- cross-posted to:
- housing_bubble_2@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- housing_bubble_2@lemmy.world
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No, this is what we do. 51=17x3. 52=26x2. 53, however is a prime number so it can’t be divided.
We make PR a state, Guam, and DC.
AND WE BECOME… One nation, indivisible.
You have . . . a point.
Squish the Dakotas together and make PR a state, we wouldn’t even need a new flag.
Wymonkota, anyone?
No silly, we COMBINE some of the 18 low-population states so we can go back to 48! One nation 6x8, with a better balance in representation! Or 45 could be nice as well.
overly positive elementary school teacher voice* “okay low pop states find your buddy.” “to make it easier for some of you if your state starts with a cardinal direction congrats you’ve already got a preassigned merge buddy and new name!”… “ah no Kansas, ‘Ar’ is not a direction, you and Arkansas wont work you don’t even share a border hun” “…unless” Kansouri-Oklasas
We need to copy Canada: just give up and assign that unpopulated blob as “Northwest Territories “. All done in one move
No factors, still divisible.
Until Puerto Rico is a state, I believe they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. No taxation without representation.
this is also why the license plates in DC have the slogan “taxation without representation”
But that would shift the election in favour of the Democrats…
Yes - if the GOP can’t survive more proportional representation, they shouldn’t.
If it wasn’t for gerrymandering and voter suspension they would’ve been extinct a while back. We might’ve even had something other than a 2 party system and ranked choice voting. People would be surprised by what could be if we didn’t have a greedy minority in a big ass coat pretending we want to see them make all the money while they keep squeezing us for our pennies.
But hey, I should be thankful for my 30k a yr and paying for insurance that’ll tell you to forget about surgery just slap a bandaid on it
Don’t forget the electoral college…
Broken-ass excuse for a democracy that’ll be shattered if Trump wins.
Puerto Rico should be it’s own country.
Personally, I think we should force the island to choose its fate. We can’t keep the status quo going forever. The idea of a nation like the US maintaining a colony with millions of people on it is a historical anachronism. It was a mistake to ever create the colony in the first place, and it’s a mistake to keep it going. We should force the Puerto Ricans to make a choice. A new binding referendum. Pass a statehood bill that grants statehood to PR based on the results of a final binding vote. And that referendum has two and only two choices on it - statehood or independence. They’re either all the way in, or all the way out. The choice is theirs.
I know in principle that, from a self-determination perspective, that Puerto Ricans should have a full menu of choices available to it, including staying a territory. But it’s high time for the US to get out of the colony business. US territory status should be reserved for holdings that are so sparsely populated that they would never possibly make a viable state. But Puerto Rico is just way too large to justify holding as a territory.
We need to solve this problem. And I think we should have a final binding referendum, one where statehood or independence will automatically happen based on the results of that referendum.
Why not a state? Seems silly to think they’d want to build up their own military and international relations.
I can see why some would want to be independent. There are downsides to being in a fixed currency union with the US. Inflation that’s driven by a booming economy on the mainland can drive up prices in PR, even if there isn’t a corresponding economic boom there to justify it. Puerto Rico currently has to endure the Jones Act, which substantially drives up the price of goods shipped there from the US mainland. They wouldn’t be subject to it if they were an independent country.
You mention a military, but as an independent country, they wouldn’t actually have to field a big military. Look at the other states in the neighborhood. The Dominican Republic is a good model. They currently spend about 0.7% of their GDP on the military, the US spends about 3.5%. And that’s what they spend sharing a giant land border with Haiti, a completely failed state. Most of their military is on that land border trying to keep people from coming across. As a whole, military spending in Central America and the Caribbean is quite low. The whole area is in the US’s backyard, and the US is never going to accept some other nation going on a warpath through the Caribbean. If tomorrow some later-day Napoleon takes over the Dominican Republic, and they decide to invade island after island in some grand imperial war, the US is not going to sit back and just let that happen. For the independent nations of the Caribbean and Central America, the US’s generations-long policy, overt or covert, is, “don’t worry too much about overt military threats from your neighbors. If anyone actually threatens your borders, we’ll stop them. Stay in our trading sphere and don’t ally with adversarial powers to the US, and your security is assured.”
Realistically, an independent Puerto Rico would have zero external military threats to worry about. What limited military it would need would mostly be spent protecting its territorial waters from illegal exploitation, or in preventing migrants from coming in from nations undergoing severe political discord. But if anyone ever tried to invade them, the US would certainly step in.
In fact, their only serious threat from invasion would come from the US itself. If an independent Puerto Rico decided for some reason to seriously ally itself with China, and let the Chinese Navy set up a huge base on the island, or something similar, they could end up as a second Cuba.
But as long as they don’t do that, they would face few security threats. Realistically, like other island states in the area, an independent PR would need very little military spending. Hell, the US would likely pay for the entire PR military through generous security assistance grants provided in exchange for letting the US keep military bases on the island.
If the citizens of PR want to go full Cuba - seize all the tourist and other assets held by mainland investors, become friendly with Russia/China, go fully overt socialist or Communist? In that case, independence would likely turn out very badly for the future of the island. But if they want to become independent, but just take on a roll very similar to the other independent island states in the area? - Remain friendly to the US, keep trading with the US, largely rely on the US for protection from overt military threats, etc? They could actually do quite well by independence.
Of course, there are advantages to statehood as well. Having your citizens fully eligible for all forms of federal assistance, when your population’s average wealth and income is well below national averages? That has some advantages. It would allow PR to give welfare benefits to their poorest people at a level of generosity that they could never afford to do as an independent state. Plus having representatives and Senators can’t hurt. Smaller states often are able to divert federal spending to within their borders in exchange for a vote in the Senate.
So really, I can see valid arguments on both sides. But personally, I think it’s time we settle the matter. I’m in favor of Congress passing a law which directly forces the issue. Pass an act that grants either full statehood or full independence to Puerto Rico - and make it entirely contingent on a final binding referendum. I think territories like PR are an anachronism in this day and age, and I think the US needs to get out of the business of holding heavily populated territories. I think our territories, at least those with any more than a trivial number of people on them - should either be granted independence, be fully integrated as proper states, or be folded into existing states. I don’t mind some tiny rock with 5 people on it remaining a territory indefinitely, but we shouldn’t have territories where thousands of people live on them without full representation. I’m in favor of passing laws that force the issue on all of our present territories. Personally I would be fine giving the US Virgin Islands the choice - join PR in statehood or become independent. For the ones in the Pacific, the choice could be - join Hawaii or become independent. Or maybe we could just fold all the remaining non-Hawaii states into a single new state called “The State of Outlying Pacific Islands”. I’m sure the first act of that state’s legislature would be to come up with a better name for the place.
Of course, there are advantages to statehood as well. Having your citizens fully eligible for all forms of federal assistance, when your population’s average wealth and income is well below national averages? That has some advantages.
Especially since Puerto Rico is right in hurricane alley. This is going to become increasinly relevant, fast.
Also, it seems like such a huge issue to force unless there’s a giant majority one way or another, which would only happen if there was some MASSIVE benefit or detriment to becoming a state (which is totally possible). If they marginally decide to go one way, and the next years the population realizes it was a huge mistake due to changes, they’re screwed.
Just as an example, the U.S. could actually go mad, and Peurto Rico would want nothing to do with them. If they were already a state… that would suck. Alternatively, maybe we hit some climate tipping point sooner than expected, and hurricanes become such an existential threat that they need federal help to deal with them. If they became independant, well, that’s not an option anymore. Both very possible scenarios.
I don’t see them as even tangentially American. It’s a totally different place, people, language and culture. They are as American as Barbados, Jamaica or Cuba.
Speaking as a Floridian and general Southerner… could not disagree more.
That’s how I feel about Dakotans. Not even close to American.
Just take statehood away from North Dakota and give it to PR so we can keep the number of stars and stripes.
Number of stripes isn’t going to change; it’ll stay at 13.
50 stars is boomer shit. Time for 51.
Change the number of stripes, too. Add blue stripes, turn the red stripes pink, and ditch the Bald Eagle for a shark.
Only then will America truly be Woke.
My understanding is that many Puerto Ricans don’t even want statehood.
About 50-60% want statehood, it’s the majority opinion, but a lot of people like not having income taxes
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They just want independence iirc
That’s actually a pretty fringe belief on Puerto Rico
I honestly don’t think this would ever get support. Puerto Rico is very republican last I checked so dems aren’t exactly incentivized to vote it in. And republicans don’t want it because that would be fair treatment to a minority so
I’m more interested in PR having representation then how it affects my own opinions.
Yeah I agree, I meant more the actual lawmakers aren’t terribly incentivized
Irony of the situation that the same Republican Party hates Puerto Ricans so much. I hope PR folks understand that when repubes say migrants are rapists, druggists, and murderers they also mean you - even though you’re not migrants - MAGA doesn’t give a fuck to the fact that you’re citizens.
Which is why, like in all past state additions, you do it in a way that is balanced based on contemporary divides, like slave vs free states. Puerto Rico and DC at the same time.
I don’t think “very republican” is accurate but definitely not as left leaning as Dems like to believe. There is a deep seeded mistrust of government while at the same time high expectations of benefits from the government. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ So the bottom line is that you just can’t tell which way they would go and that’s not a gamble either party wants to take.
Until the population clearly wants statehood or independence, we get the status quo
Kamala should seize on this and say she’d push for statehood, if not for anything other than to watch Republicans say they would oppose it.
Dems don’t want it to have statehood either. It would make Puerto Rico less exploitable, and the donors don’t want that.
A better way to say is Puerto Rico has more US citizens than 18 US States. If the goal is to piss off maga that is.
This page from 2020 says 20
https://puertoricoreport.com/population-puerto-rico-exceeds-populations-21-states/
A comment on that linked story says:
Unfortunately, this article is 3 years old and the data is inaccurate. Immigration from PR to USA has been huge in last three years; thus, you should update your data!
Yeah, But if you look even closer and do the math. They updated that article in 2020. Its four years out of date. Hence the reason why the url has 21 in it and the current version of the article has 20 states but the current number is 18 states.
I am surprised conservatives don’t want to add PR as a state, Republicans would definitely get more reps voting along religious lines in congress
If a potential new state has a relatively heavily (say 60%+) lean then it’ll never be admitted unless steps are taken to balance it out. Like how certain subdividing of California could. Unless the Democrats have a supermajority in both houses, and the President, and they actually get their heads out of their asses enough to get something done, I doubt Puerto Rico will ever get statehood. They might want to kick out the overrepresented continental real estate assholes first.
That is some Missouri Compromise level bullshit and it led to the first civil war. Fuck that. Stop giving racists an unfair artificial advantage.
Where did he say that? All I see is then pointing out that unless dems control the house, senate, and presidency, it would never happen.
Surprised at 18, but guess it’s not that surprising.
DC also has more people than 2 states. Basically if you take the top 52 subdivisions of the US by population, the only 2 that aren’t states “just so happen” to be the two with the highest minority populations.
Well, DC was very explicitly created so that the capital would not be in any state, so while they should get senators and representatives, they should not become a state.
It would be more democratic if Puerto Rico had the same congressional representation as a state. Same with DC. Also, maybe the number of senators for every state should be proportional to population, again to make things more democratic.
What is Puerto Rico, I’m not American.
It’s an explicit colony of the US that has numerous laws and policies explicitly designed to drain money labor and resources from it while giving them fewer rights than other citizens. In fact they only have citizenship since the world wars so they could be subjected to the draft.
