Yes but there is the National Security Agency (lately devoted to keeping us secure in the knowledge our telephone calls will be monitored).
I think ‘Homeland’ and other similar terms are a similar method of engendering a sense of nationalism. There are many of us who have no connection whatsoever to any other country. My Father’s side of the family has more than 300 years here, and my Mother’s side more than 100. The shift that has occurred during the Bush administration is a bit of a shift from our sense of being an abstract ideal to a concrete nation. It is a process that has continued as long as the Constitution has been eroded. The end of States Rights after the Civil War cemented us as a nation first, and legal ideals second. This is just another step in that process.
A shift from an abstract to a concrete sense of nation(alism)? You were clearly not here in the 50s and 60s when the “nation” was so concrete you could park your car on it.
Now, it you want to assert that following the fracturing of the 60s and 70s, this is an artificial attempt to create some new way to pretend that we are more together than our disparate sub-societies indicate, I might go along with that. But “homeland” is not a continuation of any trend; it is inserted manipulation based on advertising logic.
Fair enough.
I am not arguing that it wasn’t done intentionally, but it’s nothing new. As long as we’ve had nationalism and ruling parties with a vested interest in getting the populace to feel a sense of common purpose, they used a term like ‘homeland’.
Bushland, Bushland uber alles?
I dunno about this. My thesaurus lists three synonyms for “homeland:” “native land,” “mother country,” and “motherland.” Based on this thread we can probably add “fatherland.” My memory of political goings-on only dates back to the mid-1970s, but I find it hard to believe that America was wholly lacking in nationalism, ruling parties with vested interests, or common purposes during the last quarter-decade of the 20th century. It certainly didn’t seem that way at the time. Yet offhand I don’t recall any such equivalent terms in play.
And how did we manage to get through the Cold War, past the threat of nuclear attack and the perils of international communism, without a legacy of government institutions entitled “homeland” this and “motherland” that? Federal Bureau of Investigation. Central Intelligence Agency. These are not names designed to engender warm feelings of national solidarity. What was the equivalent to “homeland” back then?
What, are you playing $100,000 Pyramid, here? I guess “Things that are associated with Danish.”
How does any of that address the fact that featherlou thinks proximity is a good enough reason for her to care about whether the U.S. becomes an authoritarian theocracy? She wasn’t implying that we’re close to becoming one, merely that as a potential taget of opportunity, she has a vested interest in this country not perpetuating a policy of capricious international invasion.
After all, we can’t keep shipping troops halfway across the world; it’s getting too expensive.
And “Domestic Security” would be a semantic step up from “Homeland Security”, in terms of excessively creepy baggage.
This is one topic that compels most of us to commit the sin of the “me-too post.”
Me too.
There must be something about the fascist mindset that makes such folks use such concepts. Scares the bejesus out of me.
(Side note: a few years back a grocery store chain [I think it was Food-4-Less] renamed itself Homeland. What the hell were they thinking??)
Like Tomndebb, I am offended by the term for it’s association with South Africa’s Apartheid.
Pesto. Guinea-Bissau.
The squid flies at midnight.
Canada did have a dispute with Denmark over an island in the arctic, but I don’t know where the butter fits in. Or what any of it has to do with this thread. I do like butter, however.
See, stuff like this is what killed me on the verbal SAT.
When I was a kid I had the Magic Cards expansion set “Homelands.” My mom saw one of them and said, “Homeland? What is this, the Nazis?” (Both my parents were bohemian hipster intellectuals.) My mom explained to me that the word Homeland is usually used by nationalists and fascists. I was like 10 years old.
Apart from the vaguely fascistic overtones, I think the use of “Homeland” is bothersome, because in this country in years before, one of the only other times you ever heard it used was after the words “Proposed Palestinian ___________”.
In other words, something that a lot of people liked to talk about to make themselves look good, but never actually got around to doing anything really effective about.
It’s proving to be a tough connotation to break.
Christ, do I really have to explain this…?
I asked by what measure were we close to becoming a theocracy. The response about the length of our border is, well, as on topic as a discussion about the price of butter in Denmark (ie, not on topic at all). You never heard the expression: What does that have to do with the price of butter in Denmark? Hint: nothing.
I’ve never heard it before, so I Googled the phrase “the price of butter in Denmark”.
Results: zero.
And Canada does have disputes with the USA over both the Beaufort Sea and the Bay of Fundy, as well as ongoing concerns over the Northwest Passage.
Here’s what she said:
“Disregard the danger at your own peril” means “It’s a non-zero probability, and if its low value makes you want to dismiss it as negligible, well it’s your freedom that’s in jeopardy”. She goes on to imply that hers might be as well, because the United States is so close to Canada (easier to get to than the Middle East; why fly when you can drive?).
So the problem is, she wasn’t really saying that we’re close to becoming a theocracy, and you asking by what measure she thought we were close to it, was kind of nonsensical. It never occurred to me that you would post a nonsensical question, so I interpreted it as meaning you were wondering by what measure the U.S. is close to Canada.
Incidentally, the next time you’re makng a report to your intergalactic overlords, you might want to request another training session on Altair IV. The idiom that resonates on this planet is What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? It is upon such trivial details that the success or failure of so many missions so often hangs.
Separation of functions. Within the Executive Branch, it’s important to separate functions, just as it is between the main branches of government.
As I understand it, one of the main differences between Defence and Homeland Security is that Defence is military, and Homeland Security is civilian. There’s a very good reason not to confuse the two functions, particularly within the interior of a country. We want cops being the first responders to domestic threats, not the military.
I think your examples of departmental names were meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but actually, they’re a pretty accurate description of the principle of separation of functions within government, at least at the federal level here in Canada.
We do have a Department of Justice and a Department of Law Enforcement (actually called the Department of Public Safety). Why the split? Because Public Safety is the cops, and Justice is the lawyers. Separation of functions: cops investigate and lay charges, lawyers vet charges and handle them in court. That’s an important check on the use of the criminal law power.
We also have a Treasury Department and a Money Department - although the formal names are Ministry of National Revenue and Ministry of Finance. Separation of functions - one’s in charge of bringing money in, and the other’s esponsible for spending it.
And there’s a Minister of Labour and a Minister of Human Resources. Labour’s responsible for running the framework of laws that regulate the workplace, while Human Resources’ mandate is to help increase employment.
Separation of functions responds to two concerns, one managerial and one based on political theory. The managerial concern is to break things up into manageable chunks, allowing departments to specialise in particular areas. The political science concern is to avoid too great a concentration of power in any one person or department. That concern is particuarly important when we’re talking about the distinction between civil and military, or police and prosecutors, but it is a theme that runs through government organization generally.
I’ve had butter from Denmark. It was really good, and I understand they have very strict government regulations as to purity of dairy products.
I just heard Frances Townsend, Bush’s “Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism”, spouting illogical doublethink about al-Qaeda in Iraq. She kept referring to “the Homeland”, and I was hoping Steve Inskeep (the NPR reporter interviewing her) would say, “Do you mean the United States?”
I hate this bullshit. I live in the United States; for the first 40 years of my life I never heard it called “the Homeland”, even by John Birchers. The U.S., the good ol’ U.S. of A., the States. America; that’s my country, and it doesn’t need a stupid jingoistic name hung on it by the fucking neocons. (Was it Karl Rove’s idea? God, I hope he accidentally gets inflated with helium until he explodes. Why helium? So he’d sound really funny screaming in agony.)