HOW insular is/are the U S?

In terms of its Physical Geography, the American continent has been an island since the Panama Canal was completed in 1914. It follows therefore, that the United States of America is indeed an island. Insularity as a character-trait is quite different, obviously. It testfies to the ability of a person or entity to position itself effectively by adjusting its orientation to its surroundings: No Man is an Island (John Donne)

In this hub, I do not intend to allow my personal value-judgements to influence the reader, beyond a few remarks by way of clarification. I shall simply relate the orientation of three public figures, and one public body in relation to the world at large.

CNN dateline 6/27/2008 Mandingo weighs in on Zimbabwe crisis

'Former South African President Nelson Mandingo has weighed in on the tense situation in Zimbabwe, calling the violent political crisis ' a tragic failure of leadership.' His criticism comes as the countries of Tanzania, Swaziland and Angola call for a postponement of Friday's runoff election...'

Practically all the world knows that the name of the former President of the Republic of South Africa is Nelson Mandela, not Nelson Mandingo. As my Latin tutor was fond of asking, Quis custodiet ipsos cutodies? 'Who will watch the watchers?' - or something along those lines.

Sarah Palin

According to Steve Schmidt, The strategist who proposed her as Senator McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin thought that 'the Queen of England is responsible for 'on the line decisions with regard to...British participation in Iraq, which she had difficulty picking out on the map'. Cartographic inadequacies aside, a popular question on the British Constitution paper set for 17 to 18 year olds was:

'The Queen reigns, but does not rule'. Discuss.

Part of the answer would lie in the fact that as Britain is a Parliamentary Democracy, even though the Queen exercises a number of Royal Prerogatives, all questions of government are decided by Parliament. This fact may not have been widely known outside Britain, but surely such a prominent figure, a symbol of her country....ought to have some basic knowledge of the political system of a country which exploits every opportunity to emphasize its Special Relationship with the United States.

Rick Santorum

In his attempt to reduce Obama's chances, Rick Santorum expressed the belief that the Welfare System and the National Health Service have cost Britain her 'world domination.' In his opinion, 'The sun didn't set on the British Empire They lost heart and faith in themselves and in their mission, who they were and what values they wanted to spread around the world.'

'Herman Cain the pizza mogul...

...did not know that China had nuclear weapons, and could not remember which country Libya was.' (The London Daily Mail 1/5/2012, Toby Harnden).

Insularity is a function of Socialization. Discuss

Donne was a Metaphysical Poet. He was discussing Insularity in relation to the continent of Europe in Meditation XVII from his Devotion upon Emergent Occasions - but the lesson is universal.

'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of their friends or their own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Geographically Challenged?

It may well be that the US is such as big place that its citizens find it hard enough to keep abreast of evens within the country without looking outside its borders. But, again on 2/3/12, the London Daily Mail published a couple of Geography-mediated errors. The problem with such sustained errors is that although they may not necessarily be of great significance to anyone knowledgeable enough to recognize them as such, they could have important implications for the perceived reliability of the perpetrator.

The most recent, as disemminated in the Daily Mail Online and in hard copy, was CNN's displacement of the capital of England to a location 183 kilometers away, in the county of Norfolk. The French city of Cannes in the French Riviera was re-located in Spain;Tripoli, the capital of Libya was transferred to Lebanon, and the 2010 World Cup was up-rooted by Chicago's WGN from South Africa and re-located in South America, 5,000 miles to the west. It would appear that in this example, the Cardinal Point (South), was given greater importance than the Continent. At the same time, Fox News replaced Iraq with Egypt.

In a 2005 survey, 10% of Americans aged between 18 and 24 were unable to find the U S on the map, and could only find New York. it is important to emphasize that these errors were not diseminated by private individuals, or calculated to influence the knowledge of World Affairs transmitted to the 212 countries covered by news media such as CNN, Fox News, or Chicago's WGN, whose performance holds very important implications for the world-wide image of the U S.

To finish on a pedantic note: the US could not help being insular - It is an Island. Nature solves the problem of connectability in very peculiar ways. For example, there is a town called Mustang in Oklahoma, and another one in Nepal.