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Today was… eventful.

We have some family that lives out in the country to the southeast of Franktown, Colorado. It's about a ninety-kilometre drive from where we're at. Indeed, it was incredible to spend some time with family. It was fantastic to spend the day engaged in conversation with people who have a mutual background and mutual commonalities even if they are ninety-kilometres away.

So, five hours later after we had eaten too much, talked a good deal and repaired a motorcycle way too many times, we left. We made the voyage all the way back to our home in Arvada. Later in the evening, I saw my parents entertaining the neighbours in our backyard. Neighbours are not family. Where relationships with neighbours might go back a decade, relationships with family go back a lifetime. However, family lives in far away places: Franktown, Tennessee, New England, Arizona… even Hawaii. The neighbours… live next door.

I liken this to internationalisation. Colonialism isn't the means of doing business these days. It would seem that nations are more content with teaming up with other nations working together for their common benefit. However, when you look at the commonalities between nations, it really doesn't correspond geographically. The United Kingdom has much more in common with Australia than it does with France despite the fact that Australia is literally on the other side of the planet and France is just across the channel.

In the United States, we pretty much have the same issue. Specifically, I'm talking about a “certain political scientist” and a “certain senator from Colorado” who are pretty much evil. We have a nation to our south that has incredible potential. It would be mutually advantageous to pursue closer relations with Mexico, but instead, Huntington and Tancredo would have us build a fence and keep each other out. For some reason, we are supposed to do business with nations that lie across oceans while neglecting a nation that borders this one all because they aren't white enough, Protestant enough or English-speaking enough.

I'm really not advocating an extreme here. I'm not saying that this nation should neglect the relationships that have been forged with other nations that might be on other continents. What I am saying is that it needs to stop neglecting the people next door. We need to invite the neighbours over.