Manifest Destiny was born in 1845 when U.S. politicians sought to justify the seizing of other countries’ territory as God’s plan for America, starting with the annexation of half of Mexico.

Actually, we didn’t have a name for this land lust in 1803 when President Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United State by purchasing the Louisiana Territory for $15 million. The deal “outed” Jefferson as a Democrat when people saw he spent money he didn’t have for property he never saw. Spendthrift!

Now we are coveting Greenland, keeping in mind that St. Augustine’s definition for a justifiable war was to be sure we could win. I am sure President Donald has already compared our military forces with Denmark’s and feels that we could sneak up on them during the dark season and win. Maybe we could even blame Monaco for the body count.

You may think Greenland is not a matter about which North Dakotans should be concerned but there are a few of us who care about the homeland. (My mother was Danish.) In fact, Uncle Thor was in Greenland twice – once to explore and once to recover his mittens.

Uncle Thor said that people first inhabited Greenland over 4,500 years ago when their forbears came from Canada – about the time Moses was faced by the Red Sea on one side and Egyptian chariots on the other. Greenland now has 58,000 people.

The Norsemen settled Greenland in the Tenth Century to escape persecution by the King of Norway, known as King Mean the Seventh. Eventually, he took anger control therapy, ate a lot of lutefisk and became quite mellow.

President Johnson the First (1867) thought of buying Greenland when it was cheap but he had already spent our disposable income on Alaska for which he was the world’s laughing stock until the Yukon gold rush. Even the Russians laughed as they caressed their rubles but now regret the sale.

By the time Franklin Roosevelt came along with an offer of $100 million in 1946, Greenland real estate values made it look like chump change.

In 1946, our Joint Chiefs of Staff argued that we should have Greenland because it was “completely useless to Denmark.” They apparently didn’t know that Greenland was brimming with valuable minerals -rubies, iron, uranium, tungsten, nickel and more to be discovered.

With lust eating his soul, Trump the Last wanted Greenland so desperately that he cancelled a trip to Denmark when Greenland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Interior Matters and Other Stuff said they were not interested. Instead, they offered a fabulous deal on ice but the president showed no interest.

If our real estate tycoon could have gotten his hands on this 836,000 square mile island, he would have divided it into lots to sell for occupation for the duration. If you were around in World War II, you were drafted “for the duration” because the end was unknown.

The same with lots in Greenland. All rational people know that the earth is warming and a big melt will occur but nobody knows when. In fact, our great grandchildren will probably be alive to see their progeny die slowly in the heat.

Unknown to most of us, the United States had “Camp Century” for holding nuclear devices in Greenland. A plane with four such weapons on board crashed and only three were recovered. So if you have the fourth one, the government wants it back.

Well, Manifest Destiny was stopped in its tracks by Denmark but our insatiable land lust must be fed if we are going to make America even greater again. So keep an eye on those land auctions.