Courtney’s Thoughts:
Barry and I have been having this hot debate for a decade. We’ve tackled pizza (twice), superheroes, music, sports, vacation spots, parents, beach parking, regrets, and dozens of other random topics. When the well is running dry, one of us will lob out an idea so far-fetched that we could turn it into comedy.
That is what this month’s topic feels like. Expect it isn’t far-fetched. It actually happened. In America. And I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
Sure, I can play the game and contemplate how funny it would be to randomly take over another country. I would likely use food as my filter.
Mexico would be an obvious choice, given my love of tacos and margaritas, which would no longer be limited to just Tuesdays.
Maybe Scotland, where you can enjoy steamed mussels while overlooking the loch from which they were just harvested.
Or France, where champagne is automatically served with a side of fries.
The allure of siestas being built right into the day makes Spain sounds sleepily spectacular.
And Italy, where you can eat pizza and pasta every single day and never gain a pound.
But I also know that as a leader, clarity of boundaries is your superpower.
And you don’t need to be the leader of any country to know that you are not “randomly” allowed to take over other countries. Under modern international law (and specifically the United Nations Charter, circa 1945), the use of force to acquire territory is illegal. By the by, “force” is considered “legal” only in specific, non-random circumstances like self-defense or authorization from the United Nations Security Council meant to restore international peace and security.
So, despite my love for champs and frites, and the fact that we get paid by the word, that’s all I have to say about that.
In case you’re unfamiliar with this island paradise, Tuvalu is a beautiful South Pacific country that is currently being evacuated due to heightened hysteria over the global warming hoax.
Barry’s Thoughts:
My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to say that our long, national Dry January is over and we are back on the imperialism wagon! As I write this, we have just taken over Venezuela, but I’m fairly confident by the time you read this that Greenland and possibly even Canada may have also been merrily brought into the fold as new semi-independent-but-not-really U.S. interests.
I hear some of you out there hemming and hawing about sovereignty. But it’s like the president said, does it give someone the right to own a country just because they landed a boat there 500 years ago? It needs to be at least (checks notes, does math) 534 years to count.
Plus, we’ve earned this, OK? Over the past 70 years or so, we have been really good, limiting ourselves to a regime change here and there or creating the odd puppet government during the Cold War. We deserve a treat, and for a proud nation such as ours, that means getting manifest destiny all over the place and adding a few new stars to Old Glory.
First stop? England. If we’re making the heel turn, might as well start with our bestie, right?
The thing is, we’ve already kind of loosened the lid on this one. England already hosts a few NFL games a year. While they are on the devil’s metric system, they measure speed in miles per hour as God intended. They seem to speak some form of American. And they already elected Boris Johnson, who is pretty much just our president with the steering wheel on the other side.
At this point, the rest of Europe will be on high alert, which means it’s the perfect time to zig. You thought we were done with you, Vietnam? Not America 2.0. We’re the generation of pigeon hawks who were raised on the absolute glut of movies we made about our last war with you, and we missed the point of all of them entirely. So we’re coming back for vengeance. This one’s for you, Bubba from Forrest Gump.
If the current models being put out by the government are correct, we should have five new countries under our control by mid-May. With summer just around the corner, it’ll be time to add somewhere tropical to the portfolio. Yeah, we already have one Hawaii, but you can never have too many, right?
And here’s where my doctrine reveals its brilliance. The summer stop on our world tour brings us to Tuvalu, a nation as fun to say as it would be easy to invade. In case you’re unfamiliar with this island paradise, Tuvalu is a beautiful South Pacific country that is currently being evacuated due to heightened hysteria over the global warming hoax. I mean, just because the islands are measurably shrinking and their drinking water has been completely overtaken by ocean water doesn’t mean it’s the CO2 boogie man, right? But if they’re going to overreact and flee to higher ground, it makes it that much easier for the good old U.S. of A to swoop in. Surf’s up!
If all goes according to plan, and it always does when we get into the business of nation building, we’ll have a good chunk of the globe on the books by Christmas. That should give Elon all the time he needs to get us rocket ready to liberate the moon, ensuring that the sun literally never sets on the American empire.
