says, except perhaps the vague and strange “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.” Who? But the president clearly thinks that some people do disagree with his more general point that everyone depends on society. It’s very evident from this passage and from a great deal of what he has to say about his opponents that Obama thinks he is running against a band of nihilistic Ayn Rand objectivists who champion complete and utter radical individualism. That weird notion is also behind the various attempts to link Paul Ryan to Rand, which are pretty amusing if you’ve followed Ryan (for what it’s worth, I would say Ryan thinks Ayn Rand is correct in her analysis of the left, which she believes has drawn the wrong lessons from the death of God, but is incorrect in many of her own prescriptions because she shares the left’s belief that God is dead, but that’s a story for another day…).

The president implies that his opponents don’t think government has any purpose at all, or that laws are necessary for free markets, and don’t recognize the fruits of any common efforts in American history. That’s just ridiculous. I’m sure there are many libertarians who wish Republicans really were radical individualists, but there’s just simply nothing in what Republicans have said or done in our time to support the idea that they are. The Ryan budget, which almost every congressional Republican has voted for, is an attempt precisely to focus the government on achieving what people can’t achieve on their own and on effectively helping the vulnerable and those who cannot help themselves. It envisions a very significant set of public entitlements and programs, in some cases larger than the ones we have now, but tries to bring them into line with the ethic and way of life of our free economy, to make sure they don’t crowd out civil society, and to make them far more efficient and effective than they have been lately. It is a different vision of American life, but not a radically individualist one. It makes for a smaller government on the whole, but it is built on a clear sense that government serves some very crucial purposes. And Republicans are proposing a very gradual path to that vision of America beyond the welfare state. The president would like to imagine that he’s running against radical individualism, but he’s running against some fairly modest reform proposals to avert fiscal catastrophe.

Even more repugnant than the substance of Obama’s remarks is its tone. This is one of the more detestable of Obama character traits. He is completely condescending towards those who have contrary opinions. The video above doesn’t really do justice to the tenor of Obama’s overall remarks, but his snark and sarcasm would make your average blogger blush. “Ah, you doth protest too much, Mr. Zummo,” some readers might be saying right now. “Your sarcasm doth drip from the pages of your scribblings.” First of all, it’s Doctor Zummo, thank you very much. Second, I am not the President of the United States. Yes, as a child I always assumed that I would be running for said office the first year I was eligible. Luckily for America, that didn’t happen. So, I get to be a little snarky. The President of the United States, on the other hand, should be able to communicate in a tone that doesn’t sound like he’s writing a blog called “POTUS and Enjoying It.” Yet time and again he sounds incredulous that anyone anywhere ever says anything that contradicts his lofty opinions. So not only is the man a demagoguue, he’s also a petulant child.

 

 

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 4:17pm

Jim Treacher writes, “Obama tells us we don’t deserve what we have earned.”

And, “Here’s The Smartest President Ever, speaking in Roanoke on Friday and writing Romney’s next ad for him. Sure sounds like he’s channelling Elizabeth Warren. . . . Barack Obama openly stokes bitter resentment against Americans who work hard, take risks, and create jobs. But at least he’s ‘likable’!”

From comments: Americans to Obama: “Funny, we were thinking the exact same thing about you…”

Chris Pennington
Chris Pennington
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 5:04pm

is that the very same people they are castigating are the ones who paid for those roads, bridges and police through their taxes.

That was the first thing that went through my mind….

Art Deco
Art Deco
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 5:12pm

I would be very skeptical of the datum that the most affluent 1% are responsible for 40% of the tax collections.

The difficulty you get with this is that the speakers are not vigorous about delineating the circumstances, degree, and process by which the fruits of an individuals entrepreneurship and labor are socialized and re-allocated to third parties. He and Eliz. Warren are going to have to do better than that if they want to construct a believable apologia for the Steven Chu’s green energy loan portfolio.

PM
PM
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 5:24pm

Business owners do business to supply a demand, make a profit to pay hard working people and to pay myriad taxes.

Firefighters, police, public educators, and public road builders are also working people paid by government with everyone’s tax dollars.

” There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. ” School, highways, byways, police and firefighters.

So, like those who want to give something back, just give campaign contributions and party. Who knows how to control government spending or cares – except maybe folks like Paul Ryan – the campaign counts and tracks donations of those who want to give something back though – not to worry. There’s going to be a lot of insurance business coming along which is why, just maybe, the idea of firefighting comes into a comparison with business owners. I don’t know – just a publically educated citizen of the den. What I do know is that I had two employers close the doors for good due to a bad economy, skyrocketing taxes and overhead. Hundred year old businesses.
Now, the police get broken window reports.

Why doesn’t he like wage earners and retirees from private business with no unions who may not afford campaign contributions or enjoy being denigrated for having more faith in God than him?

Mary De Voe
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 5:34pm

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights of The United Nations says that the human being gets his inalienable rights from the state when he is born. The American citizen is endowed by his Creator, when he is created, as is stated in our Declaration of Independence. It is simply an extension of this thought of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights that Obama is making to the effect that all things come from the state and therefore belong to the state. Even that state in America is constituted by the people. The presidency is constituted by the people as his constituents. Obama can practice his atheism in the privacy of his own home, but not as president of the USA.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 7:16pm

He’s right. Certain people don’t deserve what they earn.

He names the wrong people.

A huge blood sucking tick is feasting on the commonweal. Everything it gets is confiscated from the private sector.

Let’s go to the facts. The public sector is growing faster than the private economy, and it will bleed us until, unexpectedly, there is nothing left.

Chon Buck
Chon Buck
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 8:20pm

Ever since that healthcare non-debate where Obama pretended to listen to John McCain and then rudely shut him down with, “John, I won!,” I’ve had an open ear listening to Obama’s condescending speeches fill the rich and lustrous version of reality of which he is to be the hero.

The man is not well. (Note: I used the word “man” liberally, and the words “not well” conservatively).

Clinton
Clinton
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 8:22pm

I think the president has a point. Certainly the folks at MFGlobal wouldn’t have
been able to take and ‘lose’ over $1.5 billion from their client’s accounts, and face
no legal action for their theft, all on their own. I’m sure the people at Solyndra,
Ener1, 1366 Technologies and Solar City wouldn’t have been able to pocket those
billions in taxpayer dollars prior to declaring bankruptcy, all on their own. Being
bundlers for the president’s re-election campaign, having ties to the administration,
showing up for fundraisers with a fat envelope– those things are much more
important to this president than seeing individuals trying to succeed all on their
own. If people succeed all on their own, they won’t need to grease the palms of
some party hack.

I think that a political machine that controls the economy, where no one may get
ahead on their own without the purchased goodwill and protection of party insiders–
where you gotta pay to play– that actually is Obama’s vision for America. It is the
corruption of Chicago writ large.

Nate Wildermuth
Nate Wildermuth
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 9:23pm

The socialist government-directed redistribution of wealth is folly.

The Catholic Church proposes, in contrast, an individually-directed redistribution of wealth. The rich, by their own accord, ought to sell their belongings and give to the poor.

It is Christ’s command: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

It is the Church’s teaching: “St. John Chrysostom vigorously recalls this: “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.” (CCC 2446)”

Rozin
Rozin
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 9:55pm

So to follow that logic, let’s start applauding the person who brings on the beverages to the plane, the person who puts the fuel in and the people who paved the runway. Who cares about the pilot? Anyone can fly the darn plane as well just by looking at the flight manual 10 minutes before takeoff. And what star athlete could make their own uniforms? Or construct the arena or stadium. Why pay to watch them when we can watch the person collecting the tickets do their far more important job. Also let’s pass a law forbidding anyone from saying “ME, I or MYSELF. I know that will be a hardship for some Presidents but that’s logic for you.

Rozin
Rozin
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 10:11pm

On a different note, isn’t it quite apparent that leftists use the exact same reasoning to excuse criminal behavior that they use to condemn excellence that wasn’t sponsored by the government? The criminal does crime according to the Left because of all the other people in their lives who contributed to their maladjustment. So society is to blame for the criminal. But they are also the sole basis for anyone doing something outstanding. Unless of course a bureaucrat claims credit in which case society had nothing to do with it, only Government. Because Government is not part of society, just above it.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, July 16, AD 2012 10:14pm

Do not fear that which can only kill the body.

Fear that which can kill the Soul.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 2:42am

Nate Wildermuth wrote “The Catholic Church proposes, in contrast, an individually-directed redistribution of wealth…”

Paul VI teaches in Populorum Progressio “24. If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation.
Vatican II affirms this emphatically…”

And, again, in Section 33, “ Organized programs are necessary for “directing, stimulating, coordinating, supplying and integrating” (35John XXIII, Encyc.letter Mater et Magistra: AAS 53 (1961), 414.) the work of individuals and intermediary organizations.

It is for the public authorities to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used in fulfilling them; and it is also their task to stimulate the efforts of those involved in this common activity…”

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 5:48am

I will be happy when the Catholic Church returns to its mission: the salvation of souls.

PS: It’s not as if the collectivist, central planners haven’t been redistributing and controlling the economy since 1913, when they amended the US Constitution to make the progressive income tax “constitutional” and they instituted the Federal Reserve to centrally control the money supply and interest rates.

And, they have given $$$ trillions since the 1960’s War on Poverty, and we have more poor people today. In fact, the Lightbringer in the WH has accelerated poverty formation rate in the US.

The Devil is in the details.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 6:22am

I’ve suspected for a long time that the core of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist “every person for themselves” philosophy was an overreaction to the collectivism displayed by the Nazis and Communists. Because they abused terms like “sacrifice” and “common good” to justify the government controlling everything, she went off the deep end in the other direction and insisted that sacrifice was always bad and there was no such thing as a “common good.”

So I suspect that the main reason hardcore “all government is evil, all taxation is theft, and everyone makes it totally on their own or not at all” libertarians exist at all (though they can hardly be said to dominate the GOP) is BECAUSE of smug liberals like Obama who think nothing can be done right and no one can survive without government being involved.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 6:23am

In the interests of precision.

1. The 16th Amendment was a perfectly legitimate legal act, as is the income tax it authorizes.

2. The Federal Reserve controls only the discount rate it charges its member banks and the dimensions of the monetary base. It influences other metrics. As for re-instituting a specie-based currency, you do not want to go there.

3. There are quite a mass of witless cross-subsidies incorporated into the tax code and federal expenditure, all bits of patronage for the clientele of particular members of Congress. There is no central planning. The only sort of planning you see concerns public works and land use, and the latter is the province of local governments.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 6:27am

Elaine, the President is enough of an irritant from what he actually does do and fails to do. No need to lay on him the responsibility for the intellectual maldevelopment of the world’s libertarian cranks.

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 7:26am

When my restaurant had been open about 6 months, and another 4 months before 9/11 knocked a bunch of us out, I was approached one afternoon between service times by a well-meaning person who wanted me to donate to a worthy community cause. She did not know that a 1-3% profit margin is superlative in small-box stores like mine, and I politely declined with the caveat that once I was more fully established I would be happy to be a regular sponsor of those charitable activities I saw beneficial, were I able.

“But,” she stammered, “don’t you want to give something back?”

“I already do, miss,” was my reply. “I give 15 people jobs. I give hundreds of people great food at a reasonable price. I give the electric, gas & water people another place to sell thier products and services. I give way too much to the developer in rent every month. I ‘give back’ 97-100% of the money that comes through my door every month depending on how well I control my food cost, wastage and labor.”

I will gladly admit that, after a quick primer on free-market economics and entrepreneurial risk, she understood quite well and asked if she should concentrate her efforts on more established enterprises. I said that was a good idea and she genuinely thanked me and went on her way. Smart girl.

The point, though, is that while none of us who ever ventured out into the insane world of entrepreneurism got there solo, it works both ways. The independent businessman, the risk-taker, the investor and venture capitalist do not work solely for themselves even if their motives happen to be self-centered. Each of their efforts enables profit and growth by others who would not be able to ‘share the wealth’ if those opportunities did not exist. I’m sure that any of us who was weird enough to not sleep through Econ 101, when it was taught and not indoctrinated, remembers the old exercise of “How many people does it take to get a banana to your kitchen?”

There’s no “funnel of benevolence” leading to the wallet of the successful business person. Instead, it’s more like a sprinkler head of growth and wealth, both watering the ground upon which it stands but also providing for the surroundings that in turn do their part and so forth.

So, enough of this “giving back” shenanigans. After I have paid my debts and bills, and rendered unto God what is His, what’s left is mine. All 1% of it.

c matt
c matt
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 8:49am

While I may not disagree too much with the O’s general concept, I am still left with the question “and then what?” Of course no one does everything on their own, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything on their own. The O did not pay back my student loans; the O did not get up to go to classes for me, do my homeowrk, take my exams; the O did not go through hundreds of job interviews for me; the O did not get up each morning to get in to work and perform my duties.

The entire issue is not should each pay his fair share for the well being of the community, but what precisely is that fair share? There is a lot of room for debate on that.

c matt
c matt
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 9:03am

Mary, I have to disagree with you on the UD of HR – it does not specify from whom rights are obtained,

Article 1.

•All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

so it is a bit inaccurate to say it claims the states give the rights – to paraphrase a modern day prophetess, the UD claims they are born that way. The states recognize the rights (or should), but it does not claim the states creates the rights.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 9:21am

In the Kingdom of Obama is like this. The subjects find more disability pensions than can find jobs. Last month in the Kingdom of Obama, 85,000 subjects became disability pensioners and 81,000 serfs found work. In the Kingdom of Obama, jobs are like hens’ teeth.

KM
KM
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 10:47am

Anyone who takes even a cursory examination of Mr. Obama’s background should, in NO way, be surprised at his remarks.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 4:01pm

“It is for the public authorities to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used in fulfilling them; and it is also their task to stimulate the efforts of those involved in this common activity…” The virtue of charity must always remain voluntary or it becomes extortion to the demands of others.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 5:30pm

Tc matt says: “Mary, I have to disagree with you on the UD of HR – it does not specify from whom rights are obtained,

Article 1.

•All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

so it is a bit inaccurate to say it claims the states give the rights – to paraphrase a modern day prophetess, the UD claims they are born that way. The states recognize the rights (or should), but it does not claim the states creates the rights.”

Saint Thomas Aquinas said that human existence was the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights. Aquinas also said that the human being was an individual substance of a rational nature. Homo-Sapiens.
Citizenship is the only good a nation can bestow or endow on an individual person.
What the UD of HR is saying is that unless an individual can produce a vital statistic of citizenship or a certificate of citizenship, the human being in existence in the womb has no acknowledgeable or recognizable civil or human rights for which the United Nations will vouch for, or be responsible for or have cause to defend. The UD of HR is derelict in omitting the truth of the creation of the United Nations by the nations, created by man, created by God. Without an acknowledgement of God, a person does not exist unless he has citizenship papers. With God, a person exists without citizenship papers.
Yes, you are right T c Matt. The UD of HR does not claim creation of or endowment of human rights. The UD of HR claims jurisdiction over human rights and thusly jurisdiction over God.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 8:00pm

Michael Paterson-Seymour: :Paul VI teaches in Populorum Progressio “24. If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation.
Vatican II affirms this emphatically…”

And, again, in Section 33, “ Organized programs are necessary for “directing, stimulating, coordinating, supplying and integrating” (35John XXIII, Encyc.letter Mater et Magistra: AAS 53 (1961), 414.) the work of individuals and intermediary organizations.”

The first paragraph describes Eminent Domain dealt with in the Fifth Amendment, called the takings clause. It requires recompense for the value of the land by the government. To expropriate land that would not be used for the common good or go uncompensated for is still stealing.

The second paragraph needs to be understood, that yes, organizations must be formed to produce much good results. A person may not be forced to enter into such an organization, or forced to support such an organization without free consent. Force is what communism uses. Free will is what the Church uses in respect to the dignity of the human being.

trackback
Tuesday, July 17, AD 2012 8:00pm

[…] I have always found Mitt Romney to be a fairly indifferent orator, but he was on fire today, attacking the remarks made by Obama that Paul blogged about here. […]

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, July 18, AD 2012 3:27am

Mary de Voe wrote, “The virtue of charity must always remain voluntary or it becomes extortion to the demands of others.”

But in Populorum Progressio, the pope is not talking about the virtue of charity, but about the virtue of justice; this is the teaching of the apostles; this is the teaching of the holy fathers:-

“23. “He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (1 Jn 3. 17) Everyone knows that the Fathers of the Church laid down the duty of the rich toward the poor in no uncertain terms. As St. Ambrose put it: “You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.” ( De Nabute, c. 12, n. 53: PL 14. 747; cf. J. R. Palanque, Saint Ambroise et l’empire romain,Paris: de Boccard (1933), 336 ff.) These words indicate that the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional.

No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life. In short, “as the Fathers of the Church and other eminent theologians tell us, the right of private property may never be exercised to the detriment of the common good.” When “private gain and basic community needs conflict with one another,” it is for the public authorities “to seek a solution to these questions, with the active involvement of individual citizens and social groups.” (Letter to the 52nd Social Week at Brest, in L’homme et la révolution urbaine, Lyon: Chronique sociale (1965), 8-9.)”

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, July 18, AD 2012 6:28am

“the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional.” The right to property is absolute and unconditional when that property is justfully gained, shared and gratefully acknowledged by the possesor as belonging to God.
The matter here is the soul of the person who is in possession of the property, to whom the papal letters are rightfully addressed. All papal letters, called encyclicals, because they encircle the world are addressed to each and every person.
The apostles, therefore, the Church Fathers did not wrest or take by force what possessions of the people ought to have been given to the poor. In condemning greed, and authorizing the VIRTUE of Charity, they spoke JUSTICE. If anyone refuses JUSTICE, he refuses God. We cannot take from the atheist because he is an atheist any more than we can take from the greedy man. Stealing from the wealthy to give to the poor is still stealing. The possessions of the wealthy that belong to the poor in Justice must be willingly surrendered to the poor for the salvation of the wealthy man’s soul. God did not authorize the taking from the rich man to give to Lazarus.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, July 18, AD 2012 6:48am

Pope Paul VI explains his remark in this way, “No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life. In short, “as the Fathers of the Church and other eminent theologians tell us, the right of private property may never be exercised to the detriment of the common good.” When “private gain and basic community needs conflict with one another,” it is for the public authorities “to seek a solution to these questions, with the active involvement of individual citizens and social groups.”

St Thomas, too, says: “Community of goods is ascribed to the natural law, not that the natural law dictates that all things should be possessed in common and that nothing should be possessed as one’s own: but because the division of possessions is not according to the natural law, but rather arose from human agreement which belongs to positive law, as stated above (57, 2,3). Hence the ownership of possessions is not contrary to the natural law, but an addition thereto devised by human reason.” [IIa IIae Q66, II,obj 1]

Now, it is within the power of the legislator to repeal or amend the positive law.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, July 18, AD 2012 2:43pm

Now, it is within the power of the legislator to repeal or amend the positive law.
Put it on the ballot for the will of the people to be heard, as the common good now embraces contraception, abortaficients and trangenderism as well as genetically engineered human beings and clones.

Joe Walsh
Joe Walsh
Friday, July 20, AD 2012 7:13am

As Roman Catholics, some of you people should be ashamed of yourselves for bearing false witness against President Obama. Don’t use my faith and religion for your evil political purposes.

Donald R. McClarey
Reply to  Joe Walsh
Friday, July 20, AD 2012 7:19am

Truly hilarious Joe. Care to point out any false statements made against Obama in this post, or were you merely troll venting?

PM
PM
Friday, July 20, AD 2012 8:17am

” … Don’t use my faith and religion for your evil political purposes. ” – Joe Walsh

Consinct.
In a nutshell.

Henry
Henry
Friday, July 20, AD 2012 9:10pm

The first bill that obama passed was to reinstitute U.S. funds (100 Million U.S. Tax dollars)
to abortion world wide that President George Bush vetoed any U.S. tax money to fund Planned Parenthood world wide. Back then I couldn’t figure out who would of voted for this turkey? Now as time goes on…it will only get worse. I pray there isn’t another term for obama and the bitch.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, July 21, AD 2012 7:04am

I’m with you, Henry.

trackback
Sunday, July 22, AD 2012 7:14am

[…] to commenter Phillip.  A truly devastating reply to Obama’s remarks here.  Put me down for building my law practice.  Did I do it alone?  Certainly not!  My right hand […]

Mary De Voe
Sunday, July 22, AD 2012 6:06pm

Michael Paterson-Seymour: “Pope Paul VI explains his remark in this way, “No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life.” The key word is SURPLUS. Taking away the necessities of life from anyone and drilling them into poverty is not Catholic Doctrine, nor is it charity. It is not even sane. Excuse me: Give them your own and I will give them mine.

As for former president Clinton and now, Obama, both wrote Executive Orders appropriating all public lands and waterways. Obama wrote an Executive Order authorizing the appropriation of all private lands. The Homestead Act used to give the homeless a place to build for themselves on public land. Now, the public is not allowed on public land. See “INDWELLERS” in public parks. Government in and of itself cannot own anything. Everything belongs in joint and common tenancy to each and every person to be held in trust for all constitutional posterity.

Mary De Voe
Sunday, July 22, AD 2012 6:16pm

Joe Walsh says:
Friday, July 20, 2012 A.D. at 7:13am
“As Roman Catholics, some of you people should be ashamed of yourselves for bearing false witness against President Obama. Don’t use my faith and religion for your evil political purposes.”
The Infant Butcher from the South Side of Chicago has defenders.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Monday, July 23, AD 2012 2:39am

Mary de Voe wrote, “Government in and of itself cannot own anything. Everything belongs in joint and common tenancy to each and every person to be held in trust for all constitutional posterity.”

Governments cannot own anything, certainly, but is it really true that nations cannot? Suppose I buy bonds issued by the government of Nusquamia, who really owes me the money? Is it each citizen, at the time the bonds were issued; does each of them owe me the whole amount, subject to a right of contribution from his or her fellows, or does each owe me an aliquot share? No one thinks that way. Does the government of Nusquamia owe me the money? They have a duty to see me paid, which is not at all the same thing. It is impossible to convert the proposition that Nusquamia owes me money to a series of propositions that certain human beings, now in existence, owe me the money.

Some jurists, notably the German Pandektists, argued that “moral persons,” bodies like churches, municipalities, universities, trades unions, businesses and other associations are “persons,” not by legal fiction, but by being ultimate and unanalysable bearers-of-rights-and-duties and that, in that sense, legal personality is no fiction, but a social reality. Indeed, they often spoke of the state as “the corporation of corporations. The French school take the opposite view, except, somewhat illogically, for the Nation.

NB I know that Innocent IV held the “fictitious person” view of corporations, but he was speaking as a canonist, not a political philosopher, and it is certainly not magisterial teaching.

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