[Palmyrene]

@Patrickov

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -9-charts/

Polls and statistics indicate this. This is about popularity abroad not which country is "better".

You shouldn't have to refrain from making personal attacks over something so asinine.

[Tainari88]

Sure, i don't deny that some countries still have colonies left. The difference is that the colonies that are currently part of the EU states or USA are colonies who didn't want to leave in the first place. After Breten woods we dismantled most of the colonies because there was no need for them. (The market was open via Breton woods). So basically the US perhaps did the most to dismantle the colonial system.

Now why some of the colonies still there? Simply because they find it beneficial to be part of the X country. I know you like Puerto Rico a lot and you dislike treatment of it by Trump. But you probably understand yourself that Puerto Rico probably would vote to be a full US state in an instant if given the chance. Plus it gets assistance from the US and has deep economic ties by now. It is a complicated subject but the outline is the same for the colonial holdings around the world that are still part of the EU/US:
1) They have a lucrative relationship with the main country.
2) They usually are either satisfied with their current status or want to fully join the country.
3) They are not mistreated because there is no need anymore nor is it the way of US/EU. (This means they do not enforce laws that are harmful to the colony in an impireal sense: slavery, overlordship, unfair trade etc)

The final part of the issue is that some former colonies actually want to come back to the previous colonial countries either in a form of free trade or actually outright joining. The last part is rarer but there are notable examples like Hong Kong who, again, would vote for joining back the UK in a blink of an eye if they were given the chance.

John Rawls you have a very abysmal understanding of colonialistic relationships. The reason why Empires take over a land base is not for the colonized to benefit greatly from the Empire (empires are not charities John Rawls doing good works with no self interest involved) the reason they exist or are done is to benefit the imperial power. In the Spanish American war of 1898 when the USA got a hold of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Phillipines and Cuba, from Spain, was because they wanted sugar, they wanted military bases and they wanted control of supervising both the Pacific and the Caribbean region, Central America and parts of South America. The Southern Command zone. This is very well known. It is not about how beneficial it is for the colonized. In my Hurricane Maria thread I discussed how the USA has made a lot more money and profit OFF of Puerto Rico than Puerto Rico has wound up making from the USA over time.

That you think that being colonized is a benevolent act done by empires to 'help' the needy colonized folks is a huge miscalculation on your part. Actually Puerto Rico doesn't have a clear voting majority that favors statehood and union with the USA. It doesn't. Between the Commonwealth status quo folks and the pro independence people the statehooders are not the majority of Puerto Rican voters John Rawls. You are misinformed.

Guam has an independence movement. So does American Samoa. Why? Because the USA congress ignores the needs of the Guamanians, the American Samoans and the Puerto Ricans, etc. It doesn't pay attention to what the colonized islands want. It only pays attention to what it can get out of the one sided relationship they are talking about in the video.

Your arguments are ignorant in the extreme about colonial histories all over the world. Try harder.

[Verv]

Tainari, I think that you are also overlooking the fact that the specific places you named receive a whole lot of benefits from being part of the US Empire (or however you want to call it) than they would if they were outside of it.

Indeed, it is preferable to be part of it than to not be part of it.

The fact that some people value the concept of independence more than their monetary relationship with the US reflects highly on them, but such movements are probably short sighted. Unless, of course, they can make an arrangement where they get to fleece the US government in aid money every year.

[JohnRawls]

John Rawls you have a very abysmal understanding of colonialistic relationships. The reason why Empires take over a land base is not for the colonized to benefit greatly from the Empire (empires are not charities John Rawls doing good works with no self interest involved) the reason they exist or are done is to benefit the imperial power. In the Spanish American war of 1898 when the USA got a hold of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Phillipines and Cuba, from Spain, was because they wanted sugar, they wanted military bases and they wanted control of supervising both the Pacific and the Caribbean region, Central America and parts of South America. The Southern Command zone. This is very well known. It is not about how beneficial it is for the colonized. In my Hurricane Maria thread I discussed how the USA has made a lot more money and profit OFF of Puerto Rico than Puerto Rico has wound up making from the USA over time.

That you think that being colonized is a benevolent act done by empires to 'help' the needy colonized folks is a huge miscalculation on your part. Actually Puerto Rico doesn't have a clear voting majority that favors statehood and union with the USA. It doesn't. Between the Commonwealth status quo folks and the pro independence people the statehooders are not the majority of Puerto Rican voters John Rawls. You are misinformed.

Guam has an independence movement. So does American Samoa. Why? Because the USA congress ignores the needs of the Guamanians, the American Samoans and the Puerto Ricans, etc. It doesn't pay attention to what the colonized islands want. It only pays attention to what it can get out of the one sided relationship they are talking about in the video.

Your arguments are ignorant in the extreme about colonial histories all over the world. Try harder.

You missed the point of my post. I never said that imperial power is benevolent nor that it is a charity. Of course it happened because of access to resources and markets to a great degree.(And other things) My point being that after world war 2 and Breton woods, the colonial system was dismanteled because it solved some of the reasons behind those systems. (Access to markets and resources, defence of trade lanes, heavy protectionism, etc) And the process continued onwards with WTO and other trade organisations and free trade agreements. Since Breton woods, you didn't need a gunboat to sail to X place, demand trade and then sail back with your boats being protected. Now you had a system that organised the defence of the trade lanes and managed access to the markets and resources at least between the bigger countries.

The problem of modern imperialism could be said to take a new form of trade agreements/trade imperialism(Where more developed countries who are buyers can create terms for sellers) but it is still not the same colonial system that happened before Breton woods and onwards. The conflict is still there in a sense but it has been moderated and civilised.

In such a situation a different trend started to appear where colonial status that survived after Breton woods usually meant that the territory that still fell under the old colonial system remained within the said changed system because it benefited the colony more than full independence. (For economic, political, defence etc reasons)

If imperial system had a reason to exist in the same form as in the 19th or early 20th century then it would still exist in the same sense. There are still countries which are clearly stronger than others which could dominate all of the regions of the world. But the system is different now so things have changed.
What i am trying to say is that imperialism is not end all and be all in the classical sense that you are trying to describe. It is a system that existed to serve the needs of its time but now the situation is a bit different. It definitely exists in a changed form but we are not really talking about the changed form here from your posts as i understand.

[Tainari88]

Tainari, I think that you are also overlooking the fact that the specific places you named receive a whole lot of benefits from being part of the US Empire (or however you want to call it) than they would if they were outside of it.

Indeed, it is preferable to be part of it than to not be part of it.

The fact that some people value the concept of independence more than their monetary relationship with the US reflects highly on them, but such movements are probably short sighted. Unless, of course, they can make an arrangement where they get to fleece the US government in aid money every year.

Who says it is preferable? You? Or the colonizers? That is what the British crown said about the USA's thirteen original colonies. They are better off with us. Oh REALLY?

I don't see how they are better off? Financially? No. In terms of trade? No. In terms of having the same political rights at the mainlanders? No. In terms of receiving the same social security benefits and medicare? No. Then how do they benefit? By being what? The insular cases Verve and John Rawls were legal cases that were argued in the SCOTUS for over a hundred years. The Puerto Ricans challenged the colonial laws ruling unincorporated territories rights. The cases were brought to the SCOTUS and the answer to their statements of violations of constitutional rights was a very old document from the turn of the century when they first acquired the islands and it is based on really racist arguments.

How is racism in the law keeping us in unequal statuses' benefiting us? If you say "because you are all a part of a great party and high standard of living. Just let us use your ancestral lands, bomb them, not give you equal rights, don't vote over any of the laws that might affect you and keep in limbo status and be grateful for it because we sell you some fridges and you have more money than third world nations." And that last part is not even true anymore for Puerto Rico. PR was without electricity for months and water that was potable for months. No Mexican, Colombian and Kenyan urban dweller in Nairobi would tolerate being without lights for a year. And they are supposedly 'third world'.

No, tell the truth. You think that the places that are colonized are not worthy of equality. And that is what being an empire is about. Who gives a damn about those people? They are not important. Our needs as an empire outweigh the need for self determination of a few scanty inferiors. And that is where the Empire's evil mentality reveals itself.

Verve and JohnRawls:
The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire
Bartholomew H. Sparrow

When the United States took control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam following the Spanish-American War, it was unclear to what degree these islands were actually part of the U.S. and, in particular, whether the Constitution applied fully, or even in part, to their citizens. By looking closely at what became known as the Insular Cases, Bartholomew Sparrow reveals how America resolved to govern these territories.

Sparrow follows the Insular Cases from the controversialDownes v. Bidwell in 1901, which concerned tariffs on oranges shipped to New York from Puerto Rico and which introduced the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories, to Balzac v. Puerto Ricoin 1922, in which the Court decided that Puerto Ricans, although officially U.S. citizens, could be denied trial by jury because Puerto Rico was "unincorporated." There were 35 Insular Cases in all, cases stretching across two decades, cases in which the Court ruled on matters as diverse as tariffs, double jeopardy, and the very meaning of U.S. citizenship as it applied to the inhabitants of the offshore territories. Through such decisions, as Sparrow shows, the Court treated the constitutional status of territorial inhabitants with great variability and decided that the persons of some territories were less equal than those of other territories.

“A scholarly feat. Not only does Sparrow make the complex legal argument crystal clear, but he also delves deeply into the political and cultural factors underlying each opinion. . . . His work is also a study of empire, formal and informal, at the turn of the nineteenth century that he makes fascinatingly relevant to our own time.”
—Journal of American History

“Sparrow’s research is exceedingly impressive. . . . He has written a learned and thematically probing commentary on thirty-five Supreme Court decisions that established the constitutional standing and legal rights of the inhabitants of the new territories. He carefully locates this analysis in the relevant racial, economic, and political contexts; informatively traces the Court’s changing composition and dynamics; and provides engaging biographical sketches of the justices. . . . The Insular Cases were central to governing Americas island empire acquired at the turn of the twentieth century, much of which remains in existence. . . . [This book] . . . certainly contributes to our understanding of the American justification for and practice of imperialism.”
—Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
See all reviews...

Sparrow traces the fitful evolution of the Court's Incorporation Doctrine in the determination of which constitutional provisions applied to the new territories and its citizens. Providing a new look at the history and politics of U.S. expansion at the turn of the twentieth century, Sparrow's book also examines the effect the Court's decisions had on the creation of an American empire.It highlights crucial features surrounding the cases—the influence of racism on the justices, the need for naval stations to protect new international trade, and dramatic changes in tariff policy. It also tells how the Court sanctioned the emergence of two kinds of American empire: formal territories whose inhabitants could be U.S. citizens but still be denied full political rights, and an informal empire based on trade, cooperative foreign governments, and U.S. military bases rather than on territorial acquisitions.

The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire reveals how the United States handled its first major episode of globalization and how the Supreme Court in these cases, crucially redirected the course of American history.
About the Author

Bartholomew H. Sparrow is associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. His previous books include The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion, 1803-1898, coedited with Sanford Levinson, and From the Outside In: World War II and the American State.

That @Verv and @JohnRawls is basically not much different logic than the supposedly ugly imperialism of the past. They are unfit. Because we want them to be unfit for self governance. Lol. A bunch of lying pieces of shit are those imperialistic nations and bloody hands they got. They all wind up losing control of the supposed 'happy colonials'. Why? Because human beings don't like having to be restricted and being told what is allowed by people who live far away from them and don't give a shit about them anyway. It never works. Absentee landlords with arrogant mentalities. Would you like them if the shoe were on the other foot? Probably be cursing the 'invaders' and disgruntled with the whole situation.

Arrogance is not attractive in the ignorant.

[Verv]

I am sure there were bad aspects to being subjugated to the American empire, and this judicial thing that you have pointed out is certainly upsetting.

But, generally speaking, being tied to the US and being able to enter the US has been a massive benefit for Puerto Ricans and others, and the economic aid and the development that has been provided is also invaluable.

A simple question: hen you look at the Carribbean or Pacific island nations that are in the same general categories as Guam, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa as far as demographics and size go, that have a century of independence under their belt, are you jealous of any of them?

[Potemkin]

I am sure there were bad aspects to being subjugated to the American empire, and this judicial thing that you have pointed out is certainly upsetting.

They may be "upsetting" to you (and are probably rather more upsetting to the Puerto Rican people themselves), but these laws were passed because the ruling elite in the USA felt that they were necessary to resolve certain practical problems created by seizing and maintaining control of these territories. Even the very inconsistency of these laws is revealing of the intent behind them. As Bertolt Brecht once pointed out, whenever the ruling elite appear to be inconsistent in theory, it is almost always because they are trying to be consistent in practice. In other words, concrete reality matters more to them than abstract self-consistency. Practical considerations meant that different territories had to be treated differently; hence the point that, "Through such decisions, as Sparrow shows, the Court treated the constitutional status of territorial inhabitants with great variability and decided that the persons of some territories were less equal than those of other territories."

[JohnRawls]

Who says it is preferable? You? Or the colonizers? That is what the British crown said about the USA's thirteen original colonies. They are better off with us. Oh REALLY?

I don't see how they are better off? Financially? No. In terms of trade? No. In terms of having the same political rights at the mainlanders? No. In terms of receiving the same social security benefits and medicare? No. Then how do they benefit? By being what? The insular cases Verve and John Rawls were legal cases that were argued in the SCOTUS for over a hundred years. The Puerto Ricans challenged the colonial laws ruling unincorporated territories rights. The cases were brought to the SCOTUS and the answer to their statements of violations of constitutional rights was a very old document from the turn of the century when they first acquired the islands and it is based on really racist arguments.

How is racism in the law keeping us in unequal statuses' benefiting us? If you say "because you are all a part of a great party and high standard of living. Just let us use your ancestral lands, bomb them, not give you equal rights, don't vote over any of the laws that might affect you and keep in limbo status and be grateful for it because we sell you some fridges and you have more money than third world nations." And that last part is not even true anymore for Puerto Rico. PR was without electricity for months and water that was potable for months. No Mexican, Colombian and Kenyan urban dweller in Nairobi would tolerate being without lights for a year. And they are supposedly 'third world'.

No, tell the truth. You think that the places that are colonized are not worthy of equality. And that is what being an empire is about. Who gives a damn about those people? They are not important. Our needs as an empire outweigh the need for self determination of a few scanty inferiors. And that is where the Empire's evil mentality reveals itself.

Verve and JohnRawls:
The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire
Bartholomew H. Sparrow

When the United States took control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam following the Spanish-American War, it was unclear to what degree these islands were actually part of the U.S. and, in particular, whether the Constitution applied fully, or even in part, to their citizens. By looking closely at what became known as the Insular Cases, Bartholomew Sparrow reveals how America resolved to govern these territories.

Sparrow follows the Insular Cases from the controversialDownes v. Bidwell in 1901, which concerned tariffs on oranges shipped to New York from Puerto Rico and which introduced the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories, to Balzac v. Puerto Ricoin 1922, in which the Court decided that Puerto Ricans, although officially U.S. citizens, could be denied trial by jury because Puerto Rico was "unincorporated." There were 35 Insular Cases in all, cases stretching across two decades, cases in which the Court ruled on matters as diverse as tariffs, double jeopardy, and the very meaning of U.S. citizenship as it applied to the inhabitants of the offshore territories. Through such decisions, as Sparrow shows, the Court treated the constitutional status of territorial inhabitants with great variability and decided that the persons of some territories were less equal than those of other territories.

“A scholarly feat. Not only does Sparrow make the complex legal argument crystal clear, but he also delves deeply into the political and cultural factors underlying each opinion. . . . His work is also a study of empire, formal and informal, at the turn of the nineteenth century that he makes fascinatingly relevant to our own time.”
—Journal of American History

“Sparrow’s research is exceedingly impressive. . . . He has written a learned and thematically probing commentary on thirty-five Supreme Court decisions that established the constitutional standing and legal rights of the inhabitants of the new territories. He carefully locates this analysis in the relevant racial, economic, and political contexts; informatively traces the Court’s changing composition and dynamics; and provides engaging biographical sketches of the justices. . . . The Insular Cases were central to governing Americas island empire acquired at the turn of the twentieth century, much of which remains in existence. . . . [This book] . . . certainly contributes to our understanding of the American justification for and practice of imperialism.”
—Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
See all reviews...

Sparrow traces the fitful evolution of the Court's Incorporation Doctrine in the determination of which constitutional provisions applied to the new territories and its citizens. Providing a new look at the history and politics of U.S. expansion at the turn of the twentieth century, Sparrow's book also examines the effect the Court's decisions had on the creation of an American empire.It highlights crucial features surrounding the cases—the influence of racism on the justices, the need for naval stations to protect new international trade, and dramatic changes in tariff policy. It also tells how the Court sanctioned the emergence of two kinds of American empire: formal territories whose inhabitants could be U.S. citizens but still be denied full political rights, and an informal empire based on trade, cooperative foreign governments, and U.S. military bases rather than on territorial acquisitions.

The Insular Cases and the Emergence of American Empire reveals how the United States handled its first major episode of globalization and how the Supreme Court in these cases, crucially redirected the course of American history.
About the Author

Bartholomew H. Sparrow is associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. His previous books include The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion, 1803-1898, coedited with Sanford Levinson, and From the Outside In: World War II and the American State.

That @Verv and @JohnRawls is basically not much different logic than the supposedly ugly imperialism of the past. They are unfit. Because we want them to be unfit for self governance. Lol. A bunch of lying pieces of shit are those imperialistic nations and bloody hands they got. They all wind up losing control of the supposed 'happy colonials'. Why? Because human beings don't like having to be restricted and being told what is allowed by people who live far away from them and don't give a shit about them anyway. It never works. Absentee landlords with arrogant mentalities. Would you like them if the shoe were on the other foot? Probably be cursing the 'invaders' and disgruntled with the whole situation.

Arrogance is not attractive in the ignorant.

Why don't Puerto Rico proclaim full independence? There were several votes since US took control of Puerto Rico but all of those votes failed to win majority for independence. The outcomes of them were either commonwealth or statehood in the US. Whatever US wants to take Puerto Rico as a state is a whole different matter all together.

Such a situation would not be possible if Puerto Rico was only suffering under US colonial rule. The thing is that although Puerto Rico is kinda in a limbo state it still has i guess the highest standard of living among all of the countries in the region. (Caribbean) It is perhaps only 2nd to the Bahamas which is technically a small island which is a tax haven. (I just checked Bahamas are 34k gdp per capita while Puerto Rico is 32k gdp per capita)

So the answer, how Puerto Rico is well off compared to independence is economically, financially and trade wise which probably would not have been possible without the US control. This is perhaps why the independence vote never actually won any referendums. The latest one in 2017 was 97% for statehood in the US. That is an overwhelming majority.

Now having said that, the vote for statehood is not exactly something that will happen even if you vote for it unlike independence. Because statehood requires an agreement on the side of US. And there is opposition to this from both parties ( Puerto Rican statehood will require funding and it will be a net drain on the US system for some time. Who will Puerto Ricans vote for in general: Probably democrats so republicans have an inherent interest of not to help PR. etc )

Basically Puerto Rico needs to wait while a Democratic candidate and president achieve super majority positions or at least outright majorities in the House, Presidential office and perhaps the Senate.

I don't know if it was your bias of the situation or you pretended but it is obvious that Puerto Rico doesn't want independence. Basically see my previous posts in this thread.

[skinster]

Is the USA more feared than Russia and China in the world?

Yes, of course. This is still very true.

Also:
Polls: US Is ‘the Greatest Threat to Peace in the World Today’

[Pants-of-dog]

I believe that the USA is consistently considered to be he most bellicose country on the planet.

[Tainari88]

@Verv I am short on time. But, I am going, to begin with, a post by Rosa Clemente. She is interviewed by Kamau Bell from CNN's series The United Shades of America. What Clemente states are true. Colonizing nations want to instill fear in the colonized saying, "You can't go it alone, you need us."

Mahatma Gandhi had long debates with the British crown and the officials from the UK about the need for India to be an independent nation. The British kept insisting that India needed the British crown to survive, and to live and to govern because otherwise it would fall into chaos and violence, worse poverty and look, how well the Indians are doing with the new railroads built by the British and look at the great trade that the East India Company has given to the Indian government. They conveniently did not mention (the British Colonizer) the huge amount of profits that the British capitalists, banks and investors were making from cheap Indian labor, cotton, porcelain, tea, silk, and everything that the British Empire craved to control and needed to have India fulfill for them to continue to profit and expand.

You need us! Can't live without us. You are incompetent at democracy. You can't rule because let us face the facts? You are not our equals, are you? Horrible mentality imperial shit mentality is for sure.

Clemente:

The issue is Verv Puerto Rico finally got free from Spain and yet the Americans said to us, "We come to give you freedom and liberty." But they did not. Clemente was right the USA passed the Foraker Act and the Jones Act...the USA congress and government passed gag laws and so on, making it illegal to have a Puerto Rican flag in your house and you could be jailed for flying it in public in Puerto Rico.

How freedom-loving is that? What is worse Verv is that many Puerto Ricans of all political persuasions had constantly writing congress and the USA gov't to let it happen. Let the flag be flown. No one listened. After the nationalists like Cancel Miranda, Lebron, etc went in there and shot up the USA congress.....oh, shit, bullets. Let them fly the flag. Passed to let the Boricuas fly the flag.

Looks like Don Pedro Albizu Campos was right all along. He Albizu was right...he stated, "The Yankees ears are only opened with bullets." I guess that is what colonizers respect. Civilized dialog about equal rights? Nah, not interested. Shot in the ass? Yes, let us talk.

Pendejos.

Do you want to go there? Do you want Puerto Ricans to get so fed up with the lack of action and lack of respect and lack of progress in the island society that violence is the only way to get some ATTENTION? Is that what you want? Stop the absentee landlord shit, and the bankers come first before schoolchildren and hospitals for the sick, and DO SOMETHING about either letting us go and paying us what you damn owe for killing Rican men in wars in which they never voted for the president, and give some money to let us GO and do our own thing already. Go find some other islands to pollute with depleted uranium and kill our mothers and fathers from cancer for your bloody disgusting wars.

Go to hell with your bellicose IMPERIALISTIC shit mentality and YANKEE GO ThE HELL HOME and take your dirty chemicals from war with you!

[Patrickov]

@Patrickov

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -9-charts/

Polls and statistics indicate this. This is about popularity abroad not which country is "better".

You shouldn't have to refrain from making personal attacks over something so asinine.

The link indicates that my view is indeed shared by more people around the world (mainly points 4 and 9), so while I think the word "asinine" might be untrue, I thank you for the confirmation you have brought.

[Palmyrene]

The link indicates that my view is indeed shared by more people around the world (mainly points 4 and 9), so while I think the word "asinine" might be untrue, I thank you for the confirmation you have brought.

?
I'm not sure what your point was other than that the US is not worse than China which I agree with but the topic of discussion is whether people like China or the US and the answer is: China.

[Tainari88]

Lol. My preference? Anybody, please make sure the Yankee gov't loses and is a has-been and defeated place, because they are WORSE than the Chinese, due to them talking shit about being a democracy and believing that colonialism is wrong, and then deliberately becoming a stupid Imperial colonizer, knowing full well that they suffered from it as a nation and knew it was bad, but they decided to become what they deplored. That is really really bad. Time to pay the price and I hope they lose it all in the power struggles. They suck. My opinion. Is it a surprise? No.

[Patrickov]

?
I'm not sure what your point was other than that the US is not worse than China which I agree with but the topic of discussion is whether people like China or the US and the answer is: China.

Your link actually suggested the contrary.

[Palmyrene]

@Patrickov

Wait a second,



Why are only the green colored? Did they only do polling there?

I'm going to have to get a different poll.

[JohnRawls]

Lol. My preference? Anybody, please make sure the Yankee gov't loses and is a has-been and defeated place, because they are WORSE than the Chinese, due to them talking shit about being a democracy and believing that colonialism is wrong, and then deliberately becoming a stupid Imperial colonizer, knowing full well that they suffered from it as a nation and knew it was bad, but they decided to become what they deplored. That is really really bad. Time to pay the price and I hope they lose it all in the power struggles. They suck. My opinion. Is it a surprise? No.

Why do people in PR not vote for independence? Why do people in PR vote for statehood recently?

[Tainari88]

Why do people in PR not vote for independence? Why do people in PR vote for statehood recently?

@JohnRawls I am afraid we are going to go way off topic if I give that question the attention it deserves. I think for you to get a good idea about how the statehood party has gained ground you need to see it within a colonial government framework.

The USA government John Rawls had problems with the nacionalistas way on back in the 1930's. And you must know that all the nacionalistas were USA citizens by then because they imposed the citizenship on us in 1917. They could not risk a vote with the Puerto Ricans asking them if they wanted to be part of the USA because many of that generation of Puerto Ricans were the ones who fought in uprisings against the Spanish crown at the end of the 19th century.

I love history John Rawls. If you want to get an answer and the whys? You got to dig deep and look at historical context. I will be brief with you John Rawls. The founder of the statehood party on the island of Puerto Rico never existed until 1968. Most or all of Puerto Rico was either with the PPD (Partido Popular Democratico) who was founded by Luis Munoz Rivera and the first elected governor was in 1948. Munoz Rivera was an autonomista. He believed in independence. His son was also a socialist like his father. Luis Munoz Marin. They had the largest amount of votes for many many years. All of them the PPD were against union with the USA. Who founded the PNP. The pro statehood party? Luis A. Ferre. He wasn't really a Puerto Rican John Rawls. He was of Cuban-French extraction and his parents were Cubans. The reason the Americans could not found a statehood party to combat Fidel Castro's specter over their colonial trauma because they lost the Bay of Pigs and lost Cuba to the Commie with the beard that traumatized them? They said in Washington DC....we can't lose another war booty acquisition like Cuba...Puerto Rico is in danger with the autonomistas...we need to get some fake party pushing statehood or something....but it can't be an English speaking Anglo from the states. They will never accept someone like that. And the PNP party was born.

The founder was a non Puerto Rican John Rawls. But they promised stability, money, health care, equality in voting rights, etc. They said the American government wanted equality with the Puerto Rican people. The SCOTUS insular cases painted a totally different picture. But the purpose of the PNP was to break up the two big parties back in the fifties and forties and thirties, the nacionalistas led by a brilliant Harvard educated lawyer who spoke multiple languages and was a brilliant orator and had huge amounts of followers in the Great Depression era....Don Pedro Albizu Campos. He was gaining ground. And the sovereignty group of Luis Munoz Rivera's. So they cooked up the pro statehood party. With the promise of equality...eventually. A lie....but who cares about the truth when you just want to hold on to a territory and deny equal rights legally so you can have your military bases and your exclusive tax breaks and your banks making profits hand over fist.

The Caribbean John Rawls is a place where a lot of activity happens and the native people of the islands are used to these abusive European and American absentee landlords wanting to milk the islands of labor that is cheap, goods that are highly prized, like coffee, sugar, gold, silver, copper, nickel, citrus, fruit, meat, fish, cheap pharmaceuticals, tax free living, etc etc. shady stuff and get away from the eyes of the metropolis. Jamaica has one of the largest depositories of bauxite in the world. An essential mineral in the production of aluminium for example. The islands are not useless places without any value. They never have been useless. They are strategic, fertile places and highly prized because ships, ports and tropical places produce a lot of great things. They always have. You see it in the Yucatan, and in many places.

Why do Puerto Ricans shy away from independence? When I lived in Puerto Rico as a young woman? The Puerto Ricans would tell me the same. We love talking about politics there John Rawls. Most Boricuas love talking politics. In my family? My grandmother was PPD. I asked her why she went for Munoz Rivera's party instead of the PIP...the Puerto Rican Independence Party. She said, "The Americans would kill us all like dogs. Our island is their plaything. They have that kind of mentality. Best to stay alive and vote for eventual autonomy with their supervision. That way we don't lose our identity and they don't feel threatened." My maternal grandmother. My mother and father were pro independence and quite good at organizing people for that cause.

Some of my extended family were pro statehood. Their reasoning? "As long as we have food stamps and social security and medicare and the economy is reasonably decent? No need to rock the boat with the American government."

None of the Puerto Ricans I knew really said, "Hey, I want to live in the USA. I want to speak English. I want to be a Yankee." They don't want that John. They fear losing their checks, their jobs, their lives because a lot of them remember when the pro independence folks were around. Getting shot in the head like Filberto Ojeda Rios, or jailed for decades like Oscar Lopez Rivera and others.

Our history is not studied outside of Puerto Rico John Rawls. The Americans are not interested in airing their unfair ways in public. That is why I joined this website. Time to shine a light on tiny places no one in the powerful nations ever give a second thought to....but you know what? What you do the least of the places in this planet and how you think and treat the least places and the small nations and humble peoples? Is how you define a nation's true character. If you only respect the very powerful and mighty and never abuse those...and abuse the little nations? You get a very good idea of what kind of mentality you are dealing with.

If you want a detailed answer? Study Puerto Rican history John Rawls. If you want to just cite something simplistic and say,
"See America respects democracy...the Puerto Ricans voted a supermajority for union with the USA." Lol. Do you really believe that? Hillary Rodham Clinton got 3 million more votes than Trump got in 2016, but she did not gain the presidency. Do you think a non voting organized, unincorporated territory that some vulture banks are ruling and can't vote in any real way is going to sway the USA congress to give them a status that the USA politicians are not willing or able to do because they are sellouts to the powerful?

Do you really think politics are run that way John Rawls?

[Verv]

They may be "upsetting" to you (and are probably rather more upsetting to the Puerto Rican people themselves), but these laws were passed because the ruling elite in the USA felt that they were necessary to resolve certain practical problems created by seizing and maintaining control of these territories. Even the very inconsistency of these laws is revealing of the intent behind them. As Bertolt Brecht once pointed out, whenever the ruling elite appear to be inconsistent in theory, it is almost always because they are trying to be consistent in practice. In other words, concrete reality matters more to them than abstract self-consistency. Practical considerations meant that different territories had to be treated differently; hence the point that, "Through such decisions, as Sparrow shows, the Court treated the constitutional status of territorial inhabitants with great variability and decided that the persons of some territories were less equal than those of other territories."

That's a very interesting quotation you have there from Brecht. There is some truth to it. But it is also important to remember that the elites are not monolithic, and so they are willing to disregard one another's policies and ideas. We can also even be open to the idea that, once upon a time, the elites had an ideology, but the ideology was dropped in favor of practicality or a different breed of unwritten law -- this is something that we see happening very much at ever level in a place like the People's Republic of China, right?

Maybe it's also the case that the Americans weren't really that inconsistent: the Founders voted to really only allow the naturalization of Europeans, and many of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution would have only been truly enjoyable by a relatively small cross-section of people by today's standards...

Maybe the mistake is ever thinking that the Constitution was written with Puerto Ricans in mind, and the real deviation is us thinking that we were inconsistent for not applying it to them.

We were only ever consistent when we were a society of small government and no outstanding terroritories.

But IDK, there's a lot of ways that you could go with this kind of thing and I am suspicious that this might devolve into Jon Stewart liberals with neck veins popping yelling about racism if it continues, but if it stays interesting I'll respond.

[Verv]

OK, @Tainari88 . I hope you are very successful.

But, looking at the track records of Carribbean nations who are independent, and looking at the track records of Pacific Island nations, I am not confident that the optimism can really do it, right.

But hey, if you can become the Singapore in the Atlantic or something, go for the gold, and then you can have your health care & universal education and show us Yanquis how to have open borders the right way.