On Sun, 4 Apr 1999 12:57:59 EDT, you wrote:
[snip]
>I don't see the advantage of keeping PR then....why not let em sail off into
>the sunset....
They might crash into Hispaniola.
Seriously, we've been trying to let them sail off. But that's one deeply dug-in anchor they've got on US citizenship and the more popular ideas on freedom.
Were Puerto Rico unilaterally released from Congressional and White House bonds, we might see the same exodus reaction experienced by Hong Kong when it was repatriated to China. Although I don't think the vast majority of Puerto Ricans would become independentists overnight simply because they were granted independence, the generalized nightmare is that, somehow, the small group of independentists and their socialist ideals would take over the government.
Above all, there's the dread of losing the general liberties enjoyed by Americans stateside. After all, these are American citizens we're talking about: they know and appreciate the liberty-oriented ideals permeating our society. And they fear swift erosion of those liberties under any form of outright socialism.
So, short of a Congressional decree, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico will be around for a long while.
P.S. The metaphor of letting them "sail off into the sunset" was a bona fide pun, considering the subject of the original thread.