Very recently, the President said the following:

“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.  The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”

I don’t know about you but I couldn’t disagree more with his flawed premise.  He believes, as many on the left do, that only with government help will someone succeed.  As far as I’m concerned, he couldn’t be more wrong than if he had said the earth was flat.

Studies have shown that something as simple as sitting down and having dinner as a family contributes to a person’s success in later life – and that has nothing to do with government.

Ever since Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” took hold, our government has spent trillions trying to rid this country of poverty.  But instead, we have an increase in poverty, due in part to the increase in out-of-wedlock births, we have fewer and fewer people working, and only 50% of people actually pay federal income tax, yet boast about their “tax refund” which is nothing more than “welfare” in the guise of “tax credits.”  Unemployment remains over 8% and fewer people have incentive to work when they are given the option of receiving long-term unemployment benefits.  All this from the helping hand of government.  This is what President Obama’s society looks like.

Perhaps in the President’s little affirmative action world, he was helped along the way and that’s how his vision of America has been skewed.  But that’s not how I view America nor is it the way many others do who have shed their blood, sweat and tears to get where they are today.

I’ll admit it.  I have a comfortable life but I was certainly not born with a silver spoon in my mouth.  What I have accomplished in my life is based solely on who I am and my determination to succeed.

I went to a vocational high school and was expected to work immediately upon graduation.  Instead, I chose to attend a community college.  After using up my meager summer savings on my first semester of college and books, I had very little left over and resorted to “stealing” two quarters from my father’s coin jar for my daily subway ride.  After a couple of weeks, when my father realized it wasn’t my brother who stole the quarters but that I was the culprit, I got a job at Macy’s two nights a week and all day Saturday and earned about $22 a week which was enough to get me to and from college.  When Macy’s wanted me to join a union, I said “no” and found a better-paying job in downtown Manhattan working for an attorney.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I immediately found work and after a couple of years I went to law school at night.  At the time, I juggled a home, a husband, a full-time job and three nights of law school which required at least another dozen hours of study over the weekend.  I paid for my own law school education with monthly payments, not even knowing there was such a thing as student loans.  My name appears as co-Editor-in-Chief of my school’s Law Review and my name appears on a published Law Review article.   I studied for and passed the bar exam in California and it was I who studied years later to take and pass the bar exam in Washington.

Yes, I’ve been fortunate enough to have some supportive people around me.  And, yes, my story is not unique.  Millions of people have similar life stories.

But for Mr. Obama to even suggest that roads and bridges, built with my tax dollars, some how contributed to my “success,” is just ludicrous.  Does Mr. Obama suggest that there were no successful people before roads were paved and bridges were built?  Hard work and perseverance has always been what creates success in this country.  Too many people choose to take the easy way out.

There are millions of individuals who have no desire to work or to do what’s necessary to succeed.  These are the people Mr. Obama is speaking to because, as long as he continues to hand out money to those that would prefer to settle for a paltry amount from the government, he and the left remain in power.

His twisted logic is that my hard work, my stick-to-it-tiveness, my perseverance, and my determination had nothing to do with my success in life.

If I’m going to thank anyone, it would be God who allowed me to be born in this great Nation.  And it was God who gave me the fortitude and strength to do what was necessary to achieve what I have today – not the government.

I don’t get it, but if you do, God bless you.