The Blue Board

I work for a small business. I was the fifth full time employee. I absolutely do not think people get where they do in life because of government. But I think the idea that they get there in spite of government is even sillier.

The last time you drove to the grocery store, did you get there in spite of the public road under your tires? I mean, seriously.

No one gets where they are because of the government, but they can't get there without it, either. That's why your tax rate isn't 0%, but it's not 100% either.

The government did pretty much create the internet. The internet began as ARPANET, a program designed to establish a secure military communications network. ARPANET was gradually declassified, and commercial networks began attaching themselves to ARPANET using federally-funded "protocols." During this time, the U.S. government also funded the building and maintenance of trunk lines, the so-called backbone of the internet. Both the design and implementation of the internet relied entirely on governmental funding.

Ok so you're saying a business owner who uses a public road should owe more in taxes than a welfare recipient who uses that same road, simply because he's been more successful. I don't disagree with that.

My point is, what does the road have to do with it?

And yes, what Obama was implying is absolutely that successful people get where they are because of the government. That is the issue.

Without the government, we would refer to successful people as 'warlords' and 'strongmen.'

Technically, the government created the technology that made the internet possible. The internet isn't an object, it's just a bunch of data on computers linked together.

If government was the overriding factor in success, why are so many people (60 million plus) in this country content to allow government to provide for them?

Edit: That's it for me today. I've had enough success for one day. Now I'm going to take advantage of some federal infrastructure to get home. Good debate.

After all these posts, the general direction that started with the OP has been basically ignored. Whether there is some impropriety in the way the flag was flown is a minor subject. That's easily correctible, and likely would be with a simple request. We're talking about whether it's right to deny men who would run willingly into a house fire to save you the right to fly the flag of their own country on the vehicle in which they respond to your distress. The same country for which men died to give their families, and yours, the right to speak, worship, and exist as they so choose. My political affiliation and yours is irrelevant to the subject of whether men who choose to serve us have the right to fly the flag of the greatest country on earth. I salute them, and support every effort they make to put the stars and bars back on that truck.

I'm just going to assume that you meant to type "Stars and Stripes" - I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that that's an honest mistake.