Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It really should be made a state. The 3.5 million people who live there have no representation.

No disagreement. The issue of US Territories is something we've let go one for a long time without any real solutions. If we won't make them full states, their Congressional Delegates should at least be given voting rights.

Been doing reading and my guess at economic fethery looks about right. PR built its economy around exemptions and credits provided by the Internal Revenue Code that were discontinued in 1996. The loss of those protections sent their economy into a dive that it hasn't recovered from.

 whembly wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
To be fair, "liar-in-chief" pretty much applies to almost every president.

True... however, I'd argue that our future Liar-in-Chief takes the gold medal every time.

*cough*

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Anyhow... While I agree that PR should be a state, I have to wonder how much revenue that would bring in, how much it would cost to change the entire fething design of the national flag, how much federal assistance the new state would need (welfare, etc) that would offset any new revenue brought in.

People born in PR are natural born citizens, but they are not given equal representation in deciding the laws that will govern them. It's not a matter of what the US will gain from their statehood. It's a matter of living up to all that freedom stuff we're always talking about. If we refuse to give them proper representation, then we should relinquish the territory. The fate of the people on PR should not be subject to the convenience of the Continental US, unless we plan to go back to being an Imperial power.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Anyhow... While I agree that PR should be a state, I have to wonder how much revenue that would bring in, how much it would cost to change the entire fething design of the national flag, how much federal assistance the new state would need (welfare, etc) that would offset any new revenue brought in.

People born in PR are natural born citizens, but they are not given equal representation in deciding the laws that will govern them. It's not a matter of what the US will gain from their statehood. It's a matter of living up to all that freedom stuff we're always talking about. If we refuse to give them proper representation, then we should relinquish the territory. The fate of the people on PR should not be subject to the convenience of the Continental US, unless we plan to go back to being an Imperial power.

Ohh, don't get me wrong, I completely agree with you that they need to be a state for the simple reason that they are affected by many/most of our laws, but have no say in their creation. The financial aspect is just one small aspect (maybe not that small to some) that may be overlooked by some more, zealous types.

Hmm. Well we have 16 territories but the only ones with populations worth noting are Guam, American Samoa*, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and the Marianas. So tops, we need to add 5 more stars to the flag

Speaking of American Samoa, should probably fix that thing where they aren't born US citizens....

Redesigning the flag shouldn't be all that expensive. I'm sure the government would find a way to make it cost millions though. But pay me $250,000 and I'll knock it out in an afternoon.

And I'd bet all the flags which get flown at various government venues get replaced fairly often anyway, so its not like we weren't already paying for new flags constantly.

 LordofHats wrote:
Hmm. Well we have 16 territories but the only ones with populations worth noting are Guam, American Samoa*, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and the Marianas. So tops, we need to add 5 more stars to the flag

7 if we count the eventual annexation of Canada and Mexico following the war with China over the last oil fields in Alaska

 Grey Templar wrote:


7 if we count the eventual annexation of Canada and Mexico following the war with China over the last oil fields in Alaska

Nah... Canada is at least another 10 stars, and Mexico is probably another 10 or 12 or so.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
It really should be made a state. The 3.5 million people who live there have no representation.

Don't they have a single member in the House?


Anyhow... While I agree that PR should be a state, I have to wonder how much revenue that would bring in, how much it would cost to change the entire fething design of the national flag, how much federal assistance the new state would need (welfare, etc) that would offset any new revenue brought in.

Yes, a non-voting member. They don't even get to vote in presidential elections (which, IIRC, the hold anyway, symbolically, because feth you congress). Which is yet another reason to drop the electoral congress.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Redesigning the flag shouldn't be all that expensive. I'm sure the government would find a way to make it cost millions though. But pay me $250,000 and I'll knock it out in an afternoon.

And I'd bet all the flags which get flown at various government venues get replaced fairly often anyway, so its not like we weren't already paying for new flags constantly.

 LordofHats wrote:
Hmm. Well we have 16 territories but the only ones with populations worth noting are Guam, American Samoa*, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and the Marianas. So tops, we need to add 5 more stars to the flag

7 if we count the eventual annexation of Canada and Mexico following the war with China over the last oil fields in Alaska

Nah, we'll just combine groups of states to form 13 commonwealths. We even have a flag design.

PR already benefits from money allocated by the dept of ed and dept of ag & health/human svcs (welfare) so that shouldn't be a reason to not allow them statehood. Until recently, the locals voted down every statehood referendum that's regularly been put up for vote so after the recent passage, it's up to the feds to ratify statehood and finalize everything.

Maybe we can swap PR for Hawaii?

Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state. They keep voting it down every time it comes up in their legislature. Why would they? They get most of the rights of American citizens and pay none of the taxes.

 Psienesis wrote:
Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state. They keep voting it down every time it comes up in their legislature. Why would they? They get most of the rights of American citizens and pay none of the taxes.

Actually, the 2012 referendum on statehood passed. Now it's up to the Feds.

 Psienesis wrote:
Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state. They keep voting it down every time it comes up in their legislature. Why would they? They get most of the rights of American citizens and pay none of the taxes.

Don't they still pay Federal taxes?

And they're still subject to laws, laws which they have no say in. That could be an issue. And as was already mentioned they actually did vote Yes on the last memorandum.

Yes. There is a special Federal tax for for PR. I helieve it's the 1040-PR

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state. They keep voting it down every time it comes up in their legislature. Why would they? They get most of the rights of American citizens and pay none of the taxes.

Actually, the 2012 referendum on statehood passed. Now it's up to the Feds.

Yup. Just add an even number of states...

PR, Guan, Guantanimo Bay and US Virgin Island as new states.

Do all of those pass the population requirement?

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state. They keep voting it down every time it comes up in their legislature. Why would they? They get most of the rights of American citizens and pay none of the taxes.

Actually, the 2012 referendum on statehood passed. Now it's up to the Feds.

Technically, the process of how Congress grants statehood is not defined in the Constitution. Typically, a referendum on the issue in the territory is held (which happened), and the territory issues a petition to Congress requesting Statehood. The later has not happened to my knowledge.

So apparently some member of congress are trying to pull another anti-net neutrality stunt on us, with this little beauty stuck in the spending bill.

None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to regulate, directly or indirectly, the prices, other fees, or data caps and allowances (as such terms are described in paragraph 164 of the Report and Order on Remand, Declaratory Ruling, and Order in the matter of protecting and promoting the open Internet, adopted by the Federal Communications Commission on February 26, 2015.

Seriously, it's so fething blatant.

Remind me again what this Net neutrality is

Basically, all information on the internet is equal, and not subject to the whims of ISPs, ect. That ISPs should not be allowed to control what we can access, and when we can access it.
This should explain it better than I can.

FCC: Open Internet

Its so certain companies cant be paid to slow your connection.
Like, lets say Netflix pays to have Wave slow the connection of both hulu and primetv.

Can I get the Pros and Cons? Im not sure whether we are supposed to find this good or bad

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Can I get the Pros and Cons? Im not sure whether we are supposed to find this good or bad

Eh... might need a different thread on this.

Want me to PM you some info?

 whembly wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Can I get the Pros and Cons? Im not sure whether we are supposed to find this good or bad

Eh... might need a different thread on this.

Want me to PM you some info?

From what I read, it seems to be a good thing...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Do all of those pass the population requirement?

there's a population requirement? So how is north dakota or rhode island states?

Well, we currently exist in a net neutral world, so that's what that is like. There are really no pros for consumers in a non-net neutral world. As for cons of a non-net neutral world, that would allow for ISPs (verizon, time warner, comcast, ect) to slowdown, and even wholy restrict what sites you have acess to, allow them to charge you differnt amounts for differnt sights (i.e. You have to pay $X more to get the "streaming" service which would get you youtube, hulu, netflix, ect). It would mean companies could pay ISPs to intentionally slowdown access to certain sites to stifle competition (the netfix paying comcast to slowdown hulu example used earlier). And it would allow ISPs to hold companies "hostage" saying "Pay us $X or we'll slow down your sites". Which is why we need to protect net neutrality, to stop stuff like that from happening. The only groups getting rid of net neutrality would benefit are the ISPs.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Can I get the Pros and Cons? Im not sure whether we are supposed to find this good or bad

Pro: customers get free choice of what they want to do with the internet. You pay for the bandwidth you use, and can use it on whatever sites you want without any loss of service quality. For example, you get to choose which site to get your TV/movies/etc from based on which one you prefer, instead of being limited to the one your ISP is getting the most money from. Similarly, you don't have to worry about finding your access to sites hindered or even cut off entirely because your ISP wants to censor them.

Con: ISP doesn't get to make as much profit by abusing their customers.

Really, unless you have a direct financial stake in a particular ISP making a ton of money net neutrality is something you should support.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Can I get the Pros and Cons? Im not sure whether we are supposed to find this good or bad

Eh... might need a different thread on this.

Want me to PM you some info?

From what I read, it seems to be a good thing...

It is, (IMO), but I encourage you to do some research yourself and come to your own conclusions. I'm pretty biased on the subject. As evidenced by my posting.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:
Can I get the Pros and Cons? Im not sure whether we are supposed to find this good or bad

Roughly;

Pros;

-Assurance of an Open Market through level playing field and banning specific exploitative business arrangements.
-Assurance of a Free Internet by disallowing data discrimination (deciding what to do with data based on who or where it came from, or what it says)
-Protects the ability of internet based content/services providers to innovate

Typically, you'll find content providers like Google, Netflix, Amazon, and other web services advocating Net Neutrality, along with Civil Rights groups. Content providers argue that NN ensures an open market available to innovate freely, while Civil Right's groups see NN as a core component of the free and open internet (free speech and all that).

Cons;
-Prevents certain business from freely pursuing profits
-That's about it (no seriously, pretty much every argument about NN boils down to "but X can't make any money this way")

You'll usually find ISPs, and internet service providers in general, on this side. The most hated naturally being the Cable companies like Comcast and Verizon. Net Neutrality would disallow them from structuring their businesses in certain ways or providing certain services like Tiered internet packages. Many Academics and tech companies also oppose NN as stifling the ability to innovate the structure of the Internet.

The bigger debate really isn't "Is Net Neutrality good," but rather "what is Net Neutrality, and can it really exist?"

Points of contention;

-Some (Google and Verizon), argue that in principal all data is equal, but that certain Data types can be treated differently without inherently violating this principal. Example; Video Streaming has massively driven the expansion of the internet and its structure. Can one treat 'video streaming' data differently from 'funny cat gif' data, and still maintain NN?

-Significance debate is centered around whether or not Net Neutrality is too one sided. The current debate is predominately focused on what should be done about data once it reaches where it is going (once it reaches the end user providers like Comcast), while ignoring issues about how data gets to that location in the first place

-The issue of Exploitative business practices. ISPs can be described as having a exploitative position in the market. Without them, other service and content providers can't deliver content at all, which NN Proponents argue allows them to leverage deals that serve their interests and diminish those of all other parties. Opponents argue that NN hurts their abilities to compete and negotiate equitable agreements with content providers (and they're not entirely wrong).

-People hate cable companies. HATE (all caps) them. They regularly top the charts in customer dissatisfaction alongside electric companies (and EA,hehe). They operate quasi-monopolies, are themselves competitors on the internet as content generators (Comcast owns Hulu, which competes with Netflix and Amazon Prime), and generally just provide gakky customer service. To this end, the issue of how much people hate these companies clouds the issue of Net Neutrality.

Obligatory South Park clip;




Because it's still so true.

I don't necessarily agree with everything on Lordy... but, that's pretty spot on.

My major fear isn't the prioritization of certain data streams... but, the potential conflict of interests.

Charter is a ISP thru and thru.

Comcast is a ISP and a Content Delivery company. The incestuous nature of these company need to make sure that don't act like the Old Bell companies.

Current consumer protection laws theoretically protects us, but the allure of that all mighty dolla is strong.

The other thing, is philosophical in nature... do you believe ISPs should be regulated like:
- - Utilities? If so, NN would be you best bet to achieve this.
- - Tech Firms? If so, NN should be "loose" in that it allows freedom for change, but have NN rules bring that bane hammer when they start acting like dicks.