I wonder when that expression was first employed.  Rhetorical question unless I change my mind.  I’ll get back to you on that.

You see it on the playground all the time.  Of course this is only in places where kids are still allowed to use that intrinsically dangerous area of unhealthy childhood social interactivities.  It breeds inequality, yes I know the tune.

During a game of tag a kid tugs another for some reason.  And then he does it again.  The tugged kid responds by yanking on the tugging kid.  Hard.  Advantage to the reactor.  Big advantage.

In another game a big bully of a kid shoves a smaller kid.  Hard.  The smaller kid reacts sometime later when, in a crowd where he thinks he is safe, he nudges the bigger kid.  Maybe it is an attempt at a shove but it still results in what appears to be little more than a nudge.  Not accomplishing what he intended the smaller kid nudges again but this time the bully of a kid notices and responds with another shove that puts the smaller kid on the ground.  Others look on but the smaller kid’s friends are too scared to act and the bully’s mates simply realize this is playground business as usual and they really don’t have any sympathy for the smaller kid anyway.  Advantage to the bully.  Huge advantage.

And so it goes.

The tug and nudge are often nothing more than friendly messages meant to convey something of some importance.  They are often met with the yank and the shove which are likewise meant as messages although not ones meant kindly in nature.  Either may precede the other but the tug and nudge are never very effective responses to the yank and the shove.  But that is all that some kids are willing, or able, or even brave enough to do.  They may be the proper moral victors but the others, the yankers and shovers rule the playground.  It has always been thus, yes?

Which are you in your life?  Do you do either, neither, or both?  Which is more effective and why?

Seems to me that over the last, oh, century or so, the progressives, the socialists, the radical liberals, and, dare I even utter, the communists have been the yankers and shovers.  Those on the other side, the conservatives, the constitutionalists, the originalists, the, in my opinion, true patriots merely respond and even do so during the times that they are in power, the times when many more on the playground are on their side, with just a nudge or tug or even two.   And even those hesitatingly applied.

It is well known that it takes many tugs to equal a yank and an equal number of nudges to counter a shove.  Did you know that?

I have a fear that we have already been yanked and shoved so far off of our positions that tugs and nudges are no longer sufficient or even proper responses.  It’s time to reclaim our playground and use it in the ways originally intended.  Stronger yanks and more powerful pushes are now necessary.  We must stand our ground with honor and with power.  We must stand our ground with conviction and with purpose.  We must stand our ground united.

And then, after we have stood our ground, we need to reclaim the ground we have been losing for far too long a time.