
More Americans Support Aid When Told Puerto Ricans Are U.S. Citizens - johnny313
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/more-americans-may-support-puerto-rico-aid-as-they-learn-theyre-u-s-citizens/
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thedevil
This shouldn't surprise anyone. It's basic psychology that should be taught in
school.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-
group_favoritism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism)

Edit: And it's something to keep in mind with politics. The other side is not
nearly as evil or stupid as you think they are, nor is your side as righteous
or clever.

Edit 2: It also fuels racism and xenophobia.

Edit 3: Which reminds me, PG's essay on identity:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html)

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jldugger
> This shouldn't surprise anyone. It's basic psychology that should be taught
> in school.

Sure, but maybe they should also teach that Puerto Rico is part of the US in
school?

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jldugger
One wonders how that number would change if informed that Puerto Ricans don't
pay federal personal income tax?

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eridius
They do pay other taxes though. And they're missing many benefits that they'd
get if they were a proper state.

~~~
johnnyg
And they have had opportunities to begin the process to fully opt in and
haven't done so.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum,_2017#Previous_referendums)

We should help because they are people hurting but lets not mischaracterize
the dynamics of PR/USA relations.

~~~
dragonwriter
The article you links to reports that Statehood won the 2012 referendum
(majority voted no to current status, and Statehood got a majority of votes
for the alternative status), which Congress chose to ignore, and
overwhelmingly won the single-stage 2017 referendum.

So, no, the issue is not “they have had opportunities to begin the process to
fully opt in and haven't done so”.

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umanwizard
The 2017 """referendum""" was a push poll, not a binding referendum or even a
fair and objective opinion poll.

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plandis
What do you mean it wasn't fair or objective?

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jldugger
Opinion polling put Statehood at 52%, with a 3.2% margin of error. Sounds
close, but the referendum had 3 choices, and neither were very close.

It seems like those opposed to Statehood realized they'd lose as they split
the vote, and ran a boycott campaign, effectively turning it into a yes/no
vote on statehood, with the fringe benefit of claiming all non-voters as on
their side, which going by 2012, is a free 20 percent of the vote.

For better or worse, there's not really an objective way to evaluate this
state of affairs =/

~~~
dragonwriter
We could do what we do with every other election, and treat nonvotes as
irrelevant to the validity of the outcome unless they result from people being
improperly prevented from voting rather than voluntarily abstaining, whether
in protest or otherwise.

~~~
jldugger
Obviously "what we do" is influenced by Congressional makeup and how PR alters
it, but that's pretty much what the diff between a binding and non-binding
referendum means in practice.

And maybe forcing the issue is a bit too colonial, optically.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yeah, it would be a bit “too colonial” to respect the results of either of the
last two status referenda, or the multiple requests of the elected governing
bodies of PR to abide by the previous one; clearly, maintaining Puerto Rico’s
subject status with no vote in the federal government that it is subject to
despite all those things is the _non-_ colonial thing to do.

Or...maybe that's the exact opposite of what is going on.

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xrange
Another fun twist would be to see what effect there would be if you mentioned
that no one from Puerto Rico voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016
presidential election.

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protomyth
Yet the US gives generously to multiple disasters around the world. We send
aid, money, and often the US military to help out. This little study is done
by Morning Consult, where the 80% study was done by Pew - so I'm a little
confused by a direct comparison. I wonder what the exact wording of the
questions was (personal vs government money perhaps)?

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holydude
I wonder if a european country can become a US state one day. You know joining
the US as an alternative to the european union.

~~~
craftyguy
I can't think of any European country that would wish that fate on their
citizens.

~~~
holydude
It is uthinkable by many and it is a very hypothetical question. I am not even
sure if the US would want to have a soil so far away from the “mainland” :-)

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dragonwriter
The nearest bits of Europe aren't that much further from the US mainland than
Hawai’i is. (Ireland to Maine is a hair farther than Hawai’i to California.)

And the US certainly has non-state territories even further away.

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2close4comfort
When can we start investing again in education...

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xrange
Anyone have a good estimate the total amount of money spent in the name of
education in the U.S. in the last 50 years? I'd be interested to see the total
pre-k through university graduate school, including both public (local, state,
federal) and private.

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asdfsdfknl
Not a direct answer, but as someone working in this space, I'd like to also
mention that while more money in education is probably good, I doubt it does
anything. There are structural and cultural problems in the education system
in the United States that cannot be solved with money.

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quotha
U.S. Citizens with their own baseball team?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_national_baseball_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_national_baseball_team)

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gramstrong
Plenty of U.S. citizens have their own baseball team. Mine is the Seattle
Mariners (and they STINK).

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quotha
I wasn't rooting against the Mariners in the world baseball classic.

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quotha
Seriously, I think it was literally USA vs. Puerto Rico. They also compete
_against_ USA in the Olympics. Now I'm not saying don't help them out, I'm
just saying..

