Romney makes Birther joke

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This was clearly just a case of Romney trying to be emphasize himself as a Michigander in a way that he thought for some reason would be clever.  But, people like to be offended.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

This was clearly just a case of Romney trying to be emphasize himself as a Michigander in a way that he thought for some reason would be clever.  But, people like to be offended.

Really?  There are birth certificate request jokes that are specific to Michigan?  I don't, by the way, look for opportunities to be offended.  Birtherism is offensive, and enlisting it in a joke doesn't help make it obvious that it's just a joke.  In fact, I always thought one of the good things about Romney being the nominee was that he wouldn't give any quarter to birther stuff, so I was not expecting to hear remarks like that from him.

Sorry anvi.   I know you don't look for ways to be offended.  I wasn't thinking of your post when I said that, but I shouldn't have been so general.  I just have found that there are some people here who jump quickly to accusations of racism or bigotry and then don't want to hear another explanation, and I let it gets to me too much lately.  (Really, I shouldn't even say that those people like to be offended when it may be a reasonable response based on assumptions they sincerely hold.)

I can, looking at it again, see why someone would be offended by this, but I don't think Romney was trying to feed into birtherism. He was trying to emphasize that he was born in Michigan (I'm assuming that's what he's referring to when he says "this is the place we were born and raised" and not America generally) since he has had trouble connecting with any sort of home advantage there. I read the reference as being a joke that played on the controversy, not on Obama for supposedly not being a genuine American.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's probably time to start infracting for intentional distortions of the "you didn't build that" quote, since it's very well established that the antecedent of "that" isn't "your business."  Anyone who tries to imply that it is the antecedent is just intentionally trolling.

and the antecedent is ?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's probably time to start infracting for intentional distortions of the "you didn't build that" quote, since it's very well established that the antecedent of "that" isn't "your business."  Anyone who tries to imply that it is the antecedent is just intentionally trolling.

and the antecedent is ?

Seriously?

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build [those roads and bridges / general infrastructure from that great American system]"

The antecedent is ambiguous. It could refer to the general system, the roads and bridges, the business, or the success in a general way. Not that it matters. It's clear enough what the point of his argument is.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's probably time to start infracting for intentional distortions of the "you didn't build that" quote, since it's very well established that the antecedent of "that" isn't "your business."  Anyone who tries to imply that it is the antecedent is just intentionally trolling.

and the antecedent is ?

Seriously?

"Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build [those roads and bridges / general infrastructure from that great American system]"

The antecedent is ambiguous.

Only to a troll.

I've come across this formulation of acceptance of ambiguity and complexity in interpretation as equivalent to trolling before. I don't really understand it, but sometimes internet memes go over my head.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

The antecedent is ambiguous.

Take off your partisan glasses and tell me which of these makes sense:

-- The government helped build a great infrastructure, roads and bridges.  If you have a business, you didn't build that infrastructure.

-- The government helped build a great infrastructure, roads and bridges.  If you have a business, you didn't build that business.



Not only is the second statement completely nonsensical, it doesn't fit into the paragraph at all.

Is it nonsensical? Or is it, in its non-absolute sense, a reasonable inference from the other statements he was making?  That is, one doesn't build a business all by oneself.