If we talk about (and if protestors and drama queens and other leftists mention) Mexican irredentism and revanchism regarding its lost territories, another issue that we need to address is Manifest Destiny.
Several people have pointed out that the territory lost by Mexico belonged to "the feudal Mexican Empire" for only 20-25 years (previously to the "Spanish Empire"), while it has been in the USA for for over 175. But there are other considerations.
Manifest Destiny is a concept once revered, for over 100 years, but often derided by the Left in the past 60, 70 years — with shaking heads, tch-tchs, and deep soulful sighs. (Gracias por el InstaHiperVínculo, Sarah.)
Now, I don't know if you know anything about the geography of the North American continent.
Can we take a look at a map of North America? Can you find the United States? Okay. Now, the U.S. has two neighboring countries.
Look North. Then look South. Do you see Canada (above)? Do you see Mexico (below)?
Can you see those nations' Eastern border? Yes, it's the Atlantic Ocean. Can you see those nations' Western border? Yes, it's the Pacific Ocean. Just like with the United States between those nations.
So, guess what. It turns out that, up North, the Canadians (or, rather, the British) moved Westwards to the Pacific (reaching it earlier than their cousins in the United States did). And down south, it turns out that the Mexicans (or, rather, the Spanish) moved Westwards to the Pacific (reaching it earlier than their neighbors in the United States did) — just as the Spanish did, and as the Brazilians (or, rather, the Portuguese) did, in South America.
In the process, the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the British killed, massacred, or at the very least displaced the native peoples. And yes, they enslaved the natives as well.
So, here comes la question du jour: can someone tell us in what way the USA's territorial expansion is supposed to be an unforgivable sin, a shameful disgrace, a heinous crime, and an indisputable act of wickedness?
Now, Canada was a colony under the British crown, just as Mexico had been a colony under the Spanish crown (similar to the Spanish king's colonies in South America). Both had expanded to the "Western ocean."
The British and the Spanish may have used a similar term to Manifest Destiny, religious or otherwise, or they may have used no term at all, in their territorial expansions, but what difference does that make?
How condemnable is it for the only republic in North America to declare that there should be a right, God-given or otherwise, for the republic's inhabitants to copy their Northern neighbor along with their Southern neighbor and expand to the Pacific as well?
There is only one answer, and it is always the same: the United States, and the United States alone must always suffer opprobrium and be saddled with the sins, real or alleged, of mankind.
And thus, 2025 mobs pining for today’s burrito intifada (or today’s enchilada intifada) are motivated by the desire and the devotion to make California Mexico again (Mexico being the land — allegedly — not of racism and slavery and white nationalism and historical sins galore, but of entirely romantic events such as fiestas, tequilas, sombreros, and shooting squads). Sohrab Ahmari:
What we’re dealing with, in other words, is a scenario more akin to banlieue riots in France, in which a subset of the population feels little to no attachment to their country of citizenship and is bent on claiming — or reclaiming — space for other national or civilisational identities. Every few years, rioters claim the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis for Algeria or Islam. Likewise, LA is being claimed for the spiritual geography of Hispanidad.
But there is more. As Tocqueville writes,
It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.
One of the things we do not learn in this day and age is how close Britain came to fencing in its former colonies in North America.
In the 1840s, some twenty-odd years before Horace Greeley said "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country", there were strong international storms brewing (which would eventually lead to war with Mexico and a quasi-war with Britain).
Britain was claiming the Oregon territory, and it was trying to buy California from Mexico. Yes, you read that correctly, Raza radicals: many Mexicans were ready to sell the supposedly sacrosanct Mexican territory, or parts thereof.
Now take a look at the map again: Britain had Canada; Britain was trying to acquire all of the Oregon territory as well as California; and Britain was trying to sign an alliance with Texas, at the time an independent republic. (Nobody knew it, or could be sure about it, at the time, but the secret intention of the Texas president was always to join the United States as a member state; Sam Houston was playing with the British, along with the French, in order to hurry American politicians along as well as to get the best deal possible as well — something he was successful in, as is demonstrated among others in the massive size of the Lone Star state.)
Guess what! If all of London's schemes had succeeded, the United States would have been fenced in on three sides (or at least on two and a half sides) — and that, by the planet's then superpower. On the Northern border was the British province of Canada; along the Western (Pacific) coast would be the British colonies of Oregon and California; and on the Southern side, beyond the Mexican border (with Britain!), would be a British ally (the independent republic of Texas).
The United States would be relegated to the Atlantic Ocean (hardly much more than its length at the time of the 1776 revolution, plus Florida) and to part of the Gulf of Mexico (until the western part of the present state of Louisiana) — hardly worthy of being renamed the Gulf of America.
(Incidentally, and this will be a story for another time, the reason that Commodore Perry steamed into Edo Bay in 1852 was that the British Navy had made connections to all other nations and islands in the Pacific Ocean, rendering them inhospitable to the United States and keeping the latter effectively out of the Pacific. With regards to the notably isolationist island of Japan, though, which they did not wish to antagonize, the British had given up. And so the Yanks decided to rush in — with gunboat diplomacy.)
In any case, it was in this international atmosphere that John O’Sullivan wrote in the July-August 1845 issue of the Democratic Review that
“the fulfillment of our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”
And thank God for that!
May I repeat?
¡Gracias a Dios por eso!
NB: While No Pasarán is out of order, I am blogging here, at NP's sister blog.
Related: Other What Nobody Tells You About… posts in the Wayback Machine:
• What Nobody Tells You About Indians and Other Native Americans
• What Nobody Tells You About the Alamo and the Texas Revolution of the 1830s
• What Nobody Tells You About Apartheid and Jim Crow
• What Nobody Tells You About the Israeli Rave of October 7, 2023
