Should Puerto Rico become a state?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I just gave the legal arguments for why Puerto Rico is a "separate nation", and has been for more than a century, but yeah I didn't make any meaningful statements on the matter.

[PointOfViewGun]

I just gave the legal arguments for why Puerto Rico is a "separate nation", and has been for more than a century, but yeah I didn't make any meaningful statements on the matter.

Since it (though contained no real legal argument) was unrelated to what I said in my post, yes, you didn't make any meaningful statements... I also thought my question was very simple, was it not?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Considering you just claimed that I sidetracked from my points about the question of Puerto Rico's citizenship status... can you read?

No legal argument? Bruh, have you ever heard of the 1917 Jones Shafroth Act?

Your question is irrelevant to the point of Puerto Rican citizenship.
But it's a simple answer: Puerto Rico is a US territory which means that Donald Trump is the President and Ricardo Antonio Rossello Navares is the island's governor.

[NorseThing]

More to the point of where the power lies though -- The US Congress has a great deal of power over all USA territories. At least you do not need to clear customs for shipments to Puerto Rico directly shipped from the USA unlike most other USA Territories. But things get messy by the Congress insistence that all merchandise must be shipped via domestic shipping. Congress meddles. The Jones Act is just the latest example. Yet Puerto Rico cannot make their case directly in Congress without admission as a state.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, commonly known as the Jones Act, is a United States federal statute that provides for the promotion and maintenance of the American merchant marine.^[1] Among other purposes, the law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27 of the Jones Act deals with cabotage (coastwise trade) and requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried on U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.^[2] The act was introduced by Senator Wesley Jones. The law also defines certain seaman's rights.
Laws similar to the Jones Act date to the early days of the nation. In the First Congress, on September 1, 1789, Congress enacted Chapter XI, “An Act for Registering and Clearing Vessels, Regulating the Coasting Trade, and for other purposes”, which limited domestic trades to American ships meeting certain requirements.^[3]
The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 has been revised a number of times; the most recent revision in 2006 included recodification in the U.S. Code.^[2] In early 2015, Senator John McCain filed for an amendment that would essentially annul the Act.^[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercha...ne_Act_of_1920

So at least Sen. McCain had his inner libertarian show itself for a moment. But these are the problems with US Territories. It in not really different form the British Empire though. The empire chose to devolve the empire into independent states. It would seem to me that any US Territory large enough to function with a viable economy should either be spun off or admitted as a state. We do not need to repeat the taxation without representation problem of the 18th century. We can and should learn from history.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

My real issue is that Puerto Rico was adamant about being separate from the USA. The only reason that Puerto Rican citizenship was included in the 1917 act was because Puerto Rico and its representatives pushed for it. So Puerto Rico can simply reject statehood when it wants, fair enough, but when they decide that they want to be part of the United States then it has to happen because they have an entitlement to take money and "fix" the problems that made their island a mess. I wish insurance worked that way.

[NorseThing]

Not to disagree with Lord Oda. but sadly I think the 21st century seems to work in this way. Federal flood insurance is not really shared risk, but a pot of cash that gets topped up by Congress whenever the pot runs dry.

This NFIP is designed to provide an insurance alternative to disaster assistance to meet the escalating costs of repairing damage to buildings and their contents caused by floods.^[1] As of August 2017, the program insured about 5 million homes (down from about 5.5 million homes in April 2010), the majority of which are in Texas and Florida.^[2][3] The cost of the insurance program was fully covered by its premiums until the end of 2004, but has had to steadily borrow funds since (primarily due to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy), accumulating $25 billion of debt by August 2017.^[2][4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...urance_Program

As Hurricane Nate -- the fourth cyclone to batter the U.S. this hurricane season -- aimed at the U.S. last week, the Office of Management and Budget issued a dire warning and a pessimistic prognosis to Congress. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) will have "fully exhausted its financial resources," including its $30 billion borrowing authority, before the end of October. After that, it will be "unable to pay claims," according to a letter that OMB Director Mick Mulvaney sent to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

But Mulvaney is asking for a lot more than that, such as measures that are sure to be controversial and divide Congress, in some instances along flood-prone lines rather than by party. "The NFIP is simply not financially sustainable in its present form," he stated in the letter.
Others, including environmentalists and taxpayer advocates, agreed. "More must be done to fix the nation's problematic disaster policies … including the NFIP," said SmarterSafer, one of those groups, in a statement.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal...r-be-the-same/

Then there is medical insurance that we no longer consider as insurance.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often shortened to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or nicknamed Obamacare

from wiki

This is simply a shell game of subisidies and cross subsidies making people believe they have insurance while the US Treasury is forking out billions.

It will cost the federal government – taxpayers, that is – $50,000 for every person who gets health insurance under the Obamacare law, the Congressional Budget Office revealed on Monday.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...or-50k-a-head/

Of course that previous article is from a few years ago, but you can get the idea.

Then there is the oldie but goody -- federal crop insurance. Now that was never insurance and it costs billions.

In January, the Congressional Budget Office projected federal crop insurance would cost the federal government $7.9 billion a year between 2017 and 2026. The federal government pays most of program premiums while farmers pay about 38 percent, the GAO found. As currently designed, insurance companies can expect to make about $1.3 billion annually over the next 10 years, the Congressional watchdog agency reported.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...say/616338001/

I could go on with the Social Security program about to go bust, but why continue. Insurance at the federal level can never be insurance because it is so political and the people that benefit are more motivated to elect people friendly to there desires than what few people in the general population not in on the game.

So I say, let Puerto Rico have their 'insurance'. It is an American tradition!

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Yeah but that's a bad thing.

[PointOfViewGun]

Considering you just claimed that I sidetracked from my points about the question of Puerto Rico's citizenship status... can you read?

No legal argument? Bruh, have you ever heard of the 1917 Jones Shafroth Act?

Your question is irrelevant to the point of Puerto Rican citizenship.
But it's a simple answer: Puerto Rico is a US territory which means that Donald Trump is the President and Ricardo Antonio Rossello Navares is the island's governor.

Yes, you've been sidetracking in the last couple of posts of your... Yes, the Jones-Shafroth Act came into my attention during my humble research. However, just citing it now, without any context, doesn't make your previous post full of legal arguments or any for that matter... My question is relevant to you claiming USA with Spain in this issue. I'm glad you realize how pointless your comparison was...

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

pssst, read post #25.

um... the Spain part of this isn't pointless, Puerto Rico had Spanish citizenship up to the Foraker Act because at the time Puerto Rico was still controlled by an American military government. Puerto Rico at the time was considered under occupation by the USA, given that its people did not opt to become American and pushed for separate Puerto Rican citizenship in the Jones-Shafroth Act then internationally the Spanish have still given them the option to be Spanish citizens (except in the cases where the individual has only American citizenship) and this recognition extends to the European Union by the way. So this is not as simple a diplomatic issue as you claim.

By the way I would appreciate it if you held back your snarky remarks, it really isn't helping your argument.

[NosPortatArma]

I feel that Puerto Rico would not contribute to the USA, since it is not culturally similar nor rich. It's the same reason you wouldn't want to directly annex any other poor and culturally foreign lands. It would be better to just give them independence, or have them join some other country, whichever the puerto ricans prefer.

[NorseThing]

Your comment about the culture does not make sense to me. New England is very different from the American SW. Culture does include language, but Canada seems to do fine with differing regions having either English or French as the dominant local language. There is already a bit of multi language to the overall American culture with Spanish (in some variant) being a second language. This is specially true for business.

Your point about wealth is true to a point. The median family income is quite low compared to even New Mexico.

The problems related to the electrical grid are more worrisome to me than cultural variations between regions within the USA though. And yes, the electrical grid is related a bit to the wealth disparity. But even within a single town, there are poor sections and wealthy sections.. I look upon the rich comment as more of a challenge than a reason to say no to statehood.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I actually would give NosPortatArma more credit. The majority of Puerto Rico does not speak English, something like 78% of the population are not particularly fluent at all and attempts at pushing English only have completely failed. If they don't even speak English then I see no point in annexing that island only to spend more money in attempts to make their public schools adopt English only courses or something of that sort.

Canada's bilingual/cultural system is really not that successful from the bureaucratic standpoint. That is really the relevant bit here, despite that only 21% of Canadians being exclusively Francophone. I also don't see the point in recognizing Spanish as an official language, everyone being expected to have a command of English is fine, it makes sense even, given that the overwhelming majority of the population in the USA speak English. Adequate communications is something that necessarily should be upheld.

The trend that keeps coming up is that administrating Puerto Rico would be problematic for many reasons, mostly to do with the economics. Subjectively one might say that Puerto Rico would not provide such a huge challenge but objectively it is just a bad idea plain and simple. I don't know how many ways you can look at the problem without coming to that same conclusion.

[NorseThing]

I wonder a great deal about the economic disparity problem. I find the differences between Hawaii and PR to be interesting. It would seem the real difference is that one has had a massive military financial input over the years and one has not had the same financial input.

The Hawaiian wealth cannot be a simply pineapple question, can it? Tourism plays heavy in both, but the cruise ships are more towards the Caribbean and the hotels are more for the Hawaiian. That cruise ship dynamic map be hurting the PR financially by in some way reducing development.


If this was RTW, I would simply off load about half the population to the east coast of mainland USA and develop the heck out of the island. To bad that real life does not work as a game though.

I admit that the finances problem is probably the key to solve before statehood can be a realistic goal. A few of the posts here make that much clear to me. Thanks for all the comments.

[Love Mountain]

The point about speaking English is great imo. This isn't about racism. America is an english-speaking country. If you want to be part of it and live in it and share all of the benefits that come with being American, at least have the decency to learn the damn language. Even illegal immigrants understand this. If the territory is insistent on being Puerto Rican first (whatever that means, apparently speaking Spanish) before being American, then they have no place being part of the Union.

[ByzantinePowerGame]

Puerto Rico is not worthy of statehood and the people of the USA deserve better than to be burdened with a corrupt third world basket-case that will be a drain on our collective resources.

[PointOfViewGun]

Puerto Rico is not worthy of statehood and the people of the USA deserve better than to be burdened with a corrupt third world basket-case that will be a drain on our collective resources.

Third world? Can you define that?

[Prodromos]

Many of these territories aren't "American." Their culture is different. They do not share the Anglo-Saxon/Greco-Roman/Christian heritage of America. They have different histories, different ways of thinking. Some of these territories literally operate much like tribal chiefdoms, with very little respect for American-style liberal democracy. The current arrangement is good enough. They are US nationals and protected by the US from foreign threats.--- That and the current political climate in America is very polarized and sensitive. Republicans have a 3-seat majority in the Senate. Each state, regardless of size, gets 2 senators. Turning these little territories into states would be outrageous and destabilizing, potentially fanning the flames of secession or worse.

[PointOfViewGun]

Many of these territories aren't "American." Their culture is different. They do not share the Anglo-Saxon/Greco-Roman/Christian heritage of America. They have different histories, different ways of thinking. Some of these territories literally operate much like tribal chiefdoms, with very little respect for American-style liberal democracy. The current arrangement is good enough. They are US nationals and protected by the US from foreign threats.--- That and the current political climate in America is very polarized and sensitive. Republicans have a 3-seat majority in the Senate. Each state, regardless of size, gets 2 senators. Turning these little territories into states would be outrageous and destabilizing, potentially fanning the flames of secession or worse.

What you say is true for a lot of regions in USA that are already states or parts of states. USA, or most political entities in the world, are not as homogeneous as people love to make them be. Why is it outrageous to make Puerto Rico a state and not outrageous that it's not already a state?

[Prodromos]

What you say is true for a lot of regions in USA that are already states or parts of states. USA, or most political entities in the world, are not as homogeneous as people love to make them be.

I disagree. Even if true, however, there is no reason to make things worse by adding more foreign cultures into the mix.

Why is it outrageous to make Puerto Rico a state and not outrageous that it's not already a state?

It would be outrageous because in this polarized and divisive political climate, elections typically have razor-thin victory margins. Republicans have a 3-seat majority in the Senate. Adding more states (who would likely vote solid Democrat) would wreck the political balance. If Republicans believe they have no chance of accomplishing anything at the federal level, secession may become appealing. Why participate in the political process when you have no chance of winning?

In general, there is nothing to gain and much to lose by making these territories into states. The people there are already US nationals/citizens, and if they don't like living there, they can freely move, live, work, vote, anywhere in America. It's a good arrangement. This statehood business is a blatant attempt by the Democrats to gain power in Congress, and potentially the White House.

[Love Mountain]

I disagree. Even if true, however, there is no reason to make things worse by adding more foreign cultures into the mix.

The unifying force of our country is not the concept of being "White enough".

It would be outrageous because in this polarized and divisive political climate, elections typically have razor-thin victory margins. Republicans have a 3-seat majority in the Senate. Adding more states (who would likely vote solid Democrat) would wreck the political balance. If Republicans believe they have no chance of accomplishing anything at the federal level, secession may become appealing. Why participate in the political process when you have no chance of winning?

Because secession is treason, and the same could've been said of post WW2 Democrat supremacy. Republicans took decades to recover, but they recovered nonetheless and are in fact the dominant party right now on every level of government.

In general, there is nothing to gain and much to lose by making these territories into states. The people there are already US nationals/citizens, and if they don't like living there, they can freely move, live, work, vote, anywhere in America. It's a good arrangement. This statehood business is a blatant attempt by the Democrats to gain power in Congress, and potentially the White House.

I have no interest in giving Puerto Rico statehood, but I'm not seeing any Leftist conspiracy here. The questions about Puerto Rico's status have been abound for years. I remember hearing the question in middle school.