On Sun, 3 Aug 2003, Joseph Hertzlinger wrote:

On Wed, 30 Jul 2003 17:49:54 -0700, Conrad Hodson <conradh@efn.org>
wrote:

If they know that much, they also know that that particular city is
the seat of politicians who are addicted to saber-rattling, who do
not respect international boundaries unless it suits them,

What if they regard national boundaries as a primitive superstition?
They might be waiting until we get over that.

They might be, but if they're smart enough for starships one hopes they're
smart enough to avoid wishful thinking too.  In other words, even if our
hypothetical alien lurkers "don't believe in" national boundaries, they
exist _now_, including the one the aliens have defined between themselves
and us.  We don't rule them, they don't rule us--de facto national
separation even if all the Earth were united, and all the aliens had the
Grand Galactic Orgy or whatever.

Simply making us an "Eeeeewww!" reserve defines a boundary.

Conrad Hodson