As some of you know by now, most of my long time readers do at least, that I am an expansionist. I believe in idea that the American borders are not fixed. They could and should extend beyond their current geographic locations. I have occasionally teased, taunted, and purred - erm, metaphorically, folks! - at some of my canadian friends over the subject. I have occasionally teased Brit friends that they could become a state (or five) instead of joining the EU. It's fun for amusement. Ditto about taunting the folks that worry about American culture radically diverting from what they grew up with (ie those that worry about the so-called Latinization of America).
Realistically, this is my kooky belief. Everyone is allowed one and this is it for me. Well, that and the fact that IBM derived machines (aka seaborg) hate and fear me: they show it by crashing when I go on rotation even when I don't login to them! It's bad enough that my wife thinks someone's messing with me at work. A bit more on topic though, the likelihood of Canada or Britian or Mexico joining the US is very, very low.
I do try to keep tabs on our bordering neighbors even so. Google alerts are one of the tools that I use for that. This is especially helpful with Mexico since I don't read spanish well as yet and the translator tools are not that good, frankly. One of the most recent emails from GAs that I recieved was from what seems to be a rather distasteful site with an article entitled, "Top Ten Reasons Why the US Should Not Marry Mexico" (google it if you want, I found it very distasteful and refuse to link). I then found the rest of the website to be rather nativist and as a husband of an immigrant and descendant of scores of immigrants (as well as having ancestors here prolly long before the dimwits at that website) I find the whole thing ridiculously hypocritical.
That made me realize that if I really believe that we ought to expand the borders, that I really ought to comment more on it. The very least I ought to write things that are something of a rebuttal to crap like the above. I have posted some about Canada. I need to do this for Mexico.
I'll be starting next week.
Realistically, this is my kooky belief. Everyone is allowed one and this is it for me. Well, that and the fact that IBM derived machines (aka seaborg) hate and fear me: they show it by crashing when I go on rotation even when I don't login to them! It's bad enough that my wife thinks someone's messing with me at work. A bit more on topic though, the likelihood of Canada or Britian or Mexico joining the US is very, very low.
I do try to keep tabs on our bordering neighbors even so. Google alerts are one of the tools that I use for that. This is especially helpful with Mexico since I don't read spanish well as yet and the translator tools are not that good, frankly. One of the most recent emails from GAs that I recieved was from what seems to be a rather distasteful site with an article entitled, "Top Ten Reasons Why the US Should Not Marry Mexico" (google it if you want, I found it very distasteful and refuse to link). I then found the rest of the website to be rather nativist and as a husband of an immigrant and descendant of scores of immigrants (as well as having ancestors here prolly long before the dimwits at that website) I find the whole thing ridiculously hypocritical.
That made me realize that if I really believe that we ought to expand the borders, that I really ought to comment more on it. The very least I ought to write things that are something of a rebuttal to crap like the above. I have posted some about Canada. I need to do this for Mexico.
I'll be starting next week.
You appear to be suffering from the same ethnocentric crisis Bush and other neo-cons suffer. You express the desire to expand U.S. influence and yet are curiously annoyed when other countries resist the imperialistic ideals you espouse. Throughout history there have been empires, successful for awhile, but when a critical mass is reached geopolitically, the state spins out of control. The surest expansion is economic--not political. Abandon tariffs imposed as political protectionism or blackmail and the resulting international economies will act as a stabilizing force. Unfortunately, such a system results in a class society within each state, so destruction will come from within.
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