I was browsing around on Disturbing Search Requests, looking at the pages of people who found odd things in their referrer logs, when I came upon one page wherein the author expressed the opinion that the democratic nations of the world coming together to fight terrorism "is the sound of the 'one world government' taking a huge step forward."

Now, I have never shared -- nor, quite frankly, understood -- the fear many Americans seem to have of a United Earth. Perhaps that's because my formative years were spent immersed in science fiction, where it's almost a foregone conclusion that humans will eventually see themselves as one people (though it usually requires hostile contact with an alien race to make them do so).

Not that "one world government" would get rid of the petty hatreds and prejudices that plague our planet. America is theoretically one nation, yet many Southerners cling to a hatred of the North, despite the fact that the Civil War ended well over a century ago. (Strangely, although the francophones tried to rip Canada asunder, it didn't end in bloodshed like it did in America. Perhaps the Canadians are simply more civilized.) And don't even get me started on the mutual unthinking animosity between the Right and the Left, or the hatred between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland.

No, there will be no "one world government" in our lifetime. Humans still cherish their hatred too dearly, whether it be based on accident of geographical location, or of language, or of skin color, or of religion, or of political philosophy. There can be no unity until such things no longer matter; in America, they were put aside for a scant handful of days after September 11, 2001 -- but once the shock of the attack dulled, the old hatreds reestablished themselves all too quickly.

The only thing that could possibly bring about a One World Government right now would be a fleet of alien warships massing in our skies.

And even then, we might just be screwed up enough to destroy ourselves instead of uniting.