On November 6th, while
all eyes were fixed on Ohio and Florida, waiting to see who would win the
presidential election, an often forgotten member of the United States was
holding a monumental referendum. Puerto
Rico, an America territory since the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898,
voted for the first time in its history to become a state. This does not end the process, however, as
the procedure to become a state does not often run smooth.
While content to remain a territory
for much of its history, Puerto Ricans voted 61% in favor of becoming a
state. This sentiment has not always
existed on the island. Arguably the most
famous incident involving the political status of Puerto Rico concerns the
desire of some Puerto Ricans to become an independent
nation. In 1950, the White House was
going through extreme renovations, rendering it uninhabitable. This forced President Truman to live across
the street in the Blair House, often used as a guest home for foreign
dignitaries. Two Puerto Rican
nationalists, Oscar Callazo and Griselio Torresola, approached the house and planned
to kill the guards stationed outside, proceed into the residence, and murder
Truman. The attempt, however, was
arguably one of the worst planned presidential assassination attempts. Torresola was killed and Callazo captured
less than ten minutes into the attempt, before either of them even got close to
the front door.
Although that incident occurred more
than sixty years ago, the sentiment for independence has always been present in
Puerto Rican life. With the referendum
approving statehood, however, that sentiment will likely diminish and disappear,
except amongst the most fringe groups.
Despite the island’s readiness to become the 51st United
State, it likely has a long road ahead.
The history of America’s two youngest states, Alaska and Hawaii, make
this rather clear.
Alaska, purchased from Russia under
the direction of President Andrew Johnson’s Secretary of State William Seward
in 1867, had little impact on American culture for the first eighty years of its
territoriality. Home to occasional gold
rushes, a few naval bases, and a minor battle in World War Two, Alaska only
gained prominence during the Cold War, due to its proximately to the Soviet
Union. When Alaska passed its statehood
referendum in 1946, it faced heavy Congressional opposition. Republicans feared that due to the
territory’s minuscule population it would not be able to support itself via
taxation, thus depending on the other states for its continued existence. Democrats opposed Alaskan statehood due their
fear that Alaska would bring more pro-civil rights Congressmen, threatening the
Democrat-backed segregation policies in the South. Eventually, after twelve years of intense
lobbying, Alaska got enough votes in Congress to become a state, with President
Eisenhower signing the Alaska Statehood Act in 1958, effective in 1959.
The pre-statehood history of Hawaii
is much more American than that of Alaska.
An independent nation for its entire history, the Kingdom of Hawaii’s
monarch, Lili’uokalani, was overthrown in 1893 in a coup funded by American
businessmen who suffered under unfavorable trade policies of the Kingdom. Successful in their coup, the businessmen
established the Republic of Hawaii while urging the Cleveland administration to
annex the newly formed Republic.
President Cleveland, however, was disgusted with the coup and
refused. Five years later, however,
President McKinley approved the annexation of Hawaii. When the push for statehood gained enough
steam in the 1950s, Hawaii faced similar problems as Alaska. Democrats were terrified of a state populated
almost entirely by a racial minority, which they were sure would staunchly
oppose their segregationist practices in the South. Republicans, meanwhile, believed that Hawaii
was an outpost for Communism due to the ruling coalition government at the time
including the Communist Party of Hawaii.
Eventually, though, Congress passed the Hawaii Admission Act in 1959
which was approved by a Hawaiian referendum by an overwhelming ninety-three
percent of the vote.
While these two examples highlight
the recent resistance to increased statehood, such sentiment was exhibited
almost every time a territory attempted to become a new state. The most glaring example of this comes from
the antebellum period, roughly defined as 1820 to 1860. Due to the South’s dedication to slavery and
the North’s general unease with the institution, every new state admitted in
the South had to be balanced with a new state for the North and vice-versa to
ensure that neither the pro-slavery nor the anti-slavery factions gained a majority
in Congress. Just as some territories
were denied or delayed statehood due to their position on slavery, Utah’s push
for statehood face a severe roadblock in the form of prejudice against Mormons
and Mormon polygamy. When Utah first
applied for statehood in 1850, under the name “Deseret”, Congress thoroughly
rejected the notion due to the popular resentment of the Mormon religion. Additionally, Mormon’s unwillingness to
abandon polygamy, banned by Congress, delayed Utah’s statehood for forty-six
years until 1896.
Puerto Rico will likely face similar
roadblocks to statehood as Hawaii was forced to overcome. If Congress approves statehood, Puerto Rico
will become the twenty-ninth most populous state, allocating it with five representatives
and the standard two senators. Over
seventy-five percent of Puerto Ricans are of Hispanic origin while the dominant
language on the island is Spanish. In
the somewhat xenophobic political culture prevalent in the United States today
(many conservatives oppose bilingual ballots to accommodate citizens who do not
speak English), public sentiment towards a potential Congressman who only
speaks Spanish will be overwhelmingly negative.
In a matter of more importance in contemporary America is the fact that
Puerto Rico’s debt is equal to eighty-nine percent of its GDP, which would
become the highest in the nation should statehood pass Congress. Additionally, the unemployment rate in Puerto
Rico is just under fourteen percent, two percent higher than Nevada’s rate,
currently the highest in the nation.
A companion topic which must arise
from the discussion on Puerto Rico’s potential statehood is the absurd
petitions filed in the wake of President Obama’s reelection. Such a ridiculous notion should not even be
justified by discussing it, but alas, I have received requests for the subject
so I will touch upon it. On September 22nd,
2011, the White House launched a program called “We the People” which allows
for petitions to be filed directly to the White House. Individuals can read the petitions online and
virtually sign them if they so desire.
Each petition is on display for thirty days during which it must amass
twenty-five thousand signatures to warrant an official response.
In the past six days, from when the
election was called in favor of President Obama, thirty states have seen
residents file petitions to secede from the Union. The list provided in the next sentence will
include, for informational sake, which candidate won that state’s electoral
votes. Alabama (Romney), Alaska
(Romney), Arizona (Romney), Arkansas (Romney), California (Obama), Colorado
(Obama), Delaware (Obama), Florida (Obama), Georgia (Romney), Indiana (Romney),
Kansas (Romney), Kentucky (Romney), Louisiana (Romney), Michigan (Obama),
Mississippi (Romney), Missouri (Romney), Montana (Romney), Nebraska (Romney),
New Jersey (Obama), New York (Obama), Nevada (Obama), North Carolina (Romney),
North Dakota (Romney), Ohio (Obama), Oklahoma (Romney), Oregon (Obama),
Pennsylvania (Obama), South Carolina (Romney), South Dakota (Romney), Tennessee
(Romney), Texas (Romney), Utah (Romney), West Virginia (Romney), and Wyoming
(Romney). Twenty-three of the states who
would like to secede were won by Romney while seven were won by Obama. For those of you who paid close attention to
election results, you’ll see right away how pathetic the individuals who filed
these petitions are. If you do not know
what I am referring to, allow me to explain.
Romney won twenty-four states in the election. Every single state Romney won, with the
exception of Idaho, has residents who now would like to secede. This is unacceptably ridiculous.
To continue explaining the childish
nature of the filers, these cry-babies are astonishingly naïve in their rationales
regarding secession. The most popular of
these requests, naturally Texas, has already received the twenty-five thousand
signatures to warrant a response. Let us
take a look at the wording of the petition.
The US continues to
suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government's neglect to
reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from
blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the
state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in
the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and
to do so would protect it’s (sic) citizens' standard of living and re-secure
their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of
our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal
government.
The
first issue raised by the petition is the federal government’s “neglect to
reform domestic and foreign spending.” I
do not know to what “foreign spending” specifically refers, but in the
assumption that it refers to foreign aid provided by the U.S. government the
petition fails even the briefest of fact-checks. The United States provides more money to
foreign aid than any other nation, but the budget allocation for this aid is
less than one percent, roughly equaling $53 billion dollars. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense’s budget
is $707 billion dollars, thirteen times that of foreign aid. Perhaps the defense budget is referred to in
the “domestic” category, but since we are talking about Texas, I think we can
rule that out.
Instead, “domestic” spending likely
refers to what are typically known as welfare programs: food stamps, disability pay, Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, etc. These programs
do indeed take up a high percentage of the U.S. federal government’s budget,
but again the error in the petition’s reasoning is abundantly clear. If Texas secedes, will it simply end such
welfare programs? Likely not, because
while the public loves to criticize such spending, they would react very
bitterly if these programs were to actually disappear. Thus, if Texas became independent, it would
very likely enact very similar domestic spending policies as the petitioners
decry. Since we are discussing economic
issues, I will skip the “rights abuses” and return to it later. The petition claims that Texas “maintains” a
balanced budget and would have the fifteenth largest economy in the world if it
seceded. First off, the claim that Texas
maintains a balanced budget is misleading in its phraseology. Texas, like every other state except for
Vermont, has a balanced budget law requiring the state to balance its budget
lest automatic cuts kick in until the deficit disappears. The petition congratulates Texas for
something it is legally required to do in the first place. The claim that Texas “maintains” a balanced
budget is disingenuous on its face.
It is true that the GDP of Texas
would place it fifteenth in the world taken alone, but once more this argument
is deeply flawed. The petition claims
that due to this high GDP, Texas could maintain its citizens’ current standard
of living even if it became an independent nation. The sheer absurdity of such a claim is simply
mindboggling. The petition is either
willfully ignorant or, even worse, genuinely ignorant of the reason why states
such as Texas, California, and New York can maintain such a high GDP. All states receive certain benefits from
being in the Union that they would have to pay for entirely by themselves if
they were independent. The welfare
programs mentioned above are a good example, but to cover new ground, consider
the military.
All states pay into the military via
the taxes paid by every citizen and thus receive uniform protection by the
federal government. Should Texas secede,
it would lose this protection and instead be compelled to fund its own
military. One might be tempted to think
that such a prospect is not too bad, given the amount of military installations
scattered around Texas, but such a viewpoint forgets American history. The first shots of the Civil War were fired
by South Carolinians on the federal arms depot at Fort Sumter. Carolinians assumed that since they had left
the Union, the supplies within the fort were theirs for the taking. Obviously, the federal troops stationed in
the fort disagreed. Similarly, should
Texans assume that they were entitled to the tanks and artillery at Fort Hood,
the federal government would be less than pleased and deploy troops to prevent
the seizure. Unless the Texans
immediately allowed the American government to withdraw all its arms (in the
assumption that the federal government even would withdraw), a war between the
United States and Texas would ensue and likely end in approximately a week. No, Texas would have to spend its own money
to buy tanks, artillery, fighter jets, bombers, naval vessels, and pay its
soldiers. Such expenditures would drown
the state in debt to the point that the leadership of the new Texan nation
would be begging to reenter the Union.
With the belief that any state could
be economically self-sufficient dispelled, we turn to the supposed rights
violations imposed on Texan citizens by the federal government. The two specific right-violating agents named
in the petition are the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the
Transportation Safety Administration (TSA).
The issue the petition has with the NDAA is the provision which
reaffirms the federal government’s right to indefinitely detain any individual,
including American citizens, who is believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda or
any other terrorist group which threatens the United States. This is a very real issue, although the Texas
petition is again either willfully or genuinely ignorant that such a right was
originally created by President Bush, a former Texas governor. Additionally, while the issue is important,
it has not been used to the egregious potential it is endowed with and likely
will not be, due to the public outrage and political suicide such an act would elicit.
The continued argument over the
supposed right to privacy violations carried out by the TSA is
disappointing. The issue here is likely
the full-body scans employed in many airports which scan individuals and
creates an x-ray-like image revealing any hidden objects on the individual’s
person. This procedure is no more a
violation of privacy than getting an x-ray.
The argument against my x-ray claim is that people have a choice to get
an x-ray but full-body scans are mandatory, thus violating the right to
privacy. This argument holds weight, but
is dispelled in the aftermath of every incident involving an attempted terror
attack. Whenever an attack is attempted,
the public decries the government for not protecting us enough and yet turn
around and complain about “invasive” security methods. America cannot have it both ways. As Benjamin Franklin is often quoted, “Those
who choose security over liberty deserve neither.” While such an assessment is rather harsh, it
can be boiled down to a less strict position:
either one has wide liberties and acknowledges that there is a chance
they could be attacked, or one has wide security and acknowledges that their
liberties will be curtained to ensure this security. Americans seem to expect wide liberties and
wide security, despite the fact that the two concepts are in contradiction with
each other.
The Texas petition does not hold up
to even the slightest level of scrutiny and neither do the twenty-nine other
petitions. Besides, as individuals in
those thirty states scramble to leave the Union, they would do well to take
into account why Puerto Ricans want to join.
Drowning in debt and unemployment, Puerto Ricans know the best way to
ensure their continued adequate standard of living is to join the United States. Should any of those secessionist individuals
get their wish and liberate themselves from the United States, it will not be
long until they return, backs broken by debt and unemployment far greater than
that which current exists in America today, the weight of which is in fact
steadily diminishing. Let us hope that
such an event, the federal government teaches them a lesson, leaving them out
in the cold.
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