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.
Note the anaphor that, the last word in this bit of text, refers obviously to roads and bridges. Keep that in mind as you peruse the pathologically dishonest way that presidential candidate Willard "Mitt" Romney represented what President Obama said (again, my emphasis):
Romney: He [President Obama] said this: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Suddenly, that no longer refers to roads and bridges, but to the business you thought you had built all on your own but that the President is suddenly saying you didn't.
What I want to say to Romney is "fine, then stop driving on our socialist roads and bridges." Because only a psychopathological level of hyper-individualism could lead somebody to imagine that they are totally and singularly responsible for whatever they create, and that they get no help, no support whatever, from the rest of us.
