Something about referring to the United State of America as the “Homeland” has always sounded a little odd, perhaps even a tad fascist. I’m not alone in this apparently. Wired’s Threat Level blog has a post today, There’s No Such Thing as the Homeland that helps put a point on it:
People who write and think of their country as the Homeland with a capital H tend to think that they can redefine torture, ignore international treaties, fund disinformation efforts to keep morale high, launch wars based on hunches and emphasize the power of the executive branch because they consider themselves the good guys who are the only ones who know what’s right for the country. They only want to protect the Homeland, don’t you see? The vocabulary is symptomatic of a rigid, nationalistic world view.
But even more apt:
There is no such thing as a Homeland. The United States is not Franco’s Spain, the National Socialist Party’s Germany, or Mussolini’s Italy. We do not face imminent destruction of our country or way of life.
The final assertion, of course, is arguable from a number of points of view. In particular, it is our reaction to terrorism that threatens our way of life.
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