Is anyone else out there troubled at all by our use of the word “homeland” to describe the United States? It has a very nationalistic ring — nationalistic in the bad sense — almost fascistic.
Here is a fragment of a quote from President Bush, admitted out of context. Read it aloud and see how it sounds: “I reminded them that the most important job of government is to protect the homeland.”
I hear a vaguely German accent, almost can’t help falling into a Col. Klink imitation, and that troubles me.
This is not an implied criticism of the president — believe me, I have no problem being overtly critical. This is about language and the way we use it and how it affects what we do. If we think of the nation as a homeland, it changes our relationship, makes the soil and our borders and the physical fact of it more important than the ideals on which the nation was created, more important than the constitution that governs it, etc. And, if we take this thinking to its extreme, that means that in the name of protecting the homeland we can just torch the Constitution.
It’s a dangerous direction to take.
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Hank Kalet 