Do Conservatives Have Any Empathy At All?

Bring back our country is a play off the phrase "take back our country." The phrase has been used under different circumstances, but the current usage of the term emerged with a racist movement. One of the first people to use it was Pat Buchanan in 1992 during a convention speech, which was directed at the "culture war." Well, the culture war is lost, you can't really stop progress. The phrase appears on some religious websites over the years, but it was not a movement. Ross Perot used the term in 1996, another election year, but it was not a movement. It's not only from the right wing, Howard Dean and Democrats used it in 2004 because of perceived corporate interests and a war based on lies. Again, these all occurred in election years and were not movements.

With Obama, the "take back our country" attitude began not even 100 days into his presidency. It arose with the Tea Party and came along with the birthers, racist flyers, and continued racial overtones to complaints about the president. This wasn't a 2012 plea to win an election, this was a continuous movement since 2009, and we've seen plenty of racist literature and caricatures directed at Obama along the way. Attempting to compartmentalize this phrase by the likes of Byron York is plain ridiculous. Isolating a term using Google is not real analysis. Analysis requires you to look at timing, popularity of the term, and other measures. Given the rabid birther movement, the accusations of being a Muslim, racist statements, and the near immediate use of the term after Obama became president, I think it's a ridiculous to connect the term to previous usage used under entirely different circumstances.

When people attempt to focus on a single word or phrase, it's a sure sign that they know the accusations are correct, but are going for a "technical win." Take back our country has been used before, but the people that started using it 2009 typify a racist, xenophobic, jingoist movement that arose in response to the first black president. "He's not even black, he's half white!" Funny how they also attack the authenticity of his blackness too. We see you.

And when they say "our", they are not referring to you and me together. It's a reference to people like "me" and wanting to take the country away from people like "you." The country was "stolen" by a African Muslim Communist and it needs to be taken back. By whom? Looking at the demographics of the Tea Party should clue you in on who "us" and "them" really refers too. One thing that's obvious, the "us" in the Tea Party does not look like diverse melting pot we call the United States of America.

GarfieldJL said:

Does anyone honestly believe those terrorists care what people say on twitter? That's the solution, to whine about girls being kidnapped on twitter?

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Stop using this straw man. It has already been pointed out that the campaign is not directed at the terrorists. The man that started the campaign said it was not directed at the terrorists. Why do you continue to blatantly to ignore this point?


That certainly looks like it's meant to get the terrorists to return the girls.

GarfieldJL said:

If we were really serious about helping those girls, we'd be using satellite photographs (and considering Nigeria is between 2 degrees and 4 degrees N, we could actually have a satellite in geo-stationary orbit over that country if we really wanted to), locating that terrorist groups camp, and then either let the Nigerian military deal with it, or send special forces to shoot the terrorists and rescue the girls.

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Well, the point of the campaign was to get the Nigerian government to act. And you can't just blatantly violate sovereign nation airspace without permission, unless you like dealing with the problems it causes. Since the campaign was a success, it got the Nigerian government moving and cooperating with allies to provide their military with support and intelligence.

Off topic, but people put too much stock in the technology we have available to us. A satellite is only useful if you know where you're looking and not just blanket imaging a country. Considering that Nigeria is about the size of the East Coast from Maine to North Carolina and going far inland as Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, you have a very large search area. Granted Boko Haram operates in the north, your search radius is still too large. The only way these images become useful is when you have intelligence from the ground. This is one major reason why they cannot find Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, the ocean is huge and they have little to no information on where the plane might be. A satellite does not suddenly endow you with the ability to find something.

GarfieldJL said:

No, it was a blatantly partisan statement to dehumanize people that the left doesn't agree with politically.

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It was general statement not directed at anyone.

KatAutumn said:

I think the point of the sign has gone over a few people's heads. For conservatives, it feels as if President Obama has done quite a bit of damage to this country. The point of Coulter's sign is pointing to restoration of this great nation, not that it doesn't equally belong to Michelle Obama or that it's her job to bring the country back.

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Given that the chant arose shortly after he took office, your claim is pure historical revisionism. It would be one thing if this occurred in 2012, but when people are saying take back our country in January 2009...