Jeff Jarvis recognizes that many commentators don't like the name of the proposed new cabinet-level executive department. He says -
I disagree with Mickey Kaus and half of Blogville already. Kaus doesn't like the moniker "Homeland Security." I do. He argues that "homeland" is too Teutonic -- too much like the Germans' "Heimat." What, so anything German is now Nazi and verboten? No hamburgers for you! (This must be the first time that PC anti-defamation finger-wagging has been done on behalf of Germans.)
I like "homeland" -- vs. the predictable "domestic" -- precisely because it conjurs up the idea of our nation, our Heimat, our land, our America. It has a patriotic undertone. That is precisely what the Department of Homeland Security should be about: protecting America.
And as for fears that "security" is too Big Brotherish: Get used to it.
Personally, I like the Germans and loved every minute of the years I lived there (except freezing my tuckus off in winter exercises!). And I don't really object to calling it the Dept. of Homeland Security.
However, in years and wars past, the territorial USA was never referred to as the "homeland." It was called the "home front."
So how about the Department of Homefront Defense? Or the Department of Homefront Protection? ("Security" sounds a bit too Stalinist for a federal department - the KGB was, in Russian, the Committee for State Security.)
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