77
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
77 points (91.4% liked)
politics
19239 readers
1925 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
puerto rico is not a state because every time the opportunity arose they voted not to be one. guam and american samoa im not really sure whats going on.
Oh don’t forget Washington DC.
oh common. do you think thats a legitamate example. it was carved out of maryland and virginia for the specific purpose of being the capital with no state having authority over it.
But I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, please) that it was also not meant to have a civilian population at all, and only be home to businesses, government offices, and those who were in elected office until they left and returned home. The absence of a civilian population would render the fact that DC has no representation in congress moot. But people started living there, causing the problem of having no representation in Congress.
Meaning that its population was almost entirely African-American and therefore to be ignored.
yeah and the area is run by the federal government so not having federal representation is basically like not having state representation to boot.
And the people who live there don’t have representation in Congress, but that’s not the point.
The point is that it’s not a state. Just “being a possession of the United States” doesn’t confer statehood.
yes but again its not typical it was a very specific thing. The land had belonged to two different states. the guam, puerto rico, us virgin islands are similar but dc is in on way similar.
Alaska was purchased by the US in 1867. It didn't get statehood until 1959.
Being a possession of the United States of America does not automatically make it a state.
true but its basically a bureaucracy thing at that point. as long as the it has a populace and they seek statehood its going to happen.
Population issues. An admittedly quick Google search (so take it for what it's worth) says that the minimum population is 60,000 adult males. Guam has a population of 172k, so there are either not enough adult males among the 172k (which is unlikely but possible once you factor out women and children under 18), or there are other issues I'm unaware of (including maybe simply not wanting to become a state).
The other US territories outside of Puerto Rico and Guam typically have populations of less than 50k in total per territory, which would make them way, way too small to be considered for statehood. Admitting them as states would also give them outsized voting power when compared to population size, particularly in the US Senate. But even in the HOR, you'd have one representative from each territory representing roughly the population of a small US city who's vote would carry weight equal to others that are representing half a million to a million or more each.