ifrtbttrflys
Loves Spam
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2016
- Posts
- 378
This is 2017: colonialism and territory stuff is so 20th century old news. Puerto Rico is just about sunk financially, with thousands of Puerto Ricans abandoning its listing ship every year.
Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and all Puerto Ricans are considered statutory US citizens at birth, meaning that the Constitution doesn't guarantee their citizenship, but current US law does:
The clamoring out of San Juan today is tainted with victim hood and collective socialism; sense the militant tone in what the new Governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, proclaimed yesterday (Monday, January 2, 2017) at his inauguration:
I say, "fine", and recommended passing and enacting legislation that repeals Puerto Ricans becoming US citizens at birth, and cutting Puerto Rico totally loose and allowing them to sink or swim in glorious independence as an island nation dependent on no one but themselves.
Puerto Rico is almost 1K miles south of Florida.
America "won" Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, Guam and the Philippines (the Philippines also at a cost of $20 million paid by the US to Spain) in the 1898 Treaty of Paris as victors of the Spanish-American War.
Cuba gained formal independence from the US in 1902.
The Philippines gained full independence from the US in 1946 after WWII.
Guam is an island in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific, a little over 7k miles from the US west coast and almost 4k miles from Hawaii.
Guam proved to be a pivotal possession during WWII, with the Japanese invading and defeating the US garrison there the day after they attacked Pearl Harbor; the US retook its territory in 1944 and then built five airfields on it to serve as a jumping point for B29s to bomb other islands in the western Pacific and mainland Japan. Guam is still a US territory, essentially America's most significant forward military post between The Aloha State and Asia, as Guam is home to both Naval Base Guam and Andersen Air Force Base. Guam celebrates its Liberation Day annually on July 21 - the day in 1944 when the Americans returned to eventually defeat the Japanese in The Second Battle of Guam (which turned out to be the last battle for Guam).
Obviously, then, there's some significant purpose and history between the US and Guam.
Just as obvious is that there is also some significant history between the US and Puerto Rico, although it's a bunch more dark.
Woodrow Wilson was the first US President to get legislation passed and then enacted to make Puerto Ricans US citizens: he needed Puerto Rican men among the bodies America would send off to WWI. And warm bodies for war was the same reason legislation was again passed and enacted in 1941, as Roosevelt geared up for WWII (which was ravaging already in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific).
On Nov. 1, 1950, just five years after WWII ended, two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Truman with the cause of independence for Puerto Rico as their only reason. The President's protectors stopped the assassins from getting close to Truman, but one of the assassins managed to mortally wound one of the President's protectors, yet the officer didn't die until after he was able to return fire, killing the assassin. The surviving assassin was convicted and sentenced to death, which Truman commuted to life; the failed assassin's life term was commuted as time served and he was released in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, free to return to Puerto Rico.
On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Ricans opened fire from a visitors' balcony of the chambers of the US House of Representatives, where 240 Reps of the 83rd Congress were in session: 5 were wounded, one of them seriously - all recovered. All four shooters - one a woman - were caught and convicted. On September 6, 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted all four shooters' effective life sentences to time served, and they were released to return to Puerto Rico.
Obviously, there was a time when Puerto Ricans were willing to turn to terrorist assassination to try to win their independence, and the nationalist movement is still alive and well (albeit much less death-seeking).
I say it's high past time for Puerto Rico to set sail on its own and try to become whatever it deems to be as an independent nation. Heck, all they have to do is a Philippine Duerte and China'll immediately step in and help them out with all their financials failings.
NO TO PUERTO RICO STATEHOOD
BTW: if any majority of folks of any of the US territories desired and sought full independence, I'd be all for it - there can never be too much independence as far as sovereign nations are concerned, imo.
And if a majority of Hawaiians desired to reclaim their independence, and especially considering how it was stolen from them in the first place, I would most certainly be all for them, too.
Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and all Puerto Ricans are considered statutory US citizens at birth, meaning that the Constitution doesn't guarantee their citizenship, but current US law does:
Sec. 302. [8 U.S.C. 1402] All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after April 11, 1899, and prior to January 13, 1941, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, residing on January 13, 1941, in Puerto Rico or other territory over which the United States exercises rights of sovereignty and not citizens of the United States under any other Act, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States as of January 13, 1941. All persons born in Puerto Rico on or after January 13, 1941, and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, are citizens of the United States at birth.
The clamoring out of San Juan today is tainted with victim hood and collective socialism; sense the militant tone in what the new Governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rossello, proclaimed yesterday (Monday, January 2, 2017) at his inauguration:
"The United States cannot pretend to be a model of democracy for the world while it discriminates against 3.5 million of its citizens in Puerto Rico, depriving them of their right to political, social and economic equality under the U.S. flag," Rossello said in his inaugural speech, delivered in Spanish. "There is no way to overcome Puerto Rico's crisis given its colonial condition."
https://www.mail.com/news/politics/...mises-push-statehood.html#.7518-stage-hero1-9
I say, "fine", and recommended passing and enacting legislation that repeals Puerto Ricans becoming US citizens at birth, and cutting Puerto Rico totally loose and allowing them to sink or swim in glorious independence as an island nation dependent on no one but themselves.
Puerto Rico is almost 1K miles south of Florida.
America "won" Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, Guam and the Philippines (the Philippines also at a cost of $20 million paid by the US to Spain) in the 1898 Treaty of Paris as victors of the Spanish-American War.
Cuba gained formal independence from the US in 1902.
The Philippines gained full independence from the US in 1946 after WWII.
Guam is an island in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific, a little over 7k miles from the US west coast and almost 4k miles from Hawaii.
Guam proved to be a pivotal possession during WWII, with the Japanese invading and defeating the US garrison there the day after they attacked Pearl Harbor; the US retook its territory in 1944 and then built five airfields on it to serve as a jumping point for B29s to bomb other islands in the western Pacific and mainland Japan. Guam is still a US territory, essentially America's most significant forward military post between The Aloha State and Asia, as Guam is home to both Naval Base Guam and Andersen Air Force Base. Guam celebrates its Liberation Day annually on July 21 - the day in 1944 when the Americans returned to eventually defeat the Japanese in The Second Battle of Guam (which turned out to be the last battle for Guam).
Obviously, then, there's some significant purpose and history between the US and Guam.
Just as obvious is that there is also some significant history between the US and Puerto Rico, although it's a bunch more dark.
Woodrow Wilson was the first US President to get legislation passed and then enacted to make Puerto Ricans US citizens: he needed Puerto Rican men among the bodies America would send off to WWI. And warm bodies for war was the same reason legislation was again passed and enacted in 1941, as Roosevelt geared up for WWII (which was ravaging already in Europe, Asia, and the Pacific).
On Nov. 1, 1950, just five years after WWII ended, two Puerto Rican nationalists attempted to assassinate President Truman with the cause of independence for Puerto Rico as their only reason. The President's protectors stopped the assassins from getting close to Truman, but one of the assassins managed to mortally wound one of the President's protectors, yet the officer didn't die until after he was able to return fire, killing the assassin. The surviving assassin was convicted and sentenced to death, which Truman commuted to life; the failed assassin's life term was commuted as time served and he was released in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, free to return to Puerto Rico.
On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Ricans opened fire from a visitors' balcony of the chambers of the US House of Representatives, where 240 Reps of the 83rd Congress were in session: 5 were wounded, one of them seriously - all recovered. All four shooters - one a woman - were caught and convicted. On September 6, 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted all four shooters' effective life sentences to time served, and they were released to return to Puerto Rico.
Obviously, there was a time when Puerto Ricans were willing to turn to terrorist assassination to try to win their independence, and the nationalist movement is still alive and well (albeit much less death-seeking).
I say it's high past time for Puerto Rico to set sail on its own and try to become whatever it deems to be as an independent nation. Heck, all they have to do is a Philippine Duerte and China'll immediately step in and help them out with all their financials failings.
NO TO PUERTO RICO STATEHOOD
BTW: if any majority of folks of any of the US territories desired and sought full independence, I'd be all for it - there can never be too much independence as far as sovereign nations are concerned, imo.
And if a majority of Hawaiians desired to reclaim their independence, and especially considering how it was stolen from them in the first place, I would most certainly be all for them, too.
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