We live in a global community, albeit a sprawling one with critical thoroughfares I'll never cross. Even the places I know so much about and where my ancestors lived and died, I have barely been, whether it was on 3 separate trips to London or nary a step in Scandinavia, Lithuania and so it goes on. In 2004, with a train layover in Strasbourg, I had an hour on my hand to wander the town, not knowing I was on the border of another ancestral home, the region of Baden-Württemberg.

The thing is: memories fade; borders disappear; and our definition of our world changes. In time, as we push into our solar system and beyond, our world will drop the weight of its political boundaries. The more mobile we are, the faster that we travel, the more this transition will take shape.

It's already in place with trade. I don't really think about what countries were involved in the making of my breakfast. Even my upcoming order from Black Rifle Coffee Company, which is about as 'Merica as you can get with its support of the military and first responders, whose website basically comes off as Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" (and really makes that Seattle coffee company look like they hire a bunch of Richmonds from The IT Crowd) illustrates this point:

While I'll likely be receiving my order from their roaster in Coffee County, Tennessee, 130 miles as the crow flies from my home, the beans themselves are from Columbia and none of us give it a second thought about it.

(Sidebar: the detractors might rail against the low pay of the workers involved, but let's step back and think, "Do the workers not realize the work is hard and the pay is low? That they can just quit that job and work at the high tech firm down the road? Or, is it more likely that they literally have the highest paid job that their local economy makes available to them. What happens to them if that farm/factory closes down? We should trust that the actors involved will try to take the best position available to them.)

So, trade globalization is something that we don't otherwise think about because of the speed involved (or our awareness thereof). In time with technological expansion, will our political hegemony fall as well?