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PR is a 3rd world culture that regretfully has American citizenship. They have nothing to add to the US. Best to cut them free into an independent country to do their own thing.
PR is a 3rd world culture that regretfully has American citizenship. They have nothing to add to the US. Best to cut them free into an independent country to do their own thing.
The same could be said for parts of West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and other states. If we're going to use maker vs taker criteria for determining statehood, many of the Southern states would be cut free.
Puerto Ricans are Americans. If they want statehood, then they should be a state, with all of the rights and responsibilities that goes along with that. If they want independence, that's fine, too.
I think that’s what we all want. But they have to be prepared to function in their every day lives in English and live up to American standards.
Why? Please show us where it says our official national language is English. You know at the federal level? Or are state rights not a thing anymore?
Do you also plan on kicking out Hawaii for continuing to use Hawaiian immersion schools and making hawaiian an official language along side English. You know the same way English and Spanish are both official languages of PR?
I live in a blue state in the Northeast. I would rather have Puerto Rico as a state than some of the red states that take so many more federal dollars than they give.
The country was a cool idea, but the red and blue states have too little common ground these days, to the degree that "united" is sort of ironic. Maybe split it up, the NE could become its own country, and we will take PR off your hands.
77% of the electorate stayed home to protest the referendum that is a fact. The Commonwealth Party (PPD) and the Independence Party in Puerto Rico (PIP) supported the protest. That's why 23% of the electorate went to vote the lowest in Puerto Rican history.
the average voter turnout for Puerto Rico elections is 60% (A little higher than the USA).....when they have only 23% turnout for the statehood referendum then you can't ignore the protest vote which 2 political parties in P.R. campaigned for it.
This.
The people of Puerto Rico have overwhelmingly voted for the common wealth status quo for many years in any referrendums that have been presented.
I lived there in 2002 when it was voted on again. Before the vote, polls I saw showed roughly this:
1- 40% wanted common wealth
2- 30% want statehood (the pro USA folks, and many of those had lived on the mainland also before)
3- 20% wanted independence (mostly hard left types (think FALN), and independence came with heavy, long term subsidies, paid by the USA of course)
After the vote was held, it tipped as 90+% as continuing as a common wealth. That told me that Puerto Ricans liked things the way they were, and did not have a particular desire to lose their culture or way of life.
Sila Calderon was re-elected as the "Super Commonwealth" governess, promising to channel even more money from the mainland into PR, without the need for Puerto Rican resdients to pay any federal taxes.
Puerto Rico has shown a very poor history of self governance on the island itself, within the confines of being a common wealth, primarily regarding corruption, budgets, and realistic programs.
I do not mind the common wealth status as it is, but do not think statehood would be beneficial to the USA.
Puerto Ricans now get many benefits from the close ties to the U.S., but seems to offer very little.
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Would you support statehood for Puerto Rico?
