Post-it Notes from a BIG Country

There are distinct disadvantages to living in a big country. Doubly so for a big country isolated from the other ninety-five percent of the world’s population. We can come, or jump, to some pretty strange conclusions. Big countries allow for a lot of jumping space. We might assume that the other people on planet Earth are out of their minds for not playing ball with us, instead preferring to play a far more exhausting form of “football”. Obviously, they’re only doing this to piss us off and threatening our interests overseas. One of the conclusions we don’t come to is those “interests overseas” are really other people’s. Other people’s countries, other people’s children, other people’s families, and other people’s lives. That’s what we’re talking about when we use the phrase, “our interests overseas.” In a big country they seem so remote, it’s as if they aren’t real people like us. They are more inanimate objects, even abstracts, but certainly not real people like us. As I said, some pretty strange conclusions.

Much of our foreign policy is driven by the need to protect our interests overseas. It seems perfectly reasonable. After all, they are ours. Personal property is the cornerstone of freedom, right? Pretty strange conclusions.

It’s a big country. So big we can forget where our boundaries lay.