They are just taking their land back you say?

Not so fast:

1) Mexico’s claim to the American Southwest it lost to the United States devolved to Mexican rule from Spanish claims, claims which were never universally recognized. In many cases, it was merely a 12-man expedition passing through and giving places names and claiming them for Spain in the name of God and the King. Further, as the Vancouver and Sir Francis Drake expeditions had already claimed the Pacific Coast right up from around present-day Rosarita, Baja all the way up to what is today Vancouver Island in British Columbia, OUR royal ancestors were first in claim and right in any case, if one accepts this sort of claim as having legal force.

2) Additionally, and more importantly, Spain did not settle any of these lands in any serious manner. The most significant settlements were the string of Catholic Missions up through California to San Francisco, and these settlements were of a religious character with a religious mission rather than building new Spanish settlements.

3) When Mexico inherited the claim by default when it acquired its independence, it discovered that “its” lands were almost entire devoid of Mexicans and by far the largest group present in them were Anglo-Americans, who, unlike the Spanish, had built actual settlements, roads, farms, towns, militias, etc.

4) Mexico attempted to counter-act the facts on the ground by the classic Spanish tactic of Latifundia, i.e. the awarding of HUGE ranches to wealthy landowners in Mexico City who were politically connected. Not surprisingly, only a few of these newly-minted rancheros actually took possession of their lands.

5) In Texas, Mexican attempts to deal with the Anglo-Americans there ended up in a military conflict, and Mexico lost, fair and square. I don’t know much about this, I’ll let the Lone Stars speak for themselves.

6) In California, by contrast, those same Mexican rancheros *joined* with the Anglo-Americans to form the California Republic. Thus, Mexico did not just lose historic land to the Americans, it lost it to a joint rebellion of Americans and its own citizens. And it lost them for good reason: they didn’t really rule the territory in anything other than Spain’s old “plant the flag” sense.

6) The rest of the land lost was still largely empty and Mexico knew it couldn’t hold them if they couldn’t hold Tejas and California, and for good reason: again, their sovereignty over that land was more theory than practice.

Said by a commenter named “Jourdan” over at voxday.

“Greece has admitted joining the euro in 2001 on the basis of figures that showed its budget deficit to be much lower than it really was.”

Goldman Sachs helped them fudge numbers to dip below the qualification bar. Tho bravo, they really milked the EU for all it’s worth.

But I do hope they don’t default, because:

“Slovenia’s exposure to Greek debt is the third largest after Portugal and Cyprus in terms of GDP%.”