Is it just me or is everyone a little frightened these days?

From the gun-toting, "you better stay in line, boy" folks, to the godless, "too pc to admit that the election of a black president comes with its own set of deeply embedded fears" people; the whole country is in a bit of a scramble.

Big governments make big moves, small governments make big claims, and withering, impoverished societies inadvertently facilitate disease epidemics that, if let out of the bag, could wipe out the entire globe. With erratic personalities like Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez in positions of power, it seems the decaying human ego is the only thing that stands between world-peace and complete atomic destruction.

Really?

Despite these common fears, I like to believe we've moved beyond the era of unadulterated, human imperialism. The modern system - the developing network of global communication and trade - is bigger than any one of us. It's bigger than Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan, and every other leader in human history. It's no longer a matter of find and conquer or bomb and colonize, it's a matter of technological development, transcontinental cooperation, and global dependency. Developed (and developing) nations feed off of each other in such ways that it is in no one's interest for a global power- like the United States- to fall.

Leaders may boast and threaten, but world powers need one another in this modern network. And as more nations develop and expand as a result of global communication, so will these societies be dependent on others. Combine this with the idea that mass-communication and the internet act as collective watch-dogs for human rights violations, unprovoked wars, and general despotism, and you're on the fast track to self-serving world peace.

It may mean the end of nationalism, and for some that might be a great loss. But if the path before us leads to more handshakes and less raping and pillaging, count me in.