[Texas_Jarhead]

Cut Puerto Rico lose. Let them return to a 3rd world dictatorship.

[quebecois]

"Cut PR loose"

Despite all of the blather about "gringos", PR would never allow itself to become independent (and if they ever did, there would be a huge rush of most of the island's population to move to the mainland before it took effect). The reason is simple: they wish to remain within the same political system as the productive white middle class so that they can engage in government-managed income redistribution. Without us in the same polity, where would they get all of their handouts?

This is also why, despite centuries of sometimes terrible treatment, no significant number of blacks have ever left the USA. The anti-white tirades are not the rhetoric of a population that wants the independence to pursue its own destiny, but is rather a giant political guilt-inducing temper tantrum designed to gain redistributed income. The scam doesn't work if you aren't in the same political system as the taxpaying middle class workers.

[4Freedom]

"Let them return to a 3rd world dictatorship."

If the U.S. Taxpayers took away the $18.8 billion dollars in cash we gift to Puerto Rico each year.

Close down the hundreds of U.S. Post Offices and Mail Distribution Centers on the islands and take away those thousands of jobs.

De-federalize the 3 airports in Puerto Rico and their cruise ship docks and take away those thousands of jobs.

Take away the hundreds of FEMA jobs and federal assistance after hurricanes and other disasters.

Take away the over 1,000 IRS jobs.

Close all of the other military bases and the VA Hospital and VA Administration offices.

Stop the FDIC from insuring all of their bank accounts.

Shut down the U.S. Border Patrol/INS, U.S. Marshalls, Federal Courts, FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs, EPA, USDA, FDA, National Parks, Dept. of Highways and Trans., Dept. of Energy and every other federal government agency that employs the ingrates down there, we'd have to invent a new category for them.

Maybe, 4th or 5th-world, 'Stone Age', etc.. They'd be beyond destitute.

How long do they think that all the American businesses that went down there to avoid paying 90% of their U.S. income taxes would stay there after all of those BILLIONS dried up?

LOL!

[germanicus]

They never were a third world dictatorship. The US took possesion of the island from Spain after the Spanish American War and it's been a commonwealth (territory) of the US ever since. It's government works along similar lines to our state governments but under the eye of the Feds. Puerto Ricans are American citizens (albeit non-income taxpaying) and have fought in all American wars since WWI. I know because my father (a Puerto Rican) was in the US Army (master sgt.) during WWII. There are many patriots there and also many conservatives but I would have to agree, they are the minority (a lot like Massachusetts?). For that reason, statehood would not be a good thing. But I don't believe PR would ever become a dictatorship, at least not without an internal civil war.