Manifest Destiny, or Not

In the book "Manifest Destiny" there was a lot of discussion describing the religious state of the United States. The chosenness of the American people seemed a prevalent idea (as that was Stephanson's definition of the phrase). A particular section or word choice on the author's part struck my fancy. On page 36 the author describes America's plans for Mexico,

"The chief intrigue concerned the exiled Mexican general Santa Anna, whom Polk planned secretly to ferry back from exile and assist in resuming power, after which, in return, he would gratefully sell the desired territory to the United States (California). On the assumption that this would mean a short, little war, that indeed the United States would even be greeted as liberators, Polk confidently advanced American troops to the Rio Grande. When the Mexican army retaliated, Polk declared that the United States had been invaded and so war began.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? While we are not currently in Iraq because they invaded our territory, we are there for a presumed attack on the United States by someone. Is it then that we are not perhaps the chosen people? Our destiny was forged by men who desired good land and worked hard to beat out the competition even through unlawful means. What does this suggest for the history of our country? The hard toil was done by slaves, our wars fought be ignorant troops, and the country's foundation built upon a christian faith that no longer seems to rule our society. I'm not sure how this quite connects to space being the final frontier. We think of space as being empty, but really it is full of beings and things that we ignore and plow over to encourage nature to be more productive. Space isn't the final frontier, because there will always be more of it. Instead we should refer to it as the continuing frontier.