The campaign season is in full swing…well, actually the campaign season is always in a swing of some degree. For the president, the current campaign has been going on since the end of his last campaign in 2008. Before that, he was in campaign mode in 2005 by the time he had been in the Senate long enough to find the chamber and maybe even the restrooms. Maybe he didn’t start until 2006, but then it’s hard to separate campaigns from speeches, fact-finding trips and most anything else that gains the attention of the public…so who knows?
Look for the usual clichés to be mouthed over and over and over…like this one: “It’s time to take back our country!” The word “back” can be an adjective, adverb, verb or noun, though noun is out in this case since the country is not the back of anything, though some campaigner might claim it (the body/country, presumably including its own back…or front for that matter) is being wagged by the insidious tail, meaning, of course, the other party or cutthroat bureaucrat or, currently, the collective White House czars.
Or…let “back” be an adjective, having this connotation according to the dictionary: “being in arrears: OVERDUE,” in which case how could it possibly be taken “back,” since it’s already completely broke and “in arrears” to the nth degree, about as far back as it can get? Or, another adjective definition is simply: “not current.” Does the candidate want to take the country back to “not current,” i.e., behind the times? Maybe that’s good campaigning since folks are always yearning for the “good ole days,” at least until they’re reminded of the outhouses, no electricity and the streets filled not with CO2 as the vehicular exhaust but with “stuff” that smells b-b-a-a-d-d and ruins the carpet.
Consider “back” as an adverb, with one of the dictionary definitions accruing thereto being “in a delayed or retarded condition.” There are many uncharitable folks who claim that this definition precisely describes the current administration, while the administration insists that it aptly describes anyone with whom it disagrees, like smart aleck economists who claim that goading/legislating people into buying houses they can’t afford and will lose is not copasetic since mortgages should not be negotiated within a range reaching from one-payment-per-month to no-payments-in years, with China holding the paper and the taxpayer finally footing the bill.
But if the country is to be taken to a “delayed or retarded condition,” perhaps the candidate will simply campaign on the idea of delaying all payments, except all the military spending and entitlements, of course, which means that it can’t delay paying much of anything, such non-non-payment leading to…yep…retardation, defined as “slowing up especially by preventing or hindering advance or accomplishment: IMPEDE.” Obviously, this approach won’t work because Obama has already done that, a sort of enhancement of the entitlement programs of the 1960s, which have failed miserably to do much more than establish a permanent underclass.
As a verb, “back” has as one definition: “to get into inadvertently,” such as a quarterback dropping back to pass and getting concussed by a linebacker on steroids. That’s precisely what has happened in the last three years with respect to the humongous mess occasioned by Obamessiah and his disciples, otherwise known as czars. This has been government by the Kiddie Korps operating on the principle that “leveling the playing field,” i.e., redistributing the wealth, will make everyone happy except the earners…but, who cares about that minority anyway? After all, inadvertence is better than nothing…isn’t it? Ask the q-back.
So, it makes perfect sense to adopt this same approach, described as “Let’s get into something else inadvertently,” understanding that even if it’s inadvertent the outcome will be anything but what the country has suffered lately and thus can’t be all bad and might even be good. Listening to the wannabes chop each other off at the knees in the squirrelly debates suggests that many outcomes are possible, inadvertent or otherwise. It’s hard to keep score, though, as wannabes tailor their ideas, programs and mutual recriminations to fit whatever state they’re gaming.
“Take back,” of course, depends on “take” to mean anything in the first place, so “take” is defined as “to get into one's hands or into one's possession, power, or control.” One remembers Obama’s previous campaign emphasis on the structuring of a national police force, a sort of civilian army commanded by the POTUS, also the commander of the military, which he might send off to liberate Timbuktu, a la Libya for instance, while the police force subjugates the citizenry at home.
The president said this in Colorado in July 2008: “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” The mainstream media never mentions this, of course, not that it’s anything but a loony-tunes statement by someone wandering off the teleprompter to say what he actually thinks. One can mention names of aliens, both past and present, that represent this view but it’s considered racist/gauche to do so, if not outrageously contemptuous of political correctness.
Nowadays, the ballot-box determines the “taking back” of the government but one wonders how long that will obtain.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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