There’s a soundbite bouncing around out in the liberal landscape. It’s being expressed as a variation of take back our country or take back America. It was recently expressed by Elizabeth Warren, who stated during an appearance on Bill Maher’s show:
We’ve got to get out there and we’ve got to be willing to fight back, to take this country back.
It’s a lovely populist declaration, automatically pitting the “we” i.e. the little guys against the presumed-evil “they” i.e. whoever is oppressing the little guys. In liberal land, that oppression is presumed to be at the hands of the wealthy (at least those who aren’t left-wing heroes), big corporations and, I surmise, the Koch brothers.
Adam Carolla, comedian and podcast grandmaster, opined:
Yeah, she means take it back and give more shit to people
on his weekly podcast. I think Mr. Carolla’s being kind. The only way to interpret this sentiment within the context of liberal policies is as theft. “Take back” suggests that something that was once possessed is now in someone else’s possession unjustly. That’s not what Warren et al mean, though. What “take back” means in this usage is to use the force of government to take the wealth that some have created and possess in order to give to others. This is theft, pure and simple, and no degree of good intent, no declaration of “we’re stealing from you to help the unfortunate” can justify it. Even Robin Hood, the supposed champion of this sort of thing, didn’t actually steal from those who earned their money. He actually engaged in “taking back” by robbing the tax collectors who robbed the poor.
One website dedicated to this theme agglomerated every liberal theme you can think of. The rich should be taxed to pay teachers more, fracking is evil, global warming is a dire and imminent crisis caused by capitalists, capitalism has caused people to lose their homes and forces them to work for peanuts, Ebola is the Republicans’ fault because the GOP cut the CDC and NIH budgets, Citizens United is the most evil Supreme Court decision in history, the minimum wage should be higher, the USA is the only civilized nation that doesn’t guarantee workers vacation days, banks are evil and student loan interest rates should be cut.
Each and every one of these carries with it a solution or solutions that involve money being spent differently than how those who earned it wish or choose. In this context, to “take back” really means to “take away” earned wealth, liberty and self-determination. But, aren’t those the principles upon which this nation was founded? Wasn’t the Boston Tea Party a protest against confiscation of wealth via taxation? Isn’t liberty the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights? Isn’t self-determination the reason the Colonies broke away from the British Empire?
The “take back America” crowd deserves a reminder of all these facts, and it needs to be informed that they cannot “take back” that which was never theirs.
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