When people are saying "permitless carry doesn't go far enough",. and that's the NRA's position, and that's who the Governor and state legislature is listening to, that's who I'm talking about. Even if most rank-and-file Republicans don't want to carry an AR15 to npick up an order at Subway, most won't vote against the Republicans for their "unlimited guns for all" position.
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- Thread starter Barry
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Oh please. They are everywhere. This is either disingenuous or roughly the odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot.
You know how many times I've been told that anyone disagreeing with ANY of the MAGA agenda is a RINO? Now they call Democrats and non-"Freedom" Council GQP the "Uniparty" where MAGA represents all "real"Americans.
Is religion in the schools a hot button issue in Puerto Rico? How about abortion? Secure borders? Much of what the Republican Party on the mainland is campaigning and acting on doesn't seem to me to have much relevance to Puerto Rico. So much of your life experience has been in places and cultures that have hardly anything in common with, say, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Utah or Oregon. And yet you continue to draw parallels between the Republican Party and a Puerto Rican party with some sort of "affiliation" with the GOP as if it were the mainland GOP itself. That is as disingenuous as one can get.
We should also point out that the only opposition to Puerto Rican statehood comes from the US GOP.
The GOP cannot win without the Evangelicals.
The issue as I see it is that total "right to carry" is in jeopardy if the ultra-rabid-no-guns-at-all crowd prospers. Many of us who feel a personal safety weapon, well secured in the home, is a necessity in today's zero enforcement of minor crime world also feel that any attack on the amendment itself is dangerous.
I don't have a permit, but my wife who had multiple episodes of personal attack and threats when an LA TV anchor and progressive talk host does and she got special LAPD training as part of a program several decades ago to acquaint "influencers" with weapons use, permits and safety practices.
Both of us despise automatic weapons, and don't feel rifles and the like should be allowed in urban areas unless in protected cases. The problem is that the seemingly uncontrollable cartel soldiers have access to weapons and at least one in Mexico is making their own, as is a group in Colombia.
Protective weapons should be regulated, purchasers should be evaluated for past anti-social or behavioural issues and go through a "cooling off" period prior to delivering the weapon. Obligatory training and regular renewal... just like a driver license... should be required.
We are not in the "old west" but with the cartel soldiers and gangs like the Mara Salvatrucha roaming our streets, adequate protection is going to be required by many.
No, the position of the GOP is that a valid referendum must be conducted within terms set to select independence, continuation of the "Free Associated State" (incorrectly translated as "Commonwealth") or statehood.
I've testified as an "expert witness" before the Puerto Rican Senate on the effects of statehood on electronic media in Puerto Rico (short answer: none) and have been involved in the Puerto Rico Broadcasters Association on related committees over a period of three decades.
The statehood party, the Partido Nuevo Progresista, is affiliated (for lack of a better term such as "allied" or "represented") with the Republican Party on the mainland because the attempts at a referendum up to this point are non-binding and don't offer clear options for all three positions of the historical major parties of Puerto Rico.
The majority in Puerto Rico is generally the pro-statehood party. The idea that some democrats have that Puerto Ricans will vote and affiliate like the substantially immigrant-heritage Hispanics in much of the US is just incorrect. Puerto Rico has a huge middle class and the interests and attitudes are very different.
If they believe that, why did all but 16 vote against it when it was proposed in congress a few weeks ago?
All but 16 House Republicans vote against bill to allow Puerto Rico to decide its future
The bill, unlikely to pass the Senate this year, was opposed by Republicans on the grounds that it could lead to statehood for the territory.
www.businessinsider.com
No. The Island has a vastly higher percentage of church members and religious people than the mainland average. Those who can send children to Catholic schools, and the percentage of total students in private schools is immensely higher than in the US.
Not a "hot topic" and socially unacceptable in high proportions. A study, published before the pandemic, showed over 80% objection to "unwarranted" abortion.
Extremely important, due in part to the hundreds of thousands of illegal Dominicans that have taken many jobs in Puerto Rico as they work for much less.
It sure does. Crime, drugs, immigration, abortion are strong issues. Puerto Rico has become a major drug transit point (once in PR, you are in the US) and crime due to the cartels is horrible.
I campaigned as a "youth representative" for the Republican Party in 1960. My mother was chairperson of the party in Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Cleveland then was a top 10 market back then). I've been on the mainland for 30 years now, although I've been involved with Puerto Rican media all the way up to last year.
One can understand more than one group... I also successfully programed a Spanish language talk station in LA in the later 90's that generally beat KFI in 25-54. The all-talk and news station I created in the Dominican Republic in 1986 (Z-101) is still #1 in the whole country, and the same format in Argentina (100 Kw 710 AM "Radio 10") in Buenos Aires was #1 on AM all the time I was involved and is now still #2 in the market. I did news-talk in Miami and New York at the leading stations in the format in each place, too. (I could name more stations and nations and markets but that seems to likely be overkill). My point: one can understand the sociopolitical environment of multiple places, areas, states and nations. The broader perspective helps one understand each situation better, too.
Because the process proposed is not reflective of what essentially half of Puerto Rico favors.If they believe that, why did all but 16 vote against it when it was proposed in congress a few weeks ago?
All but 16 House Republicans vote against bill to allow Puerto Rico to decide its future
The bill, unlikely to pass the Senate this year, was opposed by Republicans on the grounds that it could lead to statehood for the territory.
Only about 2% of Puerto Ricans favor independence. Almost as many favor the current status as favor statehood (the difference changes with every survey) and the process must offer the three clear alternatives of Independencia, Estado Libre Asociado and Estadidad. That array was not offered by the proposal. The wording did not establish the current "Free Associated State" as the "commonwealth" option in the proposal (it modified "commonwealth" to something it isn't). It offered, instead, two forms of independence as well as statehood.
The pro-Statehood El Nuevo Día newspaper opposed it vehemently because it distorted the definition of what "Commonwealth" is now and what it would mean in the referendum.
The objection was due to the wording that the bill, which passed 233-191 with some Republican support, "would offer voters in the U.S. territory three options: statehood, independence or independence with free association." The change in "free association" which is the current status into "independence with free association" would remove all the US involvement in the government, economy and society in Puerto Rico. As such, the proposed legislation did not offer in any way to vote for the preservation of the current status, which nearly half of all Puerto Ricans on the Island support and embrace.
It's important to note that the favorite sport in Puerto Rico is politics due to the "status" question. At election time, flags for the red, blue or green party identification fly over nearly every home at every economic level... including mine for several decades.
The New Progressive Party, itself, supported the bill as it closed the door to the heavily supported "Commonwealth" and only gave the choice of statehood or some form of total or partial independence as a new country; that would guarantee statehood would win as the "independentistas" only amount to a few percent of the electorate.
Of course, since nearly half of all Puerto Ricans favor the existing Commonwealth status, there would be huge opposition on the Island to the Democrat sponsored bill because it does/did not offer maintenance of the widely accepted current "Commonweath" which is a bad translation of "Free Associated State".
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Huh? Read this:
That's exactly what you said Republicans favor. They voted against a valid referendum. They're lying to the people of Puerto Rico.
Republicans voted against it because they fear the people would choose statehood. They see it as a money pit.
The form of "free association" in the bill is not the same as the "Free Associated State" (Estado Libre Asociado) currently favored by about half the electorate and which is what is in effect now. It is, instead, a modified form of independence, but with some association with the USA sort of like Canada's association with the United Kingdom.
Republicans voted against it because it would cause huge unrest in Puerto Rico and destroy the local economy there. The statehood party in PR favored it because the three options were "bad, awful and better" but they ignore half the electorate which favors the current status with no change: every one of the options on the proposal is a major change.
You can believe that if it makes you feel good. But Republicans voted against it because they don't want Puerto Ricans to become citizens. Read the story, reported by a conservative newspaper:
They don't care about the local economy. They want it to stay where it is, and all of its inhabitants. The previous president was very clear how he felt about Puerto Rico. The party he leads agrees with him. They'll give them paper towels, but nothing else.
The argument I've always heard about the GOP opposition to Puerto Rican statehood is based strictly on economics, that Puerto Rico would replace Mississippi as the state with the deepest poverty and lowest standard of living, and based strictly on statistics that's hard to argue against. Whether there's an element of racism in that opposition is probably true, but there's no parallel historical situation to confirm that. US politicians have never had to consider statehood for a similarly economically stressed island populated by a bunch of English-speaking white folks. Maybe if Nova Scotia gets the urge to break up with Canada ...
Since I first managed a station in Puerto Rico 53 years ago, I have constantly encountered total lack of understanding of the Island, its politics, its economy and its culture.
For about 50 years, the Island was administered by a gringo Resident Commissioner who was not elected locally but appointed by technocrats in DC. An effort was made to eradicate the Spanish language in a method not so far removed from the treatment of Indigenous Nations in an earlier era of America's sometimes unfortunate history.
There is a resentful lack of trust of everything in the District of Columbia. This latest bill, written by the Democratic Party, would eliminate the Estado Libre Asociado (wrongfully translated as "Commonwealth") and give the Island two independence options plus statehood without considering the desire of nearly half of the Island's residents. It was wrong, and another example of Washington trying to trick the Island with twisted semantics and deceitful translations.
And half of all Puerto Ricans want it to stay the way it is, because that is how they feel about keeping Congress away from dictating what the Island wants. While I favor statehood, as do the members of the PNP, having it imposed by eliminating the current status as an option is not acceptable.
One of my daughters worked as head of a Puerto Rico government agency (Department of Education) and then was a staff advisor to the Governor. She looked at the bill and said, in two words, "total deception".
Trump's theatrics did not favor his position, but he did get that the Island was very evenly split, with over half not wanting to be a state (49% pro Statehood and 51% pro Commonwealth or pro independence). Statehood does not have a majority when the PIP (independence party) is included in the statistics.
This people voting on this bill were not the people of Puerto Rico. They were people in congress. The options presented were exactly the options you say Republicans favor. But when given a chance to vote, they voted no.
Here is a link to the bill.
To me, choice 2 sounds like what they have now: The Free Associated State of Puerto Rico.
But hey, now the Republicans are in charge of the House. Let's wait and see if they come up with a better bill. I bet they don't.
And that is the problem. They don't understand that half the population wants to continue "as is".
No, they are not. There is no preservation option for the existing commonwealth, and that shows lack of understanding.
The Free Associated State is so different, it includes abolishing jurisddiction of thing like the FBI, FCC, Social Security, etc. It is not today's Free Associated State.
If a clear choice of Independence, Statehood and ELA has never seen statehood win, why would they go through the motions?
I promise that Republicans will never ever agree to any bill that has the word "statehood" in it. Never. If they could put all Americans of Puerto Rican descent on a boat and send them all back to the island, without fear of losing votes in Hispanic states, they'd do it tomorrow. They want to build a wall and keep out anyone who is not like them. Try to understand this. Puerto Rico will never get a chance to vote on their situation, and it's because of the GOP.
Neither will most Puerto Ricans, starting with my family.
No, it's because the loss of the Commonwealth status likely would never pass. There is way too much fear of losing the Island's language and culture.
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