Obama Doesn’t Seem Like Someone I’d Want to Have a Beer With

Imagine relaxing at a backyard barbecue enjoying an adult beverage. While you’re answering a question about how you started your business, your neighbor interrupts to scold you in a mocking tone. He says you over-valued your role in starting your own business. Further, he calls you an ungrateful braggart for not mentioning your third-grade teacher or the highway department worker who “helped you” build your business.

It’s annoying if it’s your neighbor, but you can always un-invite him to future parties. It’s alarming when it’s the President of the United States and he’s angling for another four years to preside over this economy.

Every time his now infamous Roanoke, Virginia speech, dubbed the “You didn’t build that” speech, is played and read, we get a deeper sense of President Barack Obama. He doesn’t sound like someone you’d like to have a beer with. He doesn’t sound likeable at all. Beyond that, he doesn’t remotely sound like a leader.

This speech was not just an honest peek into the beliefs of the President regarding the economy, the role of government, and his commitment to collectivism versus individualism. “You didn’t build that” has drawn a line in the sand and defined the split of the left and right in 2012 America.

The left dreams of and schemes for a government-centered, heavily regulated society where private property rights are minimal. Discrediting individual effort and initiative is central to their advancement of collectives over private enterprises.

For the state to be accepted as the dominant factor in every aspect of life requires tearing down the individual and what he or she owns. It requires the remaking of the American point of view regarding individual and private property rights.

“You didn’t build that” is also a full-frontal attack on legitimate pride stemming from hard work, financial risk and faith in self and self-interest.

True conservatives encourage individuals to find their own path, to invest in their own unique dreams based on their own unique talents and desires. It has been proven over the last 250 years that this path is the best way to earn a living and acquire wealth, or said another way—private property.

Collective ideologies conflict with free markets and wealth creation. Private property represents power and that is a threat to the state.

And that’s why the conflict is so powerful. Conformity and individuality are like oil and water. Whether we are subjects or free people is what is at stake.

The United States is still a country that honors individual achievement. We are not clamoring for more Chevy Volts. We are not enamored with the Solyndra’s of the world. The state created those things. “We” didn’t build those. “We” wouldn’t be that careless with our own futures and money.

“We” as individual Americans embrace the right and the joy of individuals making their own choices to pursue success and yes, fail also. We call it, “the pursuit of happiness.” Not the guarantee of success and happiness. The pursuit.

When the President denigrates individual achievement, we know in our gut he’s advocating a society where conformity to government is the new norm.

Liberty and property rights are under attack, and the President’s language has finally been delivered without disguise.

“You didn’t build that” is not just an insult; it’s a battle cry for radical change.

The reason “You didn’t build that” is so powerful is we instinctively know what lies just around the corner. We’re being conditioned for a subservient role. We’re being minimized and set up to willingly lose our private property.

The President, who never held a meaningful job in the private sector, has reached a conclusion shared by other anti-capitalists: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Simply put, it is the belief that the state should dictate the terms of co-existence with the individual and not vice versa.

And this is why ideology matters. Our way of life is under assault, and it’s deeper than just higher taxes, spending and more regulations. It’s all that, but there’s a philosophical foundation for anti-Constitutional, anti-free market, anti-American convictions.

In the minds of people like President Obama, there is no individual success, thus they can claim there is no individual failure.

This is how the left justifies their position that the state is entitled to private property. They may seize it and regulate it because, in their perverse view, the state creates wealth, thus can redistribute wealth to “prevent poverty.”

You and I know that never happens, but billions of people throughout history have been susceptible to this lie. The government knows best—they know best about food, about cars, about health insurance, about everything.

This kind of thinking is the end of the founding truth that God gave us all unalienable, individual rights. Barack Obama believes the state is the holder of all rights and privileges and dispenses them when deemed in our best interests.

The recent Supreme Court decisions regarding Arizona and Obamacare went further to reduce the sovereign nature of the individual and the 50 states.

Obama’s overtly hostile declaration of “You didn’t build that” undermines the legal, moral and ethical underpinnings of the individual working in a free-market economy. Forget the concept of “rugged individualism.” Forget the concept of “every person is unique and can make a difference.” And forget the plain meaning of “innovation.” According to Obama, “innovation” results from partnerships with the government.

“You didn’t build that” is a clear warning: President Obama, in a second term, will further increase the dominant role of the federal government in our lives. This is how the Constitution is rendered meaningless.

The latest, disgusting behavior from elected officials toward Chick-fil-A is broader evidence of the state’s disregard for the individual. If the government has the power to stop Chick-fil-A from doing business in a city as a result of having different views than the city or state, then the government has the power to ban a radio show for the same reasons. Or this publication.

The Constitution was written as a firewall to protect individuals from having their guaranteed rights (Bill of Rights) infringed upon by their government. The left in this country has no tolerance for such a construct. The Constitution gets in the way of the left imposing their will on the rest of us.

We are in the midst of hostility towards basic civil rights that this country hasn’t seen in quite some time. The country as founded is under assault. This isn’t simply Chick-fil-A’s problem, or a few small-business owners’ problem. It is an existential problem for all of us. Is the individual sovereign in the United States, or are we subjects of the state?

That’s what on your ballot in November.

You can listen to Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210, WPHT, weekdays from 5:30 to 9 a.m., and follow him on Facebook and Twitter @ChrisStigall.