naturalplastic wrote:
Orwell wrote:
I doubt that independence from the US would be in Puerto Rico's interest, and I doubt the political consensus can be built in the mainland to grant Puerto Rico statehood, so it will likely remain a commonwealth as it is now.
50 really is a nice round number for states. I know it sounds idiotic and arbitrary, but a lot of people will oppose expanding beyond 50 states. We would also have to design a new national flag. I would favor granting statehood, though- PR certainly is big enough to be its own state. It has a larger population than Hawaii, and they got statehood. Why should PR be any different?
PR has a bigger population than Mississippi, Iowa, Alaska, and about 17 other states.
If it were a state, it would be the 29th largest, so 21 states are smaller than it. When this issue had been brought up before, I had assumed that PR was not really considered for statehood because it would be too small. It was a bit of a surprise to check their population numbers and find that they were more than big enough to be considered a state. I do have to wonder about some of the uninhabited patches of farmland on the mainland, though. Rural areas are given ridiculous over-representation in the Senate. Perhaps we should consolidate some adjacent small-population states into one.
psychohist wrote:
When English becomes the dominant language on Puerto Rico, it will be ready for statehood.
It already is largely English-speaking, and there is no such requirement for statehood anyways as there is no national language.
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