Elizabeth Warren’s anti-entrepreneur “You didn’t build that on your own” Speech
As with academic papers written by scholars and examined by students, it is assumed that the subject matter is accurate and generally follows the nomenclature of purpose, hypotheses and findings. I will use this template to critique a discourse of diatribe by Elizabeth Warren that is known as the “You didn’t build that on your own” speech.
(Editor’s note: You may be thinking that this is a quote from President Obama, and he did indeed say this, and meant it. But Elizabeth Warren’s quote was much earlier.)
The quote of analysis is as follows:
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on 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… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
I am proposing that the speech is one of malicious contempt for the American entrepreneur and will support this with my own vitriolic response in a line by line manner.
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody.”
To set the scene for this first phrase, one must examine the context in which it is written. Warren is performing the function here of the “useful idiot,” by which she is extending the rhetoric of the progressive left. In particular, her speech follows a thematic narrative put forth by activist and Berkeley liberal George Lakoff. The Marxian thesis developed by Lakoff and so proudly espoused by Warren shows the contempt for the bourgeois, (American businessmen) and their call to arms by the proletariat, whose backs, they say, you the small businessman, built his success off of.
The totalitarian theory implied in this line wants one to believe that it is the government’s role that enables individual success, hence the need for more and bigger government. The second use of the word “nobody” is an effort to make the masses one, so that income equality can allegedly be gained by all through the strength of the state. One might put an exclamation mark after the second use of “nobody” as Warren re-emphasizes your individual uselessness and your need for the collective to achieve success.
You built a factory out there – good for you.
This smug, patronizing comment is at the heart of how the progressive liberal despises your success and longs to free it from you. The use of the term “factory” is a turn of the 19th century phrase that implies the malevolence of capitalism and the need for unionization to organize the masses in protest. Every revolution must have dissent and protest. This line sickens me as much as any in this narrative.
But I want to be clear.
This attempts to be an authoritarian statement providing the basis for the class warfare that is needed to accomplish the end game. In the lines that follow, we will see more of the propaganda that would make Joseph Goebbels proud to be an American today.
Part II to follow…
Editor’s note: This is how far the socialist movement has come. People believe Warren is an intelligent college professor who speaks well and makes sense. She is really an incompetent, with no concept of how the real world works.
As an entrepreneur and small business owner, when Obama expressed this sentiment, I became sick to my stomach that this asshole who had never run a business, never made a payroll was telling me that I didn’t build my own company. To know that yet another useless, clueless politician believes this and is running for President, makes me want to cry. Have we learned nothing?
In my opinion, this is exceedingly offensive to small business owners who worked their asses off to build a business. We pay taxes, so we have as much right to the infrastructure as anyone else. We create wealth above and beyond what others do, wealth that would not exist but for us.
Did ‘everybody’ help us? Hell no. In fact, there is no one lonelier than a struggling small business owner trying to make payroll…
When I opened my business I found that all levels of government and regulators wanted a chunk of my business. Taxes, fees, inspections, licensing, and the burdens from every aspect of government made me feel like I was in business for them.
You open a business, and you’ve got partners you never knew about.
Yeah, and when you have problems to deal with in ;your business or if it starts to fail, see how much the government or anyone else for that matter comes to your aid. Poccahantas needs to get off the socialist crap. Free enterprise always worked and always will. Giving people everything for free only creates an environment of lazy people. Eventually, the hard workers who pay all the taxes get tired of it and quit. See who pays for all that “free” stuff then.
My mama taught me when I was a kid, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Didn’t their mama teach them ANYTHING ?!
Most of them have just a father,His name is satan.
Fauxcahontas trying to denigrate the small businessman, again. When will they ever learn? Without the small businessman, entrepreneur and investors, this country would never have been built. The businessman sees the need for a product or service and starts a business to fill that need, thereby contributing to the improvement of the community. He provides jobs (a payroll), pays taxes and fills the need that he set out to provide the solution for. This improves the local economy and the lives of most folks in the community.
Government almost never helps small businessmen beyond a loan. They see their role as providing rules and regulations to impede the success of small business and to collect the taxes that the business creates. And Fauxcahontas has the temerity to tell these businessmen that they “didn’t build that by yourself”? What about all the other government stooges that have gone before Fauxcohontas and paved the way for her to say these things? Well, Fauxcohontas, you didn’t come up with that statement on your own, did you? What a total and absolute moron! Just one more reason to never, ever vote for a Democrat again!
Phil in TX
Absoright on the mark ! You explain her BS in layman’s terminology! Great job
Right on the money, John!
There are lots of idiot politicians who want to destroy the American way. Pokahonis is one of them. She will go nowhere!
Until we (this country) get off our arses and enact term limits for all federally elected and appointed officials, we are going to continually have the likes of politically self-serving idiots like Nadler, Schiff, Pelosi, AOC, etc. usurping their authority and destroying this Country, founded by stalwart men of courage and principle like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln. Let’s vote these idiots out of office and enact term limits and get back to what this Country God wanted it to be.
I have been after term limits for senators and congressmen ever since I got interested in what was going on in politics. Some have been there for decades (PELOSI!!) as well as many others. Its no wonder nothing gets done. Our country should vote on term limits because the senators and congressmen won’t vote for it – they will be out of a job if they do. Get rid of the trouble makers and get younger ones in there.
Well, now to my list of Obomma, Obiden, Obernie, Occasional, Omar and O’Rourke; I will add Owarren ! (My list of jokes/jerks)
The “O’s” I love it!
I remember x President Obama use to say what Warren saying about you didn’t build that yourself. She has picked this comment up from Obama . Just like Biden has started to do that too.
If you watch his speeches and listen closely.
Actually this quote is apparently from way before Obama’s time. That’s why we assume he got it from her.
What a lie!
There is no shortage of citizens who would like to work at a 40 years ago equivalent wage.
We do not need more illegals and Visa workers who’s earnings are supplemented by our government,
so the Establishment Elite can continue to get richer while the rest of us get poorer.
WHAT DO YOU CALL A GATHERING OF DEMONocrats ?
A HATE PEP RALLY !
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody.” Warren is talking about herself. She should replace her name in place of nobody .She used her ” Native American” falsehood to further her own goals. She used her congressional connections to further enrich herself and husband.