FLOWING, NEVER EBBING

Thinking about the Crimea situation, it occurred to me that we Americans have difficulty comprehending the ebb and flow of borders because ours have never ebbed.  The boarders of the USA have increased over the centuries and we never lost ground.  Tiny exceptions only tend to prove the point.  The Japanese held two tiny worthless islands in the Aleutians for a brief time.  The same holds for some other Islands in the Pacific like Wake Island.  We lost the Philippines, but in that case we just gave them to the inhabitants voluntarily.  We continue to keep Puerto Rico for some unknown reason.

As time goes by Americans will be even less able to comprehend what it's like to have boarders that may or may not reflect ethnic/cultural reality.  America is degenerating into a nation without a people.  A legal entity representing no common culture or race.  It is therfore understandable that we cannot grasp what it is like to be a people with a unified culture enduring shifting borders.

There are no once kindred communities of our fellows stranded in Canada or Mexico.  We do not regret the loss of lands once teaming with our ancestors.  We have no lost capitals.  To us, borders are at once arbitrary and yet unchanging.  Perhaps one day when our country is destitute and unable to resist, we will deeply resent the loss of California via some plebiscite among the majority Mexican population.  Or perhaps we may secretly rejoice?