Conspiracy mumblers, “Minutemen,” and militias are upset -- and they have email accounts.

Via my job in the news biz, I’ve gotten regular bulletins in the inbox from these folks about the coming “North American Union.” They even push a best-selling book warning against the dangers of America joining together with Canada and Mexico into one NAFTA-inspired supercountry.

I could treat this as another in a long line of stories about how our American liberty and independence are about to be ground under the heel of a multinational or global government (like how the Clinton administration was always days away from handing over our sovereignty to the United Nations). Or I could join in the “OH NOES! THE USA IS DYING!!!” team. Or I could take this bit of news seriously, yet not panic -- perhaps even consider how this could be a good thing.

Now, before you start to think I’ve gone all un-American on you, hear me out.

First thing to remember is in the NAU, who will be in charge. Mexico City? Ottawa? A certain building in New York, wherein no three people can agree on what to have for lunch, let alone run a continental government? Of course not. It will all be run out of Washington. For someone like me, living in Indiana with Big Brother already trying to run my life from D.C., little should fundamentally change. Once you consider this fact, the worries of the United States dissolving are unfounded. The name might change, if the NAU becomes official, but essentially it means that everything from the North Pole to Central America becomes the USA.

Another thing to consider is that even if this wild scheme is actually in the works, it would be far from a done deal. North America doesn’t exist in a vacuum; other world powers would have their concerns with the world’s number one superpower more than doubling in size. This includes Britain, which has solid ties to Canada via their Commonwealth. The Crown and Parliament aren’t likely to just sit idly by while a loosely connected member of the former British Empire becomes a permanent part of the American one. (Note that we are just presuming that the Canadians are so in love with America that the whole country will roll over and give up its sovereignty.)

But I don’t think the crisismongers are up in arms about assimilation with our neighbors to the north. Where they see America’s doom, and I see otherwise, is in joining our fortunes with the citizenry of Mexico. In the short term, I can see this being a difficult thing, absorbing a poorer country. Germany had difficulties with reunification, but is doing all right now. We don’t have a common culture to help the process, but that barrier -- even with language -- is getting smaller every day.

The people who should be worried are the people of Mexico. Once all the corrupt local governments, with their drug lords and near-feudal hold on the people, come directly under the thumb of Uncle Sam, don’t expect it to take long before thousands of battle-hardened desert-trained National Guard troops sweep in to take over. The “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” argument will make sense with the battleground just across a vanished border. And if we handle the natives correctly, we should be able to have them help with cleaning up their own quickly-Americanizing states.

Except for the initial fleeing-from-martial-law exodus, the constant flow of (formerly) illegal immigrants should finally slow down. But the big story here will be the flood running the other way. In the NAU, when a factory closes and moves south of the Rio Grande, you can move with it, as you would if it were being relocated to Arizona. In fact, count on thousands, if not millions, of Yankee carpetbaggers swooping down to develop cheap land in warm climates. Wal-Mart is already down there.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if the most outspoken new citizens of their formerly-Mexican desert and jungle hideaways will be the conspiracy experts, warning us of the dangers of the upcoming union with Columbia.