The Media Has Neglected Puerto Rico | Hacker News Reader

The Media Has Neglected Puerto Rico

fivethirtyeight.com

I think the quality and quantity of reporting coming out of Puerto Rico has suffered from both its political status and the fact that it is an island at a considerable distance from the mainland U.S.

However, I think the situation has been compounded by both the degree of damage caused by the hurricane and by the kind of damage. Something like 90% of the cell towers are offline and the landlines have been heavily damaged as well. So you have this problem where you can't get reporters in and you also can't get firsthand reports from locals out, either.

It seems like a clear case of no news is bad news, but how is the news media supposed to report "no news"?

They managed to keep up 24 hours rolling coverage of a missing plane for what seemed like weeks. Cable news is really good at filling time with speculation, talking heads, Wolf Blitzer, and CGI reenactments.

Well, yeah. But Maria was the third hurricane in a row. Maybe the news was suffering from hurricane fatigue combined with a lack of information coming out of Puerto Rico at the same time.

I see friends on the island managing to post Facebook updates so I feel like a professional news organization should be able to get some reports out if they really want.

It's also been 11 or 12 days since the hurricane hit Puerto Rico. But for the first week, the reporting seemed pretty sparse even though it was obvious they had been hit really hard.

It's not like things are much better now.

If nothings changed you wouldn't expect it to be on the news would you? Power being restored might be newsworthy, but something today being in the same situation as yesterday isn't.

I'd say "United States region of 3.5 million without power for over a week, and residents are resorting to getting water from a creek" is actually a newsworthy story. We got endless updates about what Donald Trump thinks about the NFL and the anthem despite little significant change there.

Lower and middle Manhattan was without power for nearly a week following Hurricane Sandy. Not saying that to justify the lack of news coverage (quite the opposite), just saying that disasters happen, especially following a hurricane.

And pretty sure we all heard about that exhaustively :-)

We heard a lot more about Sandy, and, besides that, although I lived through it and it sucked (especially being in a more rural-ish part of Connecticut that was not a priority for power restoration... though we were better off in other ways than parts of New York I guess) we weren't experiencing these kinds of fuel shortages or resorting to taking a bucket to a creek to get drinking water.

> Power being restored might be newsworthy, but something today being in the same situation as yesterday isn't

That did not prevent non-stop, blanket coverage of the missing Malaysia flight for weeks

Katrina caused similar problems of a lack of information, and that didn’t stop the news networks from providing 24-hour coverage (much of which was later found to be based off inaccurate reporting). If they cared or thought it would boost ratings, they’d be there.

> an island at a considerable distance from the mainland U.S.

It's just over 1000 miles from Florida - about a third the distance from New York to San Francisco. That's not "a considerable distance" that should be hampering anything for a country currently engaged in a war about 6000 miles away.

Surely they can deploy the same satellite links they use on trucks from a ship or a helicopter? Just land a damn crew on any accessible beach and provide daily status updates from reporters trekking inland on motorcycle, or foot. Would be a hell of a lot better than just ignoring the crisis because its too hard.

Puerto Rican here!

In my opinion, these are two very good pieces to learn about Puerto Rico [1] https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE [2] https://youtu.be/Tt-mpuR_QHQ

While there may be a legit point to this article, let's also keep things in perspective. In the past few weeks we've had....... 3 major hurricanes resulting in enormous damage. The NFL anthem/knee controversy. Escalating tensions with North Korea. The Catalan vote turned into military police violence yesterday. The largest mass murder in recent American history today. OJ was released from prison. More Manafort investigations. The protests/riots in St. Louis over officer Jason Stockley being cleared in the shooting. The other riots at Georgia tech where a cop car was set on fire of a different shooting. The discovery that Jared Kushner has used private email for government business. Developments in the Russia hacking scandal which may prove involvement in the election. The deadly riots in India after a religious leader was convicted of rape. A terrorist knife attacker in France yesterday. Suicide bombers in Syria today. The alleged murderers of Kim Jong-Un's half brother began their trial.

And that's just the shit I can remember! I'm afraid to think about what I have already forgotten - and that's really the point. There's really only so much any one person can focus on to any meaningful degree. I'm not a fan of the media, but I don't blame them for this one. People were sick of hurricane coverage and with all that other stuff going on, they curtailed coverage a bit to focus on some other hot button issues.

Also, pulling up 2-3 major news outlets right now I see that PR is mentioned on all of them, particularly because the president has announced a visit there. But still. It's on the main page of all of them this very minute.

One other thing - today is a perfect example - if it weren't for the mass shooting in Vegas, the Catalan voting violence would have been the front page news today. Maybe being in Europe it is that way, but not here in the US. Catalan was all but drowned out to the Vegas attack.

The London Tube bombing. I think that was just a couple of weeks ago.

As you say, there is only so much one can focus on. I don't even try to really retain or keep up with it all. I can't and I don't care if I'm expected to.

I'd say that I also have a finite amount of empathy. It sounds bad but it gets used up quickly and I have more local things on which to spend my empathy. I know it is selfish, but that's just how it is.

Yep, forgot about that one.

I totally understand your point. And it is, in my opinion, a very reasonable position to take. I believe I'm the same way, for better or worse. I can't recall with certainty but I believe there is a psychological term for what you describe. Basically, it boils down to your brain compartmentalizing what you can and cannot have an effect on. That which you cannot affect you tend to care far less about and reduce/eliminate empathy and other emotional connection because it can be draining and isn't productive in any positive way (usually). That which you can affect or which has a significant impact on you personally is a totally different story. Wish I could remember the term for it.

As I was typing it, I was thinking there would be a psychological name for it. It seems like something they've likely classified and tried to measure.

If you'll permit me a vulgarity, my give a damn button is broken. For PR, I sent off two donations. It's the same as I did for both Florida and Texas. I don't view it as buying karma, or anything. I view it as being more that I'm actually obligated to do.

We don't care need to to overly care, do anything, or devote energy. Being obligated to outrage is a silly social trend. It's unfortunate and it's surely painful for those most closely impacted, but we are continually bombarded with news of tragedy.

Selfish or not, I'm pretty sure it's more healthy to just accept it and acknowledge it. I'm absolutely not saying it wasn't tragic, I'm just saying I am unwilling to get emotionally invested in it.

I suspect that makes sense, I'm mostly just trying to explain it in more detail because I don't know of a more precise term for it. If this happened in my area, I'd be much more emotionally invested.

Maybe it has something to do with the word Territory as in a U.S. Territory. I still don't know what it is, but it implies that it is not a state, not a city. If Hawaii can be half way around the world and be called a state, why can't we do the same for Puerto Rico?

I don’t think PR wants to be a state yet.

And they don't want to remain under their current status, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statehood_movement_in_Puerto_R...

> The fifth referendum was held on June 11, 2017. 97% percent voted for statehood, though there was only 23% voter turnout.[1]

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/337347-puerto-rico-votes-in...

This is extremely misleading. The pro-status quo party boycotted the referendum. I'm relatively ignorant of the political situation in PR but it's obvious that this isn't a situation with near-universal consensus.

The pro-status-quo groups have been actively avoiding honest participation from the 1998 vote on, because they'd rather a vote with unclear results than a clear loss (though even so, they clearly lost in 2012, though their non-participation in the “if not status quo, then what” part of that ballot was used as grounds to deny the import of the substantial win by Statehood on that ballot.)

This is correct. I'm surprised at how much bad information there is in this thread. There hasn't been a clear mandate for a desire to become a state from Puerto Ricans and until that happens Congress has indicated it won't do anything. Both parties support the territory's right to self-determination. It has nothing to do with who Puerto Rico is likely to represent in Congress or the Electoral College: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statehood_movement_in_Puerto_R...

What's a "clear mandate"?

A poll where a majority of the population both votes and votes for statehood.

Okay, I'll pencil you in for 50.01%. I wonder what the clear mandate will be for what a clear mandate is.

By this standard no president has had a mandate for a long time either

Not wrong.

Statehood won by the terms of the 2012 referendum and the 2017 do-over the federal government asked for rather than honoring the 2012 result.

they should have probably used "colony".

>be called a state, why can't we do the same for Puerto Rico?

it isn't a state. As in taxation without representation.

It's not really clear why this is downvoted. I'm not a Puerto Rico expert, but a brief review of the Wikipedia article indicates that the UN has been conducting "decolonization" investigations to see how to assist Puerto Rico in becoming either a state or independent. And I don't think it's arguable that Puerto Rico doesn't have elected representation in Congress or in the Electoral College.

They're also not taxed like a state, citizens resident there aren't taxed on income, except for social security, which they receive the benefits of. So no, they're not represented, but they also don't have the same burdens.

Edit: it does sound like they might get shorted on Medicare benefits? It's unclear.

Edit2: this article looks at the difference between spending and taxes, in 2011, for all states and Puerto Rico: https://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-...

Thank you for that clarification.

The way the comment is written it appears to be attacking Puerto Rico and claiming that it is better suited to be called a "colony". If the poster was unaware, this word has a very negative connotation due to what has happened to many of the places the United States and England have colonized. eg Haiti, India, "Just open a history textbook"

If the poster was instead trying to use this bad connotation to assist the argument that Puerto Rico probably shouldn't be a territory (which I now assume after looking at your comment), then that argument was lost in what was written. The writing is unclear in its intent, and that is likely why some folks misunderstood it. It kinda assumes you get lucky and interpret what he's saying the right way.

I'm guessing what's intended is actually to attack the US government's handling of Puerto Rico as being on an essentially colonial basis -- something that I find hard to completely dismiss if you look at bombing them in the 50s, the current debt crisis being worsened severely by Congress' refusal to allow recourse to bankruptcy, the shameful failure to render aid after Maria, etc.

> bombing them in the 50s, the current debt crisis being worsened severely by Congress' refusal to allow recourse to bankruptcy, the shameful failure to render aid after Maria

Just wanna say that I completely agree, but also wanted to tack on their non-existent representation in Congress.

I think it is rather likely they were aware of the connotation.

And the comment you replied to is also likely aware of such. That's why they pointed out a global cooperative body making noises about Puerto Rico and decolonization.

Also, your mention of Haiti is confused; it was a French colony, not a colony of the UK or US.

> your mention of Haiti is confused; it was a French colony, not a colony of the UK or US

Nice catch. And yeah, I just wanted to try and make things clear - no intention to be sassy.

There have been many votes on PR statehood, and the people of PR have always voted to remain a territory. I don't know enough about this to form a strong opinion, so I'd be interested to hear from PR residents as to why statehood has been a hard sell historically. I've always assumed it was a reaction against additional taxation but I don't know.

Morally, I don't think it matters in this case- whether it's a state or a territory or a sovereign government, the US (along with everyone else in a position to help) should be helping Puerto Rico as much as possible. It's just something I've never understood, and sadly it might be a factor in the current tragedy.

So is D.C., but that's also ignored.

If nothing else the federal government is there and they're between two states (and also a lot of the media is there) so it's a bit harder to imagine almost the entire city being without electricity for over a week.

That's probably true, though only because you've chosen that specific problem (and even then - I wouldn't claim that any level of incompetence is out of Pepco's reach).

How about the fact that DC still has a lead contamination problem that was, at its peak, 20-30x worse than the one in Flint, MI? Is that a problem that makes you think the 680,000 residents of the city, who pay all federal taxes and overwhelmingly want to be recognized as a state, deserve the same representation as the people of Wyoming or Texas or New Hampshire? DC's lack of representation is shameful - the textbook example of cynical, undemocratic partisan politics.

Puerto Rico absolutely deserves better representation and all the aid necessary to help them rebuild, but DC's situation is ridiculous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Washingt...

I am totally in favor of DC statehood; I just find it hard to imagine we'd see these levels of apathy if it looked like Puerto Rico still does now.

In short, money and influence. Puerto Rico is too poor. By giving it statehood, that opens it up to receiving a lot more federal money that is already hotly contended over. Puerto Rico doesn't have enough would-be voters to make a difference for either party.

It would, however, have two senators likely to be Democratic.

Yeah but not appealing to the government as constituted

You know Puerto Rico has its own political parties, right? I would hope you're also aware that the party in power is center right. If Puerto Rico were to join as a state you'd more likely than not find its politicians trying to retain their own party ties.

At least do some research.

> You know Puerto Rico has its own political parties, right? I would hope you're also aware that the party in power is center right.

The Democratic Party (well, it's currently dominant faction, at least) is also center right.

> If Puerto Rico were to join as a state you'd more likely than not find its politicians trying to retain their own party ties.

There'd be strong pressure to fuse with or be displaced by the national parties once PR was involved in Congress and, more importantly, Presidential elections; the days of states having distinct local major parties on a lasting basis likely ended when the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party aligned with the national Democratic Party, and the nationalization (and globalization) of the media, combined with the way electoral politics works means that's unlikely to change even with the admission of new states with pre-existing party systems.

You can find that Puerto Rican politicians already also have registrations/affiliations with the mainland political parties as well.

Besides that, it's really hard to believe that even Puerto Ricans with conservative views are going to break in significant numbers for a party that seems to be so hostile to them.

For the sake of comparison, per capita GDP in Puerto Rico is $29k and in MO it is $43k. It is poorer than the mainland but not as destitute as this comment makes it sound (although things have been on a downward spiral for years).

Puerto Rico is the 29th most populated state/territory in the country. They basically have the same number of citizens as Connecticut. It would _definitely_ make a difference for one of the parties - though it would likely be the Democratic Party. However, Puerto Rico has been voting on statehood for a very long time and has historically voted against it. In the past couple years they did vote for statehood - twice in fact. But they did so while republicans controlled congress and since republicans know giving Puerto Rico statehood wouldn't benefit them they will never prioritize it while in-power.

> However, Puerto Rico has been voting on statehood for a very long time and has historically voted against it.

That's not entirely true; pro-status-quo groups have boycotted all or part of ballots, or advocated voting for some other option than continued territory status to avoid clear wins for Statehood. That was true in 2017 where they boycotted the whole ballot, in 2012 where they boycotted the second (alternative status) part of a two part ballotmarking that called for a vote up or down on current status and then a separate vote on what the replacement status should be; in 1998 where they called for a vote for “none of the above” so their votes would be added to genuine NOTA votes.

It's true that Commonwealth (territory) status won in 1967 and, narrowly, 1993, but it's clearly been declining over time, which is why that faction has been trying to deny clear results since 1998.

Puerto Rico isn’t “poor.” It’s GDP per capita is higher than Spain, and just below Italy.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

According to these sources it also beats South Korea, New Zealand, and Israel, which frankly surprised me a bit.

The PPP ranking reflects local cost of living, which is comparatively low in PR. In nominal terms, it's below NZ and Israel and just ahead of South korea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

Well, still, nobody thinks of South Korea as a poor country, right?

Also, in nominal GDP per capita, Taiwan is ranked right next to Slovenia. Which doesn't accurately represent the real standard of living in the two places.

Is this number adjusted for cost of living?

What surprised me was that almost every news report/pleas on tv shows to help seemed to mention and emphasize that these people are American citizens. I didn't see the same thing happen with the other hurricane coverage. Is awareness about this really an issue?

yes. a lot of people are unaware of puerto rico’s status and its peoples citizenship.

In no small part due to years of national news pretty much ignoring the existence of Puerto Rico.

one citation, but i'm sure there are more: "Nearly Half of Americans Don’t Know Puerto Ricans Are Fellow Citizens" - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/upshot/nearly-half-of-ame...

I wonder if these polls are as accurate as election polls.

Well I didn't look at the data and i'm sure theres some error in the results. But even if they are off by 20-30% thats still A LOT of people who dont know about PR status, etc.

Anecdotally (i know thats not a good example) most people I speak to always ask if needed a visa to more to one of the 50 states, they ask if you need a passport to visit and they ask if you can drive to PR.

The polls were very accurate at the national level and within a few points at the state level.

The same polls that predicted Hillary would win?

Most national polls reflected a preference for her of a few percent. Her popular vote victory was well within that margin of error.

But you already knew about the statistical peculiarity that was the 2016 Electoral College result, so I'm guessing you're repeating this hoping for some alt-right points on HN? Or just to demonstrate that public policy polling and statistics are somehow a big snake oil discipline that you're too intelligent to fall for?

Even a lot of the media has struggled a bit with it- talking about "US aid" when they mean Federal aid. They never say US aid when disaster strikes the rest of the US, they say Federal aid.

Interestingly, apparently PR is still considered "unincorporated" meaning that the US Constitution doesn't apply in its entirety there.

Sadly, it is an issue. From another fivethirtyeight article: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/more-americans-may-supp...

> Last year, YouGov found that only 43 percent of Americans knew Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens.

> Overall, 64 percent were in favor of aid to the island. ... That 64 percent in favor of aid increased to 68 when respondents were informed that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. Trump backers specifically saw a 10-point jump — from 57 percent to 67 percent — in favoring aid when told that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Yes. In grad school I had a prof from Puerto Rico and she said she always had to convince officials that yes she was a US citizen.

You can also google stories about people who don't believe New Mexico is part of the US.

It's absolutely an issue. Sad but true. I would bet that most American citizens don't realize that PR is also part of America, or that the people that live there are American citizens as well.

I used to be wishy washy about PR becoming a state. Now I'm 100% behind it. This is what happens with taxation without representation. Eventually you get screwed.

> taxation without representation

Residents of Puerto Rico don't pay Federal income tax.

They do pay other Federal taxes such as social security and import duties.

A number of hedge fund managers and other high-net-worth people have established homes in PR just to avoid Federal income tax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Puerto_Rico

and those are taxes all citizens of our country pay.

> > taxation without representation

> Residents of Puerto Rico don't pay Federal income tax.

As an immigrant I get to both pay federal taxes and can’t vote, so no representation. :)

Just pointing out they’re not necessarily correlated.

> As an immigrant I get to both pay federal taxes and can’t vote, so no representation. :)

Well, generally constitutional rights don't fully apply to us non-citizens. Don't think that's a very meaningful argument in this context.

Puerto Ricans are eligible for social security and Medicare, so they’re getting something in return for those. Puerto Rican corporations also don’t pay federal corporation tax.

But they don't have a vote on whether those entitlement should even exist in the first place.

There have been public referendums over the decades. Only the 2017 one turned out in favor of statehood, and it had only 22% turnout. Public opinion polling only supports statehood by a slim majority.

Try that again in a month.

I believe that there is no personal tax in PR.

The main reason is that some people in the federal government would lose out if it happened, although resistance from people who would rather be an independent nation is a secondary factor.

A state is represented by two Senators (regardless of population). This would mean making PR a state would dilute other states votes. Regarding the House of Representatives, PR has a "delegate", called the Resident Commissioner - which have almost no voting power. The population also tends to vote almost %50/50 for democratic vs republican [i].

This setup basically gives no incentive for either party to push for PR to be a state. (Even though it should be).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_Pu...

It might still not be enough. Washington D.C. would almost certainly be a Democratic vote, but as I understand it, there's no way Republicans will allow D.C. voters to be represented in the Senate, all the while babbling about patriotism.

There's another more important problem for that specific situation: statehood (and the equivalent representation) for D.C. would require a constitutional amendment.

So what? We've done that before.

It's actually incredibly difficult to get a constitutional amendment heard and ratified. Even the equal rights amendment was shouted down despite massive bipartisan support.

[Note] Also, such an amendment has already been sent to the states and failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Voting_Ri...

I'm not denying that it's difficult, but it's been done, depending on how you want to count, either 27 or 18 times already. And there's no rule saying you can't consider an amendment again if it doesn't pass once.

DC as a federal city should not have Senators or representatives. People aren’t supposed to live here, it’s just supposed to be a safe place for the federal government to sit that isn’t controlled by a state. It certainly shouldn’t be a major metro region.

> DC as a federal city should not have Senators or representatives. People aren’t supposed to live here

Then return the parts of the current district on which residences (other than official government ones like the White House) sit to the original states.

Because people do, in fact, live in D.C., and those people are currently governed (and taxed) without representation in the federal legislature.

Then just absorb it into Virginia or Maryland.

That's what I said.

Although it runs into the problem that Virginia and Maryland don't want it.

It could probably be turned into a simple matter of money.

Sure, but the rest of the country with voting representatives in Congress would rather disenfranchise D.C. residents than pay Virginia and Maryland to take on the extra population and the census count, representation, etc., that comes with them. But Virgina and Maryland's existing citizens don't want to dilute their own votes in their own states to take on a bunch of (disproportionately) poor, urban blacks.

The only people with a rational (short-term, at least) interest in D.C. representation is D.C. residents, and they don't get a vote, or even a vote for people who get a vote.

This strikes me as a very truthy claim. I'd expect the vast majority of people to be utterly indifferent to paying Virginia or Maryland to absorb parts of DC. They might say otherwise in a poll, but they'd act like it never happened when they next voted.

The federal government needs a capital district it can defend militarily against the states. That's the whole point of D.C. The fact that people choose to live here to take advantage of federal government largesse doesn't mean they should have representation in Congress.[1] In the Constitutional scheme, states have representation in Congress, not people.

[1] As noted below, a significant fraction of the African American population live in D.C. because their ancestors were brought here involuntarily. They should be permitted to vote.

How do large residential areas help the federal government defend itself against the states?

> The federal government needs a capital district it can defend militarily against the states. That's the whole point of D.C.

That overstates the matter. The federal government was incapable of defending the District militarily against the states, because it intentionally had no significant standing army at the time the District was ceded to it [0]. Even after the U.S. Army started to take shape — mainly for service on the frontier, not at the national capital — it's doubtful that the District could have resisted invasion by the militia of even one of its state neighbors; this is indirectly evidenced by the ease with which the British took and burned Washington in 1814.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_A...

Hell sounds like the only sensible solution is removing them and then burning the city down, if it "wasn't supposed to be" like this.

The British already tried that.

Who knew they were just doing us a favor?

The purpose of moving the capital from Philadelphia was to prevent any one state from exerting military control over the federal government.

The thought that "people aren't supposed to live here" makes no difference to the matter; people do live there, a lot of people, more than the entire states of Wyoming and Vermont, and without those residents the government would cease to function.

It would be feasible to enfranchise the citizens of DC by granting statehood while also maintaining the original intent of the city, by requiring the new state constitution to yield all physical security to the authority of the federal government.

"People aren't supposed to live [in DC]" is racist if you consider the population that does live there, and how that racial minority came to live there in historical context. Almost certainly unintentional racism, but you definitely could have phrased it better as "the original intent of a federal district was not to create a large city outside of a State."

You're definitely right. There are a significant number of D.C. residents who live here because their ancestors were brought to the city as slaves. They should be able to vote. Everyone else should not.

No, they had as much choice to grow up in D.C. as anybody else who grew up there.

Sounds like a nightmare to administer that policy.

That's got to violate like a dozen constitutional and legal principles from the past couple of hundred years...

This made sense a couple centuries ago, but no longer does today. The seat of federal government could be moved back to Philly and the country would operate much as it does now. No American metropolis needs military protection "from the states" more than any other.

DC statehood would also help mitigate the distortive effect of allocating 2 Senators to every state regardless of population, which exaggerates the rural vote.

Please no capital in philly.

DC resident here. People aren't supposed to live here? They did live here when the boundaries were laid out. There were farms, and two small towns.

DC is not a sovereign state, thus isn’t entitled to a senator. DC doesn’t have a state government that needs representation, which is the purpose of a senator. This isn’t some Republican conspiracy that just happened.

The Senate wasn’t designed to represent “the people” anyway, it was designed to represent the interests of the sovereign states — of which DC is not. The House of Representatives is what represents “the people.”

There is a persistent and fundamental lack of understanding of the US government by many people, case in point is the complete ignorance about the purpose of both the Senate and the electoral college. The US is a federal republic, not a democracy.

This has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats, but with the Constitution.

Thank you for the background. I guess I should have written DC has no representation in the House then. Regardless of how it was originally setup, I don't see any reason why people paying federal taxes shouldn't have voting rights, at least in the House. Here's a good legal argument for it too:

https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/poladv/...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U...

You are just reiterating the complaint.

> The US is a federal republic, not a democracy.

The USA clearly is a democracy, since it has democratic elections. Specifically, it is a representative democracy. I have no idea why anyone thinks being a federation and/or being a republic are somehow in opposition to this. The three concepts are completely orthogonal.

Maybe it comes from the idea that many of the founding fathers didn't seem to care for the concept of democracy? At the time it was considered by many as essentially mob rule.

I can see that the context doesn't fit with today's ideas and definitions of how our country's government works, but that is exactly how the country was set up in the beginning.

> The Senate wasn’t designed to represent “the people” anyway, it was designed to represent the interests of the sovereign states — of which DC is not. The House of Representatives is what represents “the people.”

This was how it was designed, and if state congresses still elected federal senators, this argument against DC having senate representation would hold water. Once the 17th Amendment changed it to direct election of senators, the chamber no longer represented the interests of the state, it now just gives the people in less populous states a lot more influence over the law.

> The Senate wasn’t designed to represent “the people” anyway, it was designed to represent the interests of the sovereign states

And over time it has evolved to directly represent the people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_U...

We have 27 reasons to think the constitution as designed was imperfect, and at least one reason to think the representation of DC was flawed. I'm sure we can add more.

While there is a political element to the opposition for D.C. Statehood, there is also a non-partisan one.

D.C. was created as a compromise, deliberately set aside as a federal region, so no state would have control over the capital. It seems a reasonable thing to keep it as such.

This used to be my opinion as well upon learning of the history of DC's foundation, but in retrospect it seems like it should not be outrageous to think of a compromise that enfranchises DC citizens without compromising the security of the capital.

You aren’t saying anything, because nobody’s calling the idea outrageous.

The people who happen to live in DC seem to have quite a bit of influence over the government actually. Much more than the average Californian for example.

Puerto Rico ought not be a state, it should be independent. Why the US would want to annex PR would be a mystery to me.

Why the US would want to annex PR would be a mystery to me.

That doesn't make any sense. The US already did that.

It's a matter of undoing it or giving it equal status with states, not a matter of claiming control of the territory.

The US can't "annex" Puerto Rico, that has long been done; Puerto Rico has been American territory since 1899.

For how it got that way, Spain agreed to succeeded it to end of the Spanish-American war.

The word you're looking for is cede, pronounced the same as seed. The noun form is cession, because English is super complicated.

The Puerto Ricans themselves disagree, as they've never voted for independence in any of the referendums on the issue that have been held over the last fifty years.

For statehood or even complete sovereignty and independence:

- People are US citizens, but can't vote in any national US election, except when they literally happen to be in any other state, then they can vote for President and that state's congressional representatives, and that state's local officials.

- The rationale for setting Puerto Rico's as a territory is prettttty racist by today's standards.

Against statehood:

- Federal money going yet somewhere else.

- Diluting representation in Congress.

- 51 though? yuck.

51 stars won't look bad on the flag. Some arrangements are actually very nice.

This is the traditional one:

http://a.abcnews.com/images/ABC_Univision/reddit_flags_FlagS...

Some more creative takes a la early US flags:

http://a.abcnews.com/images/ABC_Univision/reddit_flags_FlagT...

http://a.abcnews.com/images/ABC_Univision/reddit_flags_flagc...

It's up to Puerto Rico. Every few years they have votes on statehood, and so far they've always turned it down.

They voted in favor the last two times

I'd rather we just let them be independent. Where's the harm in that? This country is already a juggernought.

No more states. We could even stand to shed some others.

The Puerto Rican economy, at least on the coasts, is highly intermingled with the US economy and it wouldn't necessarily be favorable to them to get independence. You'll find more support for it in the interior where it is more rural and people have fewer economic links to the United States.

> The Puerto Rican economy, at least on the coasts, is highly intermingled with the US economy

In large part due to the Jones act, which discourages trade between PR and its Caribbean neighbors.

Even if you got rid of that, would a patchwork of Caribbean nations really replace the US as an economic partner?

I don't think the US would stop trading with Puerto Rico, so I suppose the question is if the increased trade with Caribbean nations would offset however much trade with the US mainland would diminish. I don't know the answer to that, but it could probably be found by looking at how Caribbean nations' trade compares with Puerto Rico's trade today.

Yes, I'd just expect the "common market" effect would be significant. I'll bet it would have been harder to manufacture pharmaceuticals for sale in the US in the Dominican Republic, for instance.

Why does the Jones act discourage trade between PR and the Caribbean? My understanding is it mandates use of US ships for shipping between US ports. It should therefore have no effect on shipping between PR and the various non-US Caribbean nations.

The act says that anytime a non-US ship carries goods that are from a US port, including Puerto Rico, it cannot take those goods to any other US port. So instead of being able to do a sequence of [Barbados, Puerto Rico, Florida, Barbados], a ship would have to instead follow [Barbados, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Florida, Barbados]. It doesn't eliminate trade entirely, but it definitely increases costs--especially in PR itself, which has to rely only on US ships for US goods, creating a monopoly.

Hurricane Maria and its fallout weren't heavily covered. From what I hear from friends down there, power and water are still hard to come by, and the utilities are not providing things like bagged water, which is mandated in WA State after a few hours without water pressure.

If what happened in Puerto Rico happened on the West Coast, but from an earthquake, we would have seen a much larger response and better media coverage. Partly due to utilities here planning, training and funding resources for such an event (with water distribution warehouses sprinkled through Seattle), basics like clean, potable water would be in much better supply.

It wouldn’t hurt that the west coast is connected to the mainland and its far easier to transport supplies to without major coordination.

Not that I think the central conclusion is wrong, but after skimming the article it's very odd that relative number of affected people is not brought up ('population' isn't even mentioned in the piece). The Houston metro has twice the population of Puerto Rico. I don't know an easy way to estimate those effected in Florida, and probably the sum total of human suffering is greater in Puerto Rico thanks to the island's vulnerability, the state of infrastructure, and the strength of the storm. Obviously there's no real way to measure these up but it seems an obvious line of questioning in trying to explain the disparity.

I live in Florida. Millions were affected here. However, at no point was the entire state out of power, and even if it had been, we have neighboring states that we can travel to relatively easily. In fact, many of us did that to avoid the storm altogether, and only came back when it was gone. Most of us that stayed weren't out of power for more than a week... In fact, most were only out for a few days.

Most people in Puerto Rico didn't have that option, and they couldn't travel anyone via land to somewhere with power.

In short, Puerto Rico is much, much worse.

10% of Houston was affected by flooding. Basically all my friends in PR were affected by this hurricane, despite them being sprinkled about the island. One still has servers that are underwater from said storm, helped him stand up replacements a few days back for those.

More people were affected in PR by this hurricane than those affected in Houston.

> More people were affected in PR by this hurricane than those affected in Houston.

Thanks for this added context. I haven't really seen this discussed in the media coverage, which is not terribly surprising, but I guess I expected a stats-heavy outfit like 538 to touch on this aspect.

Maybe. But by that logic we shouldn't see much coverage of the mass shooting in Las Vegas since it only affected a few thousand concert goers.

> it's very odd that relative number of affected people is not brought up

I don't think it's that odd. It might seem that way though if you're only thinking in terms of numbers. As a rough estimate, we can use the fact that "95% of customers remain without power" and "45% have access to drinking water" [1].

In other words, the numbers say the storm has likely affected all of Puerto Rico, that is about 3 million people.

[1] https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1330501/dod-acc...

> The Houston metro has twice the population of Puerto Rico.

Surprisingly correct (the Greater Houston area has a TON of people), but I personally think you're missing an important component of the argument you're making. I don't think it's just simply "More people in Houston -> More media".

I think a more accurate way to phrase it would be:

"More people in Houston the media thinks more people would care about and watch TV for -> more media"

In other words, I think this article is more useful to highlight why media does or does not find a certain topic worth covering. A greater population of people affected doesn't really match up with that argument. Extraordinarily few people are affected by terrorism, yet it's the bread of butter of hot news. Since the number people affected by a disaster doesn't seem to correlate with how the news covers it, I think it's wise to ask, "Why does the news think of Puerto Rico differently than the United States?", rather than assuming population is that reason because it's the simplest thing.

I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that most Americans find it a lot easier to empathize with Bob and Joanne in Houston rather than Jose in Puerto Rico. Take of that what you will. I believe this is what the article was trying to get at. Why does the media think it's easier to empathize with Houston? What makes Puerto Rico different? Does this speak to greater societal issues in the United States and the way its media looks at itself?

The Media is very lazy, they'll cover anything they can drive to. Houston and Florida got tons of coverage because they were already there. Covering PR would mean significant personal discomfort for the reporters and crews, with no guarantee of being able to leave on their own schedule. There just don't seem to be many reporters of that ilk anymore.

I don't know what you mean? Plenty of reporters cover wars in places hard to get to.

Don't major news channels such as ABC, NBC, Fox already have affiliates or branches in Puerto Rico? It's certainly a large enough market to deserve a local news channel.

I was impressed how fast France and the UK sent help to their territories. France and the UK are about 2,000 miles away from their Caribbean territories the US is about 970 miles away from Puerto Rico.

It is not the media that has neglected Puerto Rico

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpwYHAN28As

fivethirtyeight.com clearly doesn't include themselves as a member of the media.

Did you bother to even open the article? Literally the first sentence is "While Puerto Rico suffers after Hurricane Maria, much of the U.S. media (FiveThirtyEight not excepted) has been occupied with other things..."

> Please don't insinuate that someone hasn't read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What an absolutely petty and useless rule/standard.

It's in the first sentence.

> While Puerto Rico suffers after Hurricane Maria, much of the U.S. media (FiveThirtyEight not excepted)...

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