Blog 5

After learning more about Puerto Rico and it's relations with the US on Thursday, I think I might be honestly more confused than I was. Puerto Ricans are considered US citizens and they don't need passports to travel in and out of the US, however they have their own Olympics team. That is just very strange to me. It's like they are a country but not really. They have their own elections and their own polictical parties (3 of them, actually), but they can also vote in US primaries. Not that I know a whole lot about politics, but I thought the primaries were for deciding what candidate would represent the major political parties. So, in other words, the Puerto Ricans have their own political parties, but they can still have an impact on ours. It just seems to me that the Puerto Ricans are very active and opinionated about whether they should be a state or not, but honestly that most Americans don't understand the situation and so don't have an opinion. I didn't know any of this before. It's really stupid. I think America should probably just let Puerto Rico govern itself or go ahead and make it a state, not this stupid limbo where they're kind of part of America but not really. Most people there don't speak English, which would be a problem if they were a state. They would also have to start paying federal taxes, which SUCKS, but they would get representation in Congress and be voting for their own state reps and senate members. I don't think I even know why we have Puerto Rico in the first place. Was it really fair to trade colonies of people who have their own culture and lives in a political bargain? I'm thinking no. But I'm also pretty apathetic about politics in general. I would just like to see all the Puerto Ricans happy and in harmony, preserving their culture but branching into the world, whether it be as a state or an independent country.