" Figure that one out. Every single state has its own border patrol, and my kid still calls herself an American.” Angel shrugged. “I never really got patriotism.” “No,” Case laughed, “you wouldn’t. Some of us used to believe in it, though. Now we just wave the American flag so the feds won’t come down on us for recruiting militias.” “Countries…” Angel trailed off, thinking back on his own early life in Mexico, before the Cartel States. “They come and go.” “And mostly we don’t see it when it’s coming,” Case said. “There’s a theory that if we don’t have the right words in our vocabularies, we can’t even see the things that are right in front of our faces. If we can’t describe our reality accurately, we can’t see it. Not the other way around. So someone says a word like Mexico or the United States, and maybe that word keeps us from even seeing what’s right in front of us. Our own words make us blind. "

― Paolo Bacigalupi , The Water Knife