Last night something completely unintentional happened. Twice. Steve Jobs was praised by both President Obama and the Republican GOP in their response. Why? Cause gosh, he’s just the most American-est visionary there ever was… right?

Wrong.

I’ve beaten this to death, but last night was disgusting. So now I get to repeat myself. In 2001 Creative met with Jobs to discuss a user interface for a new MP3 player Apple was releasing. They showed him what they had, Steve said, “no thanks”, and proceeded to use it anyway. Creative sued and got $100mil over it. So much for the revolutionary iPod.

In 2006 Samsung released the SGH-Z610, a phone that had a gesture based touchscreen, app drawer, front and rear facing cameras – the works. It’s believed to have only gone on sale in Europe as a heftily expensive luxury phone, which might have something to do with why no one’s heard of it. Steve heard of it. A year later the “revolutionary” iPhone was announced, because like everything Apple, this was Steve’s “vision”. I’m not sure why I’m using air-quotes with the word vision, since he used it literally to steal the iPhone UI from Samsung. Strike number two.

And strike number three should be obvious to everyone, since he was openly shameless about it – Mac OS. Steve Jobs was invited to a pseudo-insider press event via Xerox to discuss investment opportunities. At the event, they were showing off something truly revolutionary: the user interface. Historically, Xerox’s work is credited as being the first UI ever made. Jobs went home. A short while later, Mac OS.

I’ve said before that the people who go around telling their children to be more like Steve Jobs are making an egregious mistake. Did he do good in this world? Yeah. But would everyone else have been so stupid as to do nothing with what they originally had? Absolutely not. Abusing a cult fanbase into billions of dollars in undeserved profits is exactly what not to do, alongside blatantly stealing the ideas of others. But I don’t know what’s worse – the fact that no one does their research on the things they talk about, or the fact that no one in the government could be assed to do their’s.

We should be more like Steve Jobs. Because if he can make millions painting a magical picture of a humble human being who can do no wrong with a great big smile while simultaneously ruining the lives and businesses of others suing the very people he robbed out of existence behind the curtain, why couldn’t I? Oh yeah… because I have the one thing he never had. Dignity.