Tainari88 wrote:@XogGyux wrote:
Well XogGyux, I think you and I have very different concepts about what independence looks like for most nations.
Apparently so.
Funny that you can understand that in health sciences but not in politics XogGyux.
Or perhaps I am the one that understands this and you don't. Time will tell.
In terms of GDP Puerto Rico is not the best per capita income island in the Caribbean dude.
Here they are:
https://best-citizenships.com/2019/05/2 ... countries/
Did you even review that list?
That list is mostly of US, British, French and Dutch territories. It proves my point.
Bermuda: British overseas territory.
Cayman Islands: British overseas territory.
US Virgin islands: It has it on its name, it is US territory
British Virgin Islands: It has it on its name, it is British territory.
Anguilla: British overseas territory.
Turks and Caicos: British overseas territory
St. Martin: French and Dutch territories.
Barbados, Bahamas and St Kitts and Nevis are the only 3 exceptions in that list. Barbados and St Kitts and Nevis both have HALF the GDP per capita as Puerto rico. Only Bahama is about the same, NOT BETTER, about the same as PR, with similar GDP per capita and similar human development index. In fact, there are about 34 countries and/or overseas territories in the Caribbean, the only places there are about 3-4 that have substantially higher GDP than PR and they are all overseas territories of other nations, not independent states.
So you don't really have a model for improvement. If you get any improvement, it would have to be a de novo event, it would have to be something that never occurred before. You are betting the fate of PR on a black swan event.
why is criticizing the USA in its hypocrisy with its inability to accept it is not democratic such a problem for you XogGyux?
It is not so much that it is not a problem, as to the fact that those that are obsessed with criticizing the US have to get their eyes gauged so as to not see the 100x worse problems of the countries that they defend instead. I dislike hypocrisy very much.
What Puerto Rico needs is a lot of young people solving serious problems not only for Puerto Rico but for everyone else out there suffering the coming issues of climate change and storms and extreme weather events brought on by people who refuse to accept that the climate is changing.
Right, because young people are known for their maturity, their experience, their knowledge, their wise behavior, their diligent advise-seeking/following character, etc. There is something to be said about young people having more at stake than older people, after all, young people have more time on this planet left than older people on average. But that is not to say that they are the de-facto better choice for decision-making. In fact, a lack of experience and an underdeveloped pre-frontal cortex argues against it.
3+ million people's well-being is at stake, this is a time for cool heads, strategic/cunning moves, patience and very deliberate decision-making. Revolutions, by definition are a forced overthrow of the prior government... Is that what you want? I can tell you that won't end well. Maybe you can spend the next 50 years playing politics and slowly leverage an independence... maybe that seems unlikely, but it is the only way that you get independence and you don't doom your people to the fate of other fringe nations. You talk about young people.. I was once a young teenager in Cuba... you think PR has it bad? In PR a major hurricane cut power, and people were outraged. In Cuba, cutting power is a normal, daily routine that has been going on since the 1990's... 30 years of scheduled power cuts is when you are lucky, on top of that they also do unscheduled power cuts. You at least have the option to get Solar panels.... how many cubans can even dream about that?
Remember the "Two wings of the same bird", I was born inside the broken wing and I am warning you from throwing your wing against the immovable wall that the US is.
I don't subscribe to the anti-Americanist rhetoric that you do... but even if we consider the US as an evil colonial actor it does not diminish at all the importance of having prudence and cunning, rather than to spark a revolution.
Puerto Ricans are not really Americans like you think. If they were? The phrase of alien races, and a Puerto Rican nationality would not exist. It exists. There were Puerto Ricans who went through the international court system and argued in the international law system for Puerto Rican nationality. They wanted a Puerto Rican passport and argued for one. In the end? They got the Puerto Rican passport. Why? Because the argument was that Puerto Rico when it was invaded was never consulted in the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the USA. We were left out and the decision to become US citizens was not made by us. It is made by congress.
In order for you to be considered a real US citizen it has to be one of two things. You are born in the fifty states and it is by birth and automatic nationality or it is by naturalization Xog. Like you did and your relatives. If it by naturalization to strip you of your citizenship you either have to renounce it officially in writing at a consulate or go through the courts and dissolve it because you are assuming a different nationality. For example, the singer Tina Turner renounced her US citizenship to assume her Swiss nationality. She had to do it through the courts.
Puerto Ricans do not have either option if they are born on the island. I was born on the island. Not stateside, and my parents were born on the island and so were my grandparents and so on for nearly four hundred or more years. No stateside birth there. So my nationality is called statutory citizenship. This means congress can strip it unilaterally without my ability to combat that in court or through any other means. Interesting isn't it? It is the same for Native American people in the USA. They have tribal documents and they are not really US citizens in the conventional sense. They did not leave their homeland and pledge an oath and do that whole thing there. They were taken over by the US government and never agreed to go by the US constitution. It was imposed. If it is imposed? You become an alien in your own land if the whole land grab thing and imperialism states you are in the way.
How many times have PR been stripped by their passports by congress? You doing this because of something that has happened thousands of times right and that you are at a clear and constant danger of falling victim to, correct?
It is ironic that you mention the Native American... The Puerto rican demographics: 2.5 million whites, 300k blacks, ~11k Alaskan native/Native american, ~10k asian. Puerto rico's genetic contribution 66% european 18% african, 16% native american. Most common lastnames: Sanchez, Rivera, Rodriguez, Narvaez, Burgos. Classic architecture is not taino, it is colonial spanish. Your roots are not Native american, they are not taino. Like it or not, your ancestor were the colonizers. The average Puerto Rican today is analogous to the average "Yankee" in the US, not to a Native American.
Before you keep trying to "soften me" with appeals to cultural and ethnic similarities, let me warn you that does not work on me. My country already tried to brainwash me with that crap when I was a kid and I can see right through it. I am Cuban but I don't have to identify with cuban rumba, cigars, ajiaco, baseball... In fact, I like classical music, I cannot stand the smell of tobacco, and the only sport that I can enjoy is chess and that is not a real sport.
That never happened in Puerto Rico. I am an immigrant now in Mexico. I did some research on what I qualify for in Mexico as an immigrant. My green card in Mexico does not say nacionalidad estadounidense by itself...it has a curious code. PRI. I found out what that meant? It meant, Puerto Rico was my place of birth. It fell under a rule for becoming a Mexican citizen separate from the US citizens applying for permanent residency or Mexican dual citizenship. Puerto Rico is considered Latin American as such it is fast tracked by two years rather than the standard four years of transition period for permanent resident. It also meant that is the reason I was approved right away for a work permit in Mexico because I speak Spanish and am Latin American and meet the other requirements. Puerto Rico is not considered traditionally American if born on the island. According to UN rules and so on? It is a colonized nation under duress. That is international law.
For pretty much all that matters, you guys are US citizens. I am not implying that having language somehow implying that you are second class citizen is right, it is ofcourse completely wrong and inexcusable.... but to pretend to have a temper tantrum on this issue and potentially risk having your country fall into civil and political disarray for something that virtually has no impact in your daily life is as dumb as it comes.
So, no the US officially and legally can't claim us as American when there was no two-way compact and consent. Now if Puerto Ricans want to leave for the states permanently and voluntarily integrate there? The USA does have to accept us. No matter what. Also by international law. You can't be drafting Puerto Ricans for the military and have them die defending their wars of bullshit without our having rights. At least to have what the Samoans have. So? That is that.
The US military has been all volunteers since 1973. Thats half a century ago.
No, it is not a good idea to colonize people XogGyux.
No, it is not, and you are arguing with yourself. Nobody has said otherwise. There is nobody alive today that had anything to do with the events that lead to puerto rico being in the situation that it is today. And I hope you would at least consider that there are plenty of people, including actual puerto ricans, that even though they might not have chosen this path for themselves if they had been given the opportunity. But, now that they find themselves already on this path, they might not want to come off.
And I have my values and my value system
\
So do I.
It won't be manipulated by some US government trying to tell me I got to go along with their colonial program because they are high and mighty and I am low and powerless.
Instead, you will be manipulated by a populist movement with empty promises that nobody can possibly deliver.
I have a bit of experience with that.
The truth is people have a right to their dignity, their self-determination, and their own responsibilities.
Yeah, I am sure the Cuban engineer that has to pedal a McDonald's chicken nuggets and coca-cola fattened Canadian on a make-belief tricycle-taxi feels they have a lot of dignity. Or the doctor that is "sold off" as a pseudoslave to Guatemala for a medical mission feels they have a lot of dignity in them.
No matter how abusive the government gets out there.
Believe me, there is room for it to get worse, and you are dancing dangerously close to the fire.
As a Cuban American immigrant that should be crystal clear to you.
PRECISELY!