Some commentators have puzzled over what they saw as a shift in tone between Ann Romney and Chris Christie’s speeches at the Republican National Convention last night. Mrs. Romney talked about love and compassion; Christie emphasized the importance of earning respect, and being honest with voters about difficult choices. He concluded with a literal command for Americans to stand up on their own two feet. Wasn’t that a bit like Mom telling you how much she loves you, followed by Dad ordering you to move out of the attic and get a job?
Iowa mayor Ed Malloy summed up the contrast in the headline to his Fox News op-ed, which was primarily about the New Jersey governor’s speech: “Chris Christie’s thoughts on love differ from Ann Romney’s in tough, unwavering speech.” He said he was “jolted” by the contrast.
But really, there was no jarring contrast between Ann Romney and Governor Christie, and they were both perfectly in line with the overall theme of the evening, which I suspect will endure through the rest of the Republican National Convention. The point emphasized repeatedly throughout the night – most effectively, I thought, by Utah mayor and House candidate Mia Love – was a rebuke to President Obama’s infamous dismissal of personal initiative and entrepreneurial risk: “You didn’t build that.”
Each speaker found a different way to say, Oh, yes we did! Love said it beautifully with her entire speech, which neatly connected her opening and closing lines. She began with, “Let me tell you about the America I know. My parents immigrated to this country with $10 in their pockets and the hope that the America they heard about really did exist…” and ended with “This is the America we know because we built it!”
But the true theme of the 2012 election, which Ann Romney and Chris Christie expressed equally well in different ways, is about the end of dangerous illusions. “You didn’t build that” is one of them, but there are others, and they’re all killing us.
Obama’s ode to collective ownership wasn’t just an insult to hard-working small business owners. It’s a lie. Infrastructure is not built by gremlins released from buried government vaults. Independent businesses literally do build those roads and bridges, and they are paid with revenue skimmed from the rest of the private sector. The government has nothing it did not take from its citizens. The notion promoted by Obama, and before him most famously by Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, that government has an unlimited claim on the wealth of the people, because some of us got rich by “unfairly” using public resources, is a deadly falsehood that leads into a death spiral of poverty, dependence, and ultimately strife. It also presumes a degree of competence, honesty, and superior morality on the part of bloated government agencies that practical experience does not support in any way.
