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by lapcat 1108 days ago
The majority of Puerto Ricans and the majority of Americans both support Puerto Rican statehood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Puerto_Rican_status_refer...

The only thing stopping Puerto Rican statehood is the lack of majority rule in the US, and the fact that Republicans are heavily against Puerto Rican statehood. It's a partisan issue: "The majority of Democrats showed support for statehood for both D.C. (61.8%) and Puerto Rico (69.7%)" while among Republicans, only 26.7% supported D.C. statehood and 34.8% supported Puerto Rican statehood.
1 comments
foolswisdom 1108 days ago
The majority of supporting Puerto Ricans is quite slim (especially compared to the national support). A couple percentage points lower and the majority wouldn't be in favor. So my point was that if you _determined_ the question in a national vote versus a local vote, locals might be quite upset about it (particularly those who lost - if it was a local loss, then they fit to participate and lost, if it was national, then they never got a say).

Although, if you're now switching to argue that the national opinion is _against_ (or at least the republicans would block it), then this actually excellently illustrates the original point that there are decisions which shouldn't be made nationally instead of locally!

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lapcat 1108 days ago
> The majority of supporting Puerto Ricans is quite slim (especially compared to the national support). A couple percentage points lower and the majority wouldn't be in favor.

So? Majorities are often slim. Just look at US elections. The difference is whether you have majority rule or minority rule.

> Although, if you're now switching to argue that the national opinion is _against_ (or at least the republicans would block it)

I'm not switching, I'm just saying it's a partisan issue, and Republicans happen to be over-represented in the national government due to territorial representation, which is how they're able to block Puerto Rican statehood, against the wishes of the majority. And it's pretty obvious why Republican leaders want to block Puerto Rican and D.C. statehood, because that would likely lead to additional Senate and House seats for Democrats.

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foolswisdom 1108 days ago
> So? Majorities are often slim. Just look at US elections. The difference is whether you have majority rule or minority rule.

Slim majorities mean the outcome of the election is not obvious - it's possible that the vote would have a different outcome.

> I'm not switching, I'm just saying it's a partisan issue

It illustrates the point well regardless.

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Xorakios 1107 days ago
conflating Puerto Rico and DC statehood is frustrating to me.

Puerto Rico should choose independence or statehood, and the Congress should approve either way. Continuance of the colonialist/protectionist status is shocking.

But D.C. was originally not supposed to have any citizens. Only federal government offices, foreign embassies, and monuments/parks/museums. Perhaps Maryland can reclaim part of the district, as Virginia did.

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lapcat 1107 days ago
> But D.C. was originally not supposed to have any citizens.

Times change. That ship has sailed. It's the 21st century now, not the 18th.

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Xorakios 1095 days ago
Fair enough, but maybe we should allow Maryland to take back most of the rest of DC.

The "no permanent residents" rule isn't necessarily bad

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