Our language police have their hands full.

Lately, they have pushed the Berkeley (California) City Council to scrub supposedly sexist words like manpower and manholes — in favor of human-effort and maintenance holes. (Please imagine a worker saying “Hey Sam, pry open that maintenance hole, would ya?”)

Berkeley also wants its employees to use they and them — instead of she, her, he, and him. No more brothers and sisters. Only siblings. No more masters of anything. In the case of ships’ masters, there now can only be skippers or pilots. I have no idea whether they have a police chief. After all, chiefs were men when they led tribes.

The language cops have persuaded the University of California, Berkeley to ditch words like fraternity and sorority — in favor of “collegiate Greek system residences.” That will surely become a popular term.

Meanwhile, Colorado State University’s language guide suggests that students abandon words like male, female, ladies, gentlemen, Mr., Mrs,, Ms., and freshman. 

The language police want to limit your use of the words America and Americans. You are not supposed to say you are an American. Because this implies that Canadians and Mexicans and Brazilians are not part of America. As in North and South America.

In a recent column, Brent Bozell and Tim Graham brought us up-to-date on such demands from the language police. Included in the list of no-no words are cakewalk, eenie-meenie, peanut gallery, and thug. Somehow, all of these offend African-Americans.

Terms like “Long time no see” and “No-can-do” apparently offend Asian-Americans — because many of them whose English is limited use such phrases. 

The language cops assure us that hip-hip-hooray is a Holocaust reference. And that when you say you are starving for pizza — or for anything — you offend people who are food-insecure. I think food-insecure means starving. But don’t quote me on that. I don’t wish to land in language prison.

You are not supposed to say you are addicted to chocolate or football — because that will offend people addicted to booze or drugs. You can also no longer be buck-naked.

You are not supposed to say someone is holding down the fort. Because this may offend nearby Indians. Bozell and Graham point out that you should not say Indians. You should say Native Americans. They acknowledge that this will offend Brazilians and Mexicans.

The language police truly face mountainous tasks.

Consider the thousands of words that imply sexism: cowed, bullied, half-cocked, king-sized, queen-sized, cockpit, male plugs, and female plugs, plainclothesman, hen-pecked, cold-cocked, and witch hunt among them.

Then we have our names. What will be the fate of Peterson, Hoffman, Roman, Herman, Amanda, Coleman, Samantha, Solomon, and Truman? And Thompson? The worst of the lot is Manson.

If they intend to be even-handed, the language police will need to hunt down 3,300 words that begin or end with man. And the 6,500 words that contain man.

Their efforts could hardly be called a manhunt. And they will not be allowed to say they are managing their task.

Who pays for this attack on your language? You do. Your taxes fund city councils that embark on such stuff. Your taxes fund the professors and college administrators who fill their time with it.

We must be pretty wealthy to afford all this nonsense.

From Tom…as in Morgan.        

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home in upstate New York. Contact him at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com, read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com, or find him on Facebook.

I’ve been struck recently by news coverage of climate change and humans’ degradation of the planet. Two opposing themes keep appearing. One is the sense that, as individuals, there’s little we can do; the forces are too large. The other — and I think many Americans would agree with this — is that as citizens of the planet we have a responsibility to protect it and to pass it on in good shape to those who follow us.

So how do we reconcile those warring impulses — not just on the environment, but on many global and international issues? How, in other words, do we engage with the world?

Because make no mistake: as Americans, we are global citizens. It’s not just that the world has deep-seated, unavoidable problems that, if ignored, will bite us where we live. It’s that we inhabit a preeminent world power that bears a responsibility to lead. 

If you pay attention to international meetings, you can’t help but notice that other countries have for many years turned to us to take the lead. That’s diminishing under our current administration, but not because other countries (with the exception of China and Russia) are eager to take our place. Shaping the global order has been a central feature of our identity and our history. Abraham Lincoln spoke of American freedom as “the last best hope of earth.” JFK promised to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Ronald Reagan spoke of this country as a “shining city upon a hill.”

I don’t actually agree with the boundless sense of American power and responsibility suggested by Kennedy’s promise. The truth is, we couldn’t “pay any price” or “bear any burden” back then, and we can’t now. Our obligation in its broadest terms is to try to make our nation and the world safer, freer, and more prosperous when and where we can. But we can’t do it all.

What does this mean for us as citizens? It means we have an obligation to inform ourselves about the world we live in. It means we should learn about international affairs, visit other countries if we’re able, learn a foreign language, read what foreign leaders have to say. We should engage with people from other countries, both here and abroad, and work hard to understand the challenges that other countries and their citizens confront. In short, we should try to see problems not just from an American perspective, but more broadly.

Beyond that, I think that as Americans, we ought to be first in line to respond to humanitarian disasters and to raise our voices in support of innocent people who have been mistreated. Where we can, we should try to lessen tensions between nations and groups, reduce conflict, and improve the quality of life for all. We should be perceived to be a benign power.

Yet we have to do all this with keen awareness of our limitations. We can’t solve all the world’s problems. We can’t pour our resources into every challenging place and problem. We need the help of others and should welcome it. We have to be smart about how we use our power. We have to reserve the right to use force as a last resort, but diplomacy and development should be our preferred tools of engagement.

I’m uneasy talking about “American exceptionalism,” even though I really do believe we have a responsibility to the world. I’m far more comfortable when we show we’re exceptional. If we really are exceptional, others will notice. We don’t need to flaunt it.

In the end, we have to look at our responsibilities as global citizens quietly and confidently, with humility, and try to contribute to a safer, more prosperous world. That’s something we can all do, and a goal we should push our leaders to pursue.    

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.