@wat0n wrote:
How about beings that don't have any culture? Even animals are known to perform acts of cruelty and wage war.
Well the first thing you learn in anthropology classes Wat0n is that humans never exist without a human culture. That is not possible. Though there are supposedly cases of people being raised by wolves or Guerillas or Chimps. Lol. But is that the majority?
No such thing as cultureless human beings Wat0n.
Even people living in comas for years are part of the culture of the hospital and the people in that cultural environment. And before they became comatose they had a culture. For sure.
@wat0n wrote in response to my discussion on Puerto Rico's lack of political rights this:
@Tainari88 indeed, the status of PR is a weird thing. I think they should be admitted into the union, and its politicians should abide by the referenda and request admission.
I think the Marianas Islands and Puerto Rico and many others in the unincorporated territories clause of the codes that we just went over sort of rule out statehood Wat0n. All the US Congress has to do is revoke the unilateral right to make us or take us out of US citizenship based on statutory citizenship and make us Constitutionally guaranteed citizens. Why they do not do so is very clear Wat0n.
It means they have to make a legal precedent that then will apply to all Native American tribes, and African American slave labor and so on. Disenfranchised groups. You could legally sue them all for denying rights to land, property, right to refuse conscription for military service, and billions in damages. Legally that is what they would open themselves up to if they reversed that precedent from 1917 just in time for a military draft for WWI.
It is in direct violation of International Law wat0n. And it means serious money and loss of land and loss of legal rights for certain privileges the US counts on for being able to keep its hegemony. In other words, it goes against its national interests to give statehood and incorporate us. It means making a state of all those other places, two senators for tiny places like the US Virgin Islands, Solomon Islands, Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and then you have to consider the Phillipines. They were also under that Treaty from 1898 and the US abandoned the Phillipines to be attacked by the Japanese in WWII. They lost 6 million Filipinos in that WWII Japanese Invasion. They killed a lot of rebel soldiers and leaders from the Phillipines like Aguinaldo. So you are opening up a can of worms with that.
Imperialism is a dirty business Wat0n. It is not about justice. It is about interests and power and force.
If you reverse what the codes said about Puerto Rico not being 'ready' for incorporation or having to make us full constitutionally ratified citizens? You lose all the rest of those territories too. And open yourself up to law suits. By Indian tribes and so on. Reparations and the whole shebang.
Now, the only territory that was unincorporated and wanted to vote for a change of status was Palau in 1993-1994 they voted for independence. The US did not want to agree, but had to agree. The issue was about Palau wanting removal of Nuclear based weapons belonging to the US military. The local Palauans did not want them there and the US did.
The US said it would not grant Palau its independence despite a vote for it because it went against their interests.
So if statehood is voted on and it wins the popular vote? In Puerto Rico? In overwhelming numbers the US will do the same to us as they did to Palau. It is not in our interest to grant statehood. Ignore.
That is the issue Wat0n. The US Congress and the US senate refuse to pass a bill to make the vote from Puerto Rican legally binding and force the US government to change the status.
They always kill that proposal no matter what. How long will they ignore it? Probably until it gets so bad on the island that either 1) The US government cancels Puerto Rican debt and infuses a lot of Federal cash to build up roads, schools, infrastructure, electricity, etc and then ups Veteran's benefits, social security checks, food stamp allotments and goes for another Operation Bootstrap thing for present day Puerto Rico. With more self governance powers and then more sovereignty.
Statehood issue is the issue highlighted above. If they integrate Puerto Rico they will be open to a floodgate of occupied nation lawsuits that will go through the courts. That is the reason they never let binding votes happen and the US Congress continues to stonewall on legal issues.
Loss of the colonies.
What happens to colonies that get fed up with their colonial masters over time? Rebellion. And violence and protests.
Or the entire nation and the Natives get displaced. The island is reoccupied by foreign people not the native Puerto Ricans. Lol. We get replaced. Like the Native Hawaiians have gotten in Hawaii. The majority of them live marginalized in Hawaii. Not the majority and with a culture they try to preserve. Hawaiians live in poverty Wat0n. Not in wealth and with local power.
They become displaced in their own land. That is what happened to all Native American tribes who were in the way of the US government during its Manifest Destiny stage of development.
That is why Puerto Rico is categorized with the Indian Reservation system. The BIA. Bureau of Indian Affairs. All of the occupied land and the Native Tribal governments are in the Department of the Interior in DC. They have special rules because in legal fact they are not part of the Constitutional system of the USA because no one agreed to become US citizens. They were told they were or they were IMPOSED to become that. Without immigration procedures and oaths and etc. You can't do that with people who are already there before the US government arrived and said that they needed your land and you had to move or else, or you had to agree to be ruled by them or else. That is not legal. That is blackmail. That is how the International courts see that Wat0n.
The plan is the same.
Would you still go for statehood under those conditions Wat0n?
The reality is that more Puerto Ricans are living in the USA mainland than reside on the island. We bleed more people from the island than Cuba does or Dominican refugees in rafts from Santo Domingo.
But, unless the US government copes with changing our conditions soon? The cookie ain't gonna crumble in their favor over time. Stagnation is not a solution. Ever.