One of the basic principles of power politics is that when the correlation of forces within a given political setting no longer favors you, you change the the constituency. You can see this process in action. Illegal aliens become undocumented people. Soon they become undocumented Americans. The responsibilities of the state are no longer confined to its citizens. The USN must take the welfare of sea creatures into account when testing sonar; consumers in the West are supposed to consider water quality in China when deciding whether to take that “climate criminal” holiday or fill up that “obscene” car.

Little by little the world becomes divided not into nations, but into an international class of the enlightened and the beautiful on the one hand and the brutish and Bible-clinging on the other.

I’m not saying that all of this cosmopolitanism is bad. Rabid nationalism was no lovely thing either. But as with anything, we would ought to be careful about what we want, because we may get it.