President Obama says: "Government has a responsibility to make the U.S. the best place in the world to do business, but companies have a responsibility to invest in the nation's future by keeping jobs here, hiring American workers and paying decent wages."
Oh, really?
Let me ask you this question. Is it your job, personally, to go to work for the sake of the country -- or for your own personal and financial profit? Be honest now. If you give the honest answer, then here's the next question: By what right do you reserve the right to live for yourself to yourself -- but not to business owners?
Some of you reading this might be business owners, or know somebody who is. Maybe this will better help you understand what our dear President, and his fellow liberals, refuse to acknowledge: Business owners are people too. They are individuals too. They have the same and equal individual rights that anybody else has, even if government routinely ignores and violates those rights. Your moral right to keep what you earn does not end the moment you become successful.
A business owner does not invest, and should not invest, so that everyone has a job. A business owner invests so that he can make the best possible profit. In so doing, his company becomes stronger and his employees are better off than they otherwise would be. Employees don't always like and agree with what the owners of their companies do, but one thing is for sure: If those companies were not profitable, they would not exist -- and those employees would be out of a job.
By serving their own self-interest, business owners indirectly serve the interests of their employees, not to mention the broader society. More than that, it's morally legitimate for business owners to do so.
For the sake of argument, let's say Obama is right to claim that the purpose of business ownership is to serve the community, not to gain personally. What about members of the community who gain? What about those workers who get more money than they otherwise would in a free market -- let's say they get $75,000 a year instead of $50,000, because Obama says so? Are those workers entitled to keep that extra $25,000 a year? After all, if the moral purpose of an individual's life is to serve others, isn't it selfish -- and therefore wrong -- for those receiving the extra Obama goodies to selfishly enjoy those goodies?
Of course no answer will be given. That's because Obama and liberal socialists like him don't care about morality, either by the right or wrong definition. They might think they do, but they don't. What they care about is power group politics. One group gets the government on its side, and it takes from the unarmed group and gives the loot to the armed group (usually a union or welfare state beneficiary). As they condemn self-interest, these socialists and welfare statists act on the very premise they condemn: Their own self-interest.
Nobody ever challenges the liberals or socialists on this point. When Obama tells successful business owners, "You have too much," they don't reply: "So what? It's mine." Instead they reply: "Oh no, we don't. And look. We're giving it to charities." If all that liberals cared about were people with more money giving it away to people with less, then government officials like Obama wouldn't take that money. They would simply force people to give it away. Not that this force would be right -- but at least it would be consistent with what the liberals and socialists say they want. But liberals and socialists want this money for themselves, and their own politically favored groups such as unions, welfare beneficiaries and some private companies who agree to keep them in power.
It's disgusting beyond belief. Half the country at least acknowledges that government socialists like Obama (not to mention most Republicans too) are incompetent, that they don't generate economic growth and in fact they undermine it. But almost nobody challenges them morally. Almost nobody exposes them for the moral hypocrites and, quite frankly, legalized criminals that they are.
Obama is right about one thing: Government has a responsibility to make its country a great place to do business. It doesn't do this by taking from the successful and giving to the politically favored and politically powerful.
It does so by getting the hell out of the way.