What exactly do they mean when they say, "We want our America back"?

[7thangel]

As far as I can gather:

more like...(with the candy coating off)

3) High-quality public schools
they advocate the closing of public schools because they are the den of librul godless evil and unions and sex and Darwinism. plus integration

5) Respect for religion and the USA's founders
respect for the only religion, Christianity. never a bad word or unsavory truth/fact of the founding fathers. they were inspired by the one true god, Jesus Christ and were devout christians

7) An end to highly sexualised raunch culture
and basic sex education. and contraception. and innuendo.

8) High restrictions on abortion
an end to abortion. period.

9) Minimal recognition of gay rights
no recognition. put them back in the closet. a soundproof closet.

10) High restrictions to immigration both legal and illegal
a fence, a return of operation wetback, and full-on deportation for the rest. limited immigration favoring cultures more in tune with 'Real America'

11) Low tolerance for environmental concerns
there is no man-made global warning. god makes no mistakes. drill, baby, drill. end regulations. let the 'job creators' be free

[StoneGold]

See, we don't have much of that in Germany. Soon as somebody says they miss the good old days, people usually look at them with an expression of horror on their faces.

Correction: There are some destitute people in Eastern Germany who seem nostalgic for the days with less freedom and more job security. Kinda sad.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are actual laws against saying that in Germany, yes?

[Iangould]

They just want things to be pleasant.

[Nick Soapdish]

They're delusional if they think all these things ever intersected.

Yeah. Some of those things have never been the case while in other cases, they're asking for a return to the status quo. For example, social welfare spending has always been mostly spent on whites, not minorities. But Republicans like to blame minorities for them as David Frum pointed out in his response to Mitt's 47% remark.

I'd actually like to respond to all of those, but cactusmaac was just listing the reasons of others (albeit much more eloquently than they usually get expressed).

[JCAll]

Franklin was an interesting character. I'd like to see a movie about him

It would be the kind of movie they could only air on Cinemax past 1am.

[Spike-X]

As far as I can gather:

1) No affirmative action - allow businesses and institutions to keep actively discriminating against minorities and women just as much as they want
2) No runaway government spending esp. on social welfare for minorities - let poor people starve to death
3) High-quality public schools - unless they want to teach blasphemy such as evolution or sex education that's not just abstinence-only
4) Low crime environments where children can safely be left to play unsupervised - there's plenty of these, people have just been brainwashed by the media to think that no child is ever safe anywhere, at any time
5) Respect for religion and the USA's founders - fuck you if you're not Christian
6) Being able to buy a home with a yard and have enough income left over for one parent to devote all their attention to the family - back in the kitchen, ladies
7) An end to highly sexualised raunch culture - sex is something shameful and dirty that should be hidden away and never discussed
8) High restrictions on abortion - usually accompanied by calls for restrictions on access to contraception, proving that the "pro-life" people are simply about controlling women's sexual choices
9) Minimal recognition of gay rights - back in the closet where you belong, queers
10) High restrictions to immigration both legal and illegal - I'm pretty sure illegal immigration is already restricted, what with being illegal and all
11) Low tolerance for environmental concerns - if you can't fuck it or eat it, piss on it
12) School prayer - shoving Christianity down the throats of all school children, regardless of their/their families' existing beliefs and cultural traditions
13) Leaving the UN - nobody can tell us what to do, we're America dammit!
14) Highly aggressive foreign policy with plenty of emphasis on American exceptionalism - see above
15) Overt patriotism - blindly jingoistic flag-waving, never question what your country does at any time
16) Low taxes - mission accomplished

. .

[marvell2100]

They funny thing is that a large majority of the people who "want their America Back" weren't even born or were too young to remember any of the "good times". And alot of them don't want to give up their free porn on the internet.

[Charles RB]

Of course not. If they remembered the "good times", they'd know they weren't that good and they'd be waxing nostalgic about something else.

[JDogindy]

Again, they want the Leave it to Beaver version not the reality.

Absolutely. When I made that post, I was commenting that they wanted the social version.

Whenever I think of these kinds of people bantering about wanting “their” America back, I think of two things; Michael Savage and meatballs.

[Shellhead]

Outside of race, a lot of them want the world to be however it was when they were children...or at least however it appeared to them when they were children.

One of my Facebook friends posted this just today, while watching his family get ready to go to church:

"All six-year-olds are Republicans. Everything that other people bought for them -- as well as things that were bought for others -- is "Mine!" "

[Darrell D.]

Taxes are low already.
I understand that most lack the fundamental ability to actual read and comprehend, but my God, it's not like it's a hard thing to figure out.
Evolution happens in all things, sorry, soon-to-be-marginalized faction of the GOP.

[batman_pwns]

Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson nailed everything in a skirt that smelled good

That's something I learned playing Assassin's Creed 3. (Who said video games can never teach you anything...) There is a scene in the game where Ben Franklin discusses the advantages of bedding an older woman. Apparently it is taken from an actual book he wrote.

Funny how schools teach you about Ben Franklin the scientist and inventor, but they conveniently leave out Ben Franklin the pervert.

Video clip of Ben Franklin in the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC6MfNzYluA

[dupont2005]

Ben Franklin's job during the revolution was to go to France and bang as many social elites as he could to drum up support for the new nation.

[Vibranium]

Ben Franklin's job during the revolution was to go to France and bang as many social elites as he could to drum up support for the new nation.

and did he drum

[Winslow]

Yeah. Some of those things have never been the case ...

America has never had high quality public education. We make up for it with a decent college system, but our public education system has always lagged behind.

... I'd actually like to respond to all of those, but cactusmaac was just listing the reasons of others (albeit much more eloquently than they usually get expressed).

I'm not sure the list is what conservatives mean by "take America back." It was just a laundry list of the a political conservative agenda. As above, some of those things never existed. In fact, abortion was legal in most (or maybe many, too lazy to look it up and be accurate) states before Roe v. Wade.