DO MAJORITIES REALLY RULE? PUERTO RICO case in point. (bankrupt, college)
U.S. TerritoriesPuerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, etc.
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If you read any text book of DEMOCRACY 101, the premise is that MAJORITIES RULE!
People are presented with candidates, most likely from the two existing parties, and we choose who we like. At the end of the day the one who has the most votes wins.
PARTIALLY TRUE, BUT NOT COMPLETELY.
The present president of the United States won without a majority. This has happened twice and folks don’t give it a second thought.
THROUGH OUT HISTORY THE RULING ELITES HAVE MADE THE RULES and Votes by majorities seem to be more a mythology then reality.
We tend to forget that there is something called THE CIRCLES OF POWER, which are a series of institutions that determine POWER. They also determine national interests. Do nations put their national interests to a vote?
It’s very laughable when we discuss here about plebiscites, specially for Puerto Rico, a territory that needs to solve its status because, what was OK and working in 1950 has become problematic in 2020.
We talk here about what Puerto Rican’s want, like if those desires go hand in hand with AMERICAN INTERESTS?
What then are American interests in keeping Puerto Rico, a bankrupt territory without any way of maneuvering itself out of ruin? . Is it in American interests moving a territory that resembles Quebec or Cataluña into the unión?
As a state, Puerto Rico will have more congressional representatives than 20 white English speaking states. I mention WHITE because race seems to be important during these times. It will be a state poorer than Mississippi. Nonetheless it’s CULTURAL identity is more like an independent nation, than a state, say like Iowa. IN FACT IT FUNCTIONS, IN MANY ASPECTS LIKE AN INDEPENDENT NATION without sovereignty.
What do we do with this territory?
Is independence the answer?
Is free association the answer?
If after reading this, statehood is your answer then how does it fit within American interests?
The president of the United States is elected with a majority, albeit with a majority of the Electoral College instead of a majority of the population at large. Given that the president of the United States isn't a nationally popularly elected office (candidates go after the popular vote in every state and, in some cases, congressional district), I'm not sure why this point is brought up. More to this point, its misleading to bring up the national popular vote when candidates don't run a campaign aimed at securing the national popular vote. If they did, who is to say that Trump would not have won the national popular vote, too?
As for Puerto Rico, I think at this point I think the best thing is either statehood or independence. This current setup where the territory doesn't have a full say via the federal representation in how its governed is inherently undemocratic. That said, given the partisan representatives that the island would likely send to Congress, I am not in favor of statehood unless Texas was allowed to split into two or more separate states to maintain partisan balance in Congress. There is a reason why Hawaii and Alaska were admitted at near the same time . . . it was to maintain a partisan balance in Congress. Admitting Puerto Rico as a state without also admitting another state to offset things politically would upset this balance.
First the political questions:
The United States is really a republic, not a pure democracy. Meaning final decisions are made by elected-by-the people representatives. This system is both pragmatic and practical (as of course we the people can't expect to go to the polls for every choice made by the government) and was implemented by the founding fathers to prevent "mob rule". Mob Rule, "the tyranny of the masses" is an inherent weakness in a pure democracy, as it oppresses, rather than enlightens. It oppresses the minorities - minority opinion, minority race, minority rights. A republic with a balance of power political system, somewhat decentralized, was the perfect compromise. Likewise the electoral college was designed to mitigate the power and control of high population urban centers. Without it, California and the states in New England would basically be choosing each president, and presidential preferential policy decisions would just benefit those states and ignore the rest. Population still matters, but once again it is mitigated. The founding fathers were smart, smarter then me or you.
In terms of Puerto Rico: The people of Puerto Rico have to determine what the future will bring. Statehood, independence, or continue as a US commonwealth. But before that, Puerto Rico has serious issues that need to be addressed, namely corruption. Financial problems and natural disasters have not helped of course. But you need to clean house, drain the swamp. It seems there is some sort of dynastic political system in place in P.R. where one corrupt politician is replaced by another. It's up to the power of the people to elect honest, non-corrupt politicians to represent your interests. The US government can't do that for you, although the FBI can investigate and bring charges against those corrupt politicians. Remember at the local and states level, again per our state/decentralized political system devised by the founding fathers, the people have even greater representative power. It appears that the people of Puerto Rico are fed up with the corruption, and that's good. However it's easy to be "against" something or someone, now it the time to be "for" something or someone. That is - an honest government in Puerto Rico.
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