Puerto Rico

I have a lot I have to say about a lot of issues, and I have been having trouble sitting down and making sense of it all, but I am going to do my best right now.


Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and as one enjoys more freedom and self determination then most states do. it has an official language of Spanish and gets to compete in the Olympics and other international events as an independent nation, it is not subject to Federal income tax.



it is my opinion that Puerto Rico should become a state, and that all states should have a level of self determination that they have. I think that it should be up to a state wheather they are part of the nation as a whole, or if they want to compete individually i the olympics and other international events. and I think that to have a subjected second class Commonwealth makes us the definition of an empire, and that it creates in the mentality of our fellow citizens the idea that some people are better then others. a class distinction that goes beyond social mobility.



this does bring up an interesting point, if a nation subjugated by the united states becomes a state (as Hawaii did), does that kill the national identity of that nation? I do not think that it has changed the identity of the state of Hawaii very much. Hawaii has a very different model of state government then the rest of the united states, it has only one incorporated city, and that is a metro (city/county combination of government). local government is handled at the county level, and each island is its own county, save maui county, which has the island of Maui, Kaho`olawe, Lana`i, and most of Moloka`i, there is also the county of Kalawao, which is the smallest of all the countys and is located on Moloka'i. when you go to hawaii they have there own customs check that is seporate from the rest of the united states customs checks and anyone coming from outside the state (even from a US state) has to go through customs. when you drive around you notice that everything looks a little diffrent (there are no billboards per state law) the speed limit is much slower (there are only interstates on the island of oahu) and the signs are all if a funny language (hawaii is the only officialy bi-lingual state in the contry). there are parts of the island that are set aside for the natives only and you need a pass to visit, they also have a way of recognising reservations for there native population. they are a nation within a nation, as it should be. this is how it would be with puerto rico, they could even keep there drinking law at 18 (the fedral government requested that all states make there drinking law 21 or they would deny some funding for the interstates, but there is no fedral law making in 21).


if puerto rico became a state all it would do would give puerto rico a say in our fedral government. this also insures the contuniation of a depocratic form of government. if you look at the indepencance movements in hawaii, one of the biggist points against it is that it would give native hawaiians more say in the government, creating a race based class system, being a state protects that from happening. with this said I think that every nation on earth should become a state of the united states of america, that is the only way to truly insure a democracy.

for everything we say about bringing democracy to the world, we don't do much to do it, the idea of giveing people there own demcracy with out bringing them into the arms of the united states, we are just lying, and doing what we do as a flex of military might, not any true desire.