Thus spake the President on our relations with Mexico:

“In the 21st Century we are defined not by our borders, but by our bonds.”

Even for an administration that regularly gusts such gaseous banalities, this was remarkable. It requires immediate Godwinification, really, just to take the argument to its logical extreme: that was Hitler’s justification for the Anschluss.

Sorry, but you see the point, no? Austria had a bond with Germany that meant more than a silly ol’ line on a paper. Hitler meant it, of course, but Obama may just be reading a trope his speechwriter didn’t think through. It would be possible to say we are defined by our bonds as much as our borders – still nonsense, still cloud-cuckoo-land transnational drivel, but you could pass it off as honeyed words to say while a the Mexican president is standing next to you wearing the look of International Concern. But apparently in the mind of the left, the argument has already been made: our bonds are already equal in importance to our borders, because we are bound by international causes we cannot solve alone, like global warming and reducing salt in ketchup. Any fool knows that. With confident strides, then, they take the next step: the bond more important definition than the border.

Once the border isn’t the most important thing, the border isn’t important at all. It’s like telling your next door neighbor that your common block defines you more than your front door. He would conclude that if needs your hedge trimmers for communal beautification, he can just come in and take them. (And then give them to an illegal immigrant to use, because he’s not doing his own yard work.)

You could almost construe it as another apology: sorry about being a separate nation, but it’s what we’re still stuck with in the 21st century. You go with what you have. Until you find out you don’t have it anymore, and then? Oh, we’ll figure that out. Europe has lots of good ideas on that front.

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