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Cuba and the Philippines were already fighting for independence from Spain when Spain ceded them to America. in fact, the Philippines fought a valiant war albeit a losing war against the Americans. even after America had pacified the Filipinos, the Filipinos didn't stop fighting for independence. they lobbied American Congress to grant them Independence.
I don't think that's the case for Puerto Rico. I believe they are just contented of being a "colony" which is not a bad case if you know how to exploit it like HK did. but then HK has strategic position at that time vis a vis China, which PR doesn't have.
Spain didn't cede holdings to the US, we took them by force. (We did pay a token $20 million for Guam, Philippines, PR.) We held ourselves out as allies to the Philippine revolutionaries - who didn't realize that once the curtain went down on Spain there, the curtain went up on US ownership. We promptly threw our momentary allies into prison, or hunted them down, & proceeded to Christianize the islands, even though the Spanish had been @ it since 1564 - but some people just don't learn, eh?
Offhand - The Spanish constitution granted PR citizenship in 1812CE, but a revolution was put down in 1868. Spain granted PR self-government in 1897, but this was repealed when Spain lost the Spanish-American War. PR was merely unfortunate in their timing, in terms of fighting off Spain.
Spain didn't cede holdings to the US, we took them by force. (We did pay a token $20 million for Guam, Philippines, PR.) We held ourselves out as allies to the Philippine revolutionaries - who didn't realize that once the curtain went down on Spain there, the curtain went up on US ownership. We promptly threw our momentary allies into prison, or hunted them down, & proceeded to Christianize the islands, even though the Spanish had been @ it since 1564 - but some people just don't learn, eh?
Offhand - The Spanish constitution granted PR citizenship in 1812CE, but a revolution was put down in 1868. Spain granted PR self-government in 1897, but this was repealed when Spain lost the Spanish-American War. PR was merely unfortunate in their timing, in terms of fighting off Spain.
Quite the subjective reading of history - i.e. judging 19th century foreign policy by today's standards.
PR is not of strategic interest to the US any more. The PRs are free to become independent anytime they choose - and it is very likely the US would do nothing. The same holds true for American Samoa. Guam is likely different but you don't see any significant independence movements in any of those places.
Puerto Rico is beautiful, but it doesn't pay it's bills. When catastrophe hits, they don't have the credit to pay for repairs.
No good reason the mainland should pick up their tab.
Have a brother-in-law like that!
Puerto Rico should be granted statehood so they can pay federal taxes. Puerto Rico will never be an independent country and they never have been. There’s no reason Puerto Rico can’t be built up to be a nice place. It’s a very pretty island and has some amazing historical towns. It should be a huge tourist destination similar to Hawaii.
Now that their infrastructure has been decimated we should rebuild it properly and to modern standards. Grant them statehood and rebuild. Require all new government signs (roads, trains, etc)to be in English and Spanish which they have already been working toward.
English is already the official language in PR. There's no need to require anything, because we've already, for many years, provided government services in English upon request. Can everyone PLEASE inform themselves on PR before making comments on it?
Puerto Rico is beautiful, but it doesn't pay it's bills. When catastrophe hits, they don't have the credit to pay for repairs.
No good reason the mainland should pick up their tab.
Have a brother-in-law like that!
So what happens if a US state is going to go bankrupt, and they have a major disaster? Screw them, unless they are a dyed-in-the-wool red state?
So what happens if a US state is going to go bankrupt, and they have a major disaster? Screw them, unless they are a dyed-in-the-wool red state?
If US states are not held accountable for their poor fiscal decisions what do you think will happen? They will look to the Feds to bail them out, meaning people in states that have made good fiscal decision get penalized. Libs are all about "fairness". Is that fair?
That’s why, sucking on the US taxpayer. Too addicted to free money.
Your country wanted to possess the damn place, but now you imperialists among us wanna wash your hands of the place when they’re down on their luck.
This is easy...you’re gonna fix Puerto Rico, so you may as well quit crying about it. Where’s the money? Take it out of the defense budget. Close all of our bases overseas, and get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wow...billions of dollars for P.R. are laying around all of a sudden.
They have held referendums 3 times on the issue of statehood vs independence vs the existing commonwealth. Each time the commonwealth won. If you visit neighboring islands it becomes obvious that independence is a direct road to economic disaster. Puerto Ricans now pay federal taxes, but the money stays on the island. In the event of statehood that money would go to Washington to be squandered there. Every state would like to keep the money that now goes to Washington for their own needs.
Puerto Rico lies in a major hurricane path, the infrastructure needs to be storm proof. The government owned power company failed to do this. There is talk of corruption in the power company management.
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I wonder why Protestantism is just a tiny percentage of the population if Americans Christianize the natives?
