“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
President Barack Obama made that statement at a speech in Roanoke, Va., last week. This quote is making the rounds on conservative blogs and on social media websites.
Progressives and supporters of the president’s re-election campaign might not understand what the big deal is. After all, the progressive ideology is perfectly in line with this quote.
You, the individual, cannot make it. You, the individual, have no chance. You, the individual, must struggle unless you allow greater government intervention in your life.
Progressives believe in government programs. These programs may have good intentions, but they rot the social structure. They corrode individual responsibility. They create dependence.
Out of this dependence, a necessity for more and more government is created.
With increased access to student loans, saving for college becomes less important to the individual.
With an extension of unemployment benefits and a loosened work requirement for welfare, looking for a job becomes less important to the individual.
With Social Security and Medicare, saving for retirement becomes less important to the individual.
When individuals en masse decide to stop saving and instead rely on entitlement programs, government engages in massive spending.
Conservatives believe the individual is the fundamental unit of American society. The individual, when free in enterprise and occupation, has the ability to pursue a life of security and prosperity.
The president and his progressive supporters want you, the individual, to stop listening to conservatives.
Conservatives will worry you with talk of massive deficits and a growing national debt.
Conservatives will tell you that the government must live within its means. They will tell you that the answer to economic growth is a reformation of the nation’s grotesque tax code.
They will tell you that providing certainty to investors and business owners is the best plan of action.
Conservatives will warn of a coming debt crisis where the production of the nation will be sapped by the burden of government spending. In no distant time in the future, entitlements and interest on the national debt will swallow the federal budget.
Conservatives, after all, believe in you.
It is time for you to believe in yourself, despite what the president says.
You, the individual, can use the talent and skill acquired through education and experience to pursue prosperity.
You have a choice: confidence or dependence; prosperity or mediocrity.
Do not be fooled by the enticing programs that progressives applaud. They are short-term solutions with grave consequences in the long term.
For your prosperity and that of future Americans, consider standing with Mitt Romney. Consider standing with conservatism.
Stand up for the rights of the individual. Stand for a limited government. Stand for enterprise and prosperity. Stand for a tax code that provides certainty.
This November, both sides agree that the choice is divided along clear fundamental lines.
Standing with the president is to stand for dependence. Standing with Mitt Romney is to stand up for yourself.
Believe in yourself. Believe in the enterprise and prosperity that the individual is capable of.
Believe in America.
Austin Swink is a political science junior at UF and communications director for Gators for Romney.
