Like, the only reason countries exist is because some rich guys decided that they ruled this chunk of land, and everyone else just kinda said “Yeah, whatever, I don’t really give a shit, just let me farm and leave me the fuck alone”.
Then the rich guy on the next bit of land said “I want a bit of what he’s got going on”, and before we knew it, all the bits of land were ruled by people who’s only claim to them was that they were the first to have the idea.
Fast forward a few thousand years, and some of the bits of land are ruled by people who wear gold hats and spout a load of bollocks about divine right, while some of the bits of land are ruled by people who convinced the rest of the people to let them do it, and really, there’s no difference between, like, France and Spain, but some old dudes drew a line and said “Nah, that bit speaks this version of a language, and that bit speaks another version of it”.
You ever think about that?
I think about things like this all the time. Take the Louisiana purchase, the Americas “bought” a swath of land from the french. The French barely “controlled” any of it, and the concept of them “owning” it was completely theoretical. The Native Americans were the only people living in the majority of it. Rich people doing rich people things. Crazy
And we just crack on like none of this is fucking mad.
I think about this a lot. I live in the midwestern US, and it’s wack. We’re literally sending troops to “protect” a border that was established by colonization and genocide.
Speaking as Brit, you’ll need to clarify which border you’re referring to, because the US has got troops at quite a few of them.
The US-Mexico border, which is militarized because … racism. The extremely remote stretches of the US-Canada border are monitored remotely, I believe, probably by both militaries, but on the whole it’s less militarized. I think that’s it for US land borders. (Unless there’s half an island colonized somewhere.)