If they want to be a state, they can vote for it (At least Puerto Rico was given $2.5M last year to hold a referendum, which if 50%+ voted to become a state, Congress would get the ball rolling to start the process).

Keep in mind that people in the US Territories do not pay federal taxes, but they do get some of the benefits of being a state. Given the all time low approval rating of Congress and the lack of faith in politicians, would you blame them for not wanting to join the party?

I feel the same way when I'm going to Puerto Rico.

Your "refutations" are, for the most part, self-defeating, so I will allow others to do their own research and come to their own conclusions rather than addressing each one. Suffice it to say that gun-control, in the U.S. at least, starts as an anti-minority measure (not unlike the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty") and spurs on a "dark economy" (or "underground economy"), not unlike what (eventually) felled the Soviet Union. It's not dissimilar to what's going on in Puerto Rico and, to some extent, the Bay Area (except NorCal doesn't have the feds all over them like Puerto Rico does, so violent crime is high in PR and low in Mendocino).

Is it purely a "coincidence" that Puerto Rico has a higher murder rate than almost anywhere else in the U.S, while citing as many as 50%+ of the people on "public assistance," is an epicenter on the "war on drugs" and has about the strictest gun control laws of anywhere in the U.S.?

But don't worry! Here's some good news!
"They found that a country like Luxembourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. . . . The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, conceded that the results they found in their report was not what they expected to find."

I guess they didn't account for the fact that outlaws don't really care about laws! The nerve of some people...

@enoch, thanks for your comments. I thought it better to respond directly to your profile than on the video, about which we're no longer discussing directly. Sorry for the length of this reply, but for such a complex topic as this one, a thorough and plainly-stated response is needed.

You wrote: "the REAL question is "what is the purpose of a health care system"? NOT "which market system should we implement for health care"?"

The free market works best for any and all goods and services, regardless of their aim or purpose. Healthcare is no different from any other good or service in this respect.

(And besides, tell me why there's no money in preventative care? Do nutritionists, physical trainers/therapists, psychologists, herbalists, homeopaths, and any other manner of non-allopathic doctors not get paid and make profit in the marketplace? Would not a longer life not lead to a longer-term 'consumer' anyway? And would preventative medicine obliterate the need for all manner of medical treatment, or would there not still remain a need to diagnose, treat, and cure diseases, even in the presence of a robust preventative medical market?)

I realize that my argument is not the "popular" one (and there are certainly many reasons for this, up to and including a lot of disinformation about what constitutes a "free market" health care system). But the way to approach such things is not heuristically, but rationally, as one would approach any other economic issue.

You write "see where i am going with this? It's not so easy to answer and impose your model of the "free market" at the same time."

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The purpose of the healthcare system is to provide the most advanced medical service and care possible in the most efficient and affordable way possible. Only a free competitive market can do this with the necessary economic calculations in place to support its progress. No matter how you slice it, a socialized approach to healthcare invariably distorts the market (with its IP fees, undue regulations, and a lack of any accurate metrics on both the supply-side and on the demand-side which helps to determine availability, efficacy, and cost).

"you cannot have "for-profit" and "health-care" work in conjunction with any REAL health care."

Sorry, but this is just absurd. What else can I say?

"but if we use your "free market" model against a more "socialized model".which model would better serve the public?"

The free market model.

"if we take your "free market" model,which would be under the auspices of capitalism."

Redundant: "free market under the auspices of free market."

"disease is where the money is at,THAT is where the profit lies,not in preventive medicine."

Only Krugman-style Keynesians would say that illness is more profitable than health (or war more profitable than peace, or that alien invasions and broken windows are good for the economy). They, like you, aren't taking into account the One Lesson in Economics: look at how it affects every group, not just one group; look at the long term effects, not just short term ones. You're just seeing that, in the short-run, health will be less profitable for medical practitioners (or some pharmaceuticals) that are currently working in the treatment of illness. But look at every group outside that small group and at the long run and you can see that health is more profitable than illness overall. The market that profits more from illness will have to adapt, in ways that only the market knows for sure.

Do you realize that the money you put into socialized medicine (Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc.) is money you deplete from prevention entrepreneurship?

(As an aside, I wonder, why do so many people assume that the socialized central planners have some kind of special knowledge or wisdom that entrepreneurs do not? And why is there the belief that unlike entrepreneurs, socialist central planners are not selfishly motivated but always act in the interest of the "common good?" Could this be part of the propagandized and indoctrinated fear that's implicit in living in a socialized environment? Why do serfs (and I'm sure that, at some level, people know that's what they are) love the socialist central planners more than they love themselves? Complex questions about self-esteem and captive minds.)

If fewer people get sick, the market will then demand more practitioners to move from treating illness into other areas like prevention, being a prevention doctor or whatever. You're actually making the argument for free market here, not against it. Socialized bureaucratically dictated medicine will not adapt to the changing needs as efficiently or rapidly as a free market can and would. If more people are getting sick, then we'll need more doctors to treat them. If fewer people are getting sick because preventive medicine takes off, then we'll have more of that type of service. If a socialized healthcare is mandated, then we will invariably have a glut of allopathic doctors, with little need for their services (and we then have the kinds of problems we see amongst doctors who are coerced -- by the threat of losing their license -- to take medicaid and then lie on their reports in order to recoup their costs, e.g., see the article linked here.)

Meanwhile, there has been and will remain huge profits to be made in prevention, as the vitamin, supplements, alternative medicine, naturopathy, exercise and many other industries attest to. What are you talking about, that there's no profit in preventing illness? (In a manner of speaking, that's actually my bread and butter!) If you have a way to prevent illness, you will have more than enough people buying from you, people who don't want to get sick. (And other services for the people who do.) Open a gym. Become a naturopath. Teach stress management, meditation, yoga, zumba, whatever! And there are always those who need treatment, who are sick, and the free market will then have an accurate measure of how to allocate the right resources and number of such practitioners. This is something that the central planners (under socialized services) simply cannot possibly do (except, of course, for the omniscient ones that socialists insist exist).

You wrote "cancer,anxiety,obesity,drug addiction.
all are huge profit generators and all could be dealt with so much more productively and successfully with preventive care,diet and exercise and early diagnosis."

But they won't as long as you have centrally planned (socialized) medicine. The free market forces practitioners to respond to the market's demands. Socialized medicine does not. Entrepreneurs will (as they already have) exploit openings for profit in prevention (without the advantage of regulations which distort the markets) and take the business away from treatment doctors. If anything, doctors prevent preventative medicine from getting more widespread by using government regulations to limit what the preventive practitioners do. In fact, preventive medicine is so profitable that it has many in the medical profession lobbying to curtail it. They are losing much business to alternative/preventive practitioners. They lobby to, for example, prevent herb providers from stating the medical/preventive benefits of their herbs. They even prevent strawberry farmers to tout the health benefits of strawberries! It is the state that is slowing down preventive medicine, not the free market! In Puerto Rico, for example, once the Medical Association lost a bit to prohibit naturopathy, they effectively outlawed acupuncture by successfully getting a law passed that requires all acupuncturists to be medical doctors. Insanity.

If you think there is no profit in preventative care or exercise, think GNC and Richard Simmons, and Pilates, and bodywork, and my own practice of psychotherapy. Many of the successful corporations (I'm thinking of Google and Pixar and SalesForce and Oracle, etc.) see the profit and value in preventative care, which is why they have these "stay healthy" programs for their employees. There's more money in health than illness. No doubt.

Or how about the health food/nutrition business? Or organic farming, or whole foods! The free market could maybe call for fewer oncologists and for more Whole Foods or even better natural food stores. Of course, we don't know the specifics, but that's actually the point. Only the free market knows (and the omniscient socialist central planners) what needs to happen and how.

Imagination! We need to get people to use it more.

You wrote: "but when we consider that the 4th and 5th largest lobbyists are the health insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry is it any wonder that america has the most fucked up,backwards health care system on the planet."

You're actually making my point here. In a free market, pharmaceutical companies cannot monopolize what "drugs" people can or cannot take, sell or not sell, and cannot prevent natural alternatives from being promoted. Only with state intervention (by way of IP regulations, and so forth) can they do so.

Free market is not corporatism. Free market is not crony capitalism. (More disinformation that needs to be lifted.)

So you're not countering my free market position, you're countering the crony capitalist position. This is a straw man argument, even if in this case you might not have understood my position in the first place. You, like so many others, equate "capitalism" with cronyism or corporatism. Many cannot conceive of a free market that is free from regulation. So folks then argue against their own interests, either for or against "fascist" vs. "socialist" medicine. The free market is, in fact, outside these two positions.

You wrote: "IF we made medicare available to ALL american citizens we would see a shift from latter stage care to a more aggressive preventive care and early diagnosis. the savings in money (and lives) would be staggering."

I won't go into medicare right now (It is a disaster, and so is the current non-free-market insurance industry. See the article linked in my comment above.)

You wrote "this would create a huge paradigm shift here in america and we would see results almost instantly but more so in the coming decades."

I don't want to be a naysayer but, socialism is nothing new. It has been tried (and failed) many times before. The USSR had socialized medicine. So does Cuba (but then you may believe the Michael Moore fairytale about medicine in Cuba). It's probably better to go see in person how Cubans live and how they have no access to the places that Moore visited.

You wrote: "i feel very strongly that health should be a communal effort.a civilized society should take care of each other."

Really, then why try to force me (or anyone) into your idea of "good" medicine? The free market is a communal effort. In fact, it is nothing else (and nothing else is as communal as the free market). Central planning, socialized, top-down decision-making, is not. Never has been. Never will be.

Voluntary interactions is "taking care of each other." Coercion is not. Socialism is coercion. It cannot "work" any other way. A free market is voluntary cooperation.

Economic calculation is necessary to avoid chaos, whatever the purpose of a service. This is economic law. Unless the purpose is to create chaos, you need real prices and efficiency that only the free market can provide.

I hope this helps to clarify (and not confuse) what I wrote on @eric3579's profile.

Snowden handed another set of slides over to the largest newspaper in Germany as well as a public broadcasting service. These slides include the names of telecoms that were involved in GCHQ's dragnet program.

The crème de la crème:
Verizon Business, Codename: Dacron, British Telecommunications ("Remedy"), Vodafone Cable ("Gerontic"), Global Crossing ("Pinnage"), Level 3 ("Little"), Viatel ("Vitreous"), Interoute ("Streetcar").

Many of these are customers of DE-CIX, the world's largest IXP, whose operators were adamant in their claim that no foreign service has access to their infrastructure -- no word about their corporate lackeys, understandably so.

And you gotta love how brazen they are in their admission that GCHQ's work is in the best interest of Britain's economy -- yes, economy.

And while we're at it: public broadcast journalists dug out a list of 207 US companies that are involved in intelligence gathering on German soil. Best comment was by the CEO of DE-CIX: these providers (re: Level 3) work in accordance with US law, even in Frankfurt. Not German law, US law.

Maybe we can still beat Puerto Rico in the race to become your 51st state.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Vlog Brothers, Hank Green, Puerto Rico' to 'Vlog Brothers, Hank Green, Puerto Rico, statehood, united states' - edited by xxovercastxx

A bit more details (like which 5 states lose Reps):
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc_22_2/tsc_22_2_poston_farris.shtml

I would guess that like when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted, the number or Reps would go up for one term, then the states that are losing Reps would redistrict the next election cycle.

Issues as I understand it right now is that their new governor isn't a pro statehood governor, and the vote was non-binding so it is a question of if they would ask in the first place. While the House is in control of the Republicans, they might see it as a nice chance to help say to the Hispanic community, see, we can be on your side, even though PR would probably be Democrat. I think if they apply it would be done, though on what sort of timeline remains in question... the flag he showed is more or less the flag we would probably have as it fits the traditional model, though I saw a flag on Reddit that used a sphere/circle shape (the star in the center was slightly larger which might create issues).

EDIT: Also this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/puerto-rico-votes-on-whether-to-change-relationship-with-us-elects-governor-and-legislators/2012/11/06/d87278ae
-288b-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486_story.html

Short answer is they're regions that are officially part of the US, but not a state (Puerto Rico is the usual example).

Long answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States

Also, the woman who said "Philippines" would've been right if the question had been asked 80 years ago. The girl who said "Louisiana" would've been right if the question had been asked 200 years ago.
>> ^Yogi:

I got everything but US Territory...isn't that just a state or something? What do they mean by Territory?

Texas has open primaries. I've decided if I might actually get off my ass and vote for Paul this year, even though I think voting is completely pointless and stupid. But... I might feel like a vote for Paul is a way for me to register my dissatisfaction with the corporately owned toads on the rest of the ballot. I haven't decided.

i'm also making up a ton of campaign signs that say "nobody for president 2012". everyone should do the same. i want to see these fuckers everywhere.

btw, don't let the hype about perry fool you, everyone in texas FUCKING HATES HIM. he's the worst governor in history, and he's only in power because he is entirely funded bt big oil and gas and the evangelicals who've silently taken over all of our local elections in the last decade or so. seriously, i have no idea how he actually pulled off winning the R gubernatorial primary, other than voting is totally rigged. i do not know one single person who approves of him. luckily, the governor of texas doesn't actually have a whole lot of power. id say the primary is totally between him and romney. and id also say romney actually stands a chance against obama (because EVERYONE HATES rick perry). but then again, id also say it doesnt really matter who wins because theyre just 2 public faces of the same corporately owned and minted coin. theyre going to talk about how wonderful the economy in texas is! its kind of bullshit. we might have more jobs readily available than most states, but they're minimum wage jobs and rent (not property values, rental values) is skyrocketing because everyone is moving here rapidly. soooo you can't afford to rent an apartment with your fancy new low wage job so you have to come live on my couch for a while. we also have a regressive taxation system and a subsequent $27 billion budget gap, which we're making old people and poor people and young people pay for. oh and we have worse air quality than all the other 49 states AND puerto rico... AND we have the most uninsured people... and possibly one of the fastest growing drop out and teenage pregnancy rates... oooh and we teach our kids a batshit evangelical version of history, math and science. we also refuse to teach our kids about sex. so when they go off to college they have no idea how condoms work and think if you have unprotected sex you need to drink bleach afterwards.

also, all of the above horrible things i've said about texas..... all happened under consecutive bush-perry leadership.

everyone in texas mourns the death of ann richards on a daily basis. we're thinking of digging her corpse up and making it run for office next election.

Rank↓ State↓ 2009↓ 2008↓ 2007↓ 2004-2006↓
1 Maryland $79,272 $78,454 $78,725 $77,985
2 New Jersey $68,342 $70,378 $67,035 $64,169
3 Connecticut $67,034 $68,595 $65,967 $59,972
4 Alaska $66,953 $68,460 $64,333 $57,639
5 Hawaii $64,098 $67,214 $63,746 $60,681
6 Massachusetts $64,081 $65,401 $62,365 $56,236
7 New Hampshire $60,567 $63,731 $62,369 $60,489
8 Virginia $59,330 $61,233 $59,562 $55,108
District of Columbia $59,290 $57,936 $54,317 $47,221 (2005)[3]PDF
9 California $58,931 $61,021 $59,948 $53,770
10 Delaware $56,860 $57,989 $54,610 $52,214
11 Washington $56,548 $58,078 $55,591 $53,439
12 Minnesota $55,616 $57,288 $55,082 $57,363
13 Colorado $55,430 $56,993 $55,212 $54,039
14 Utah $55,117 $56,633 $55,109 $55,179
15 New York $54,659 $56,033 $53,514 $48,201
16 Rhode Island $54,119 $55,701 $53,568 $52,003
17 Illinois $53,966 $56,235 $54,124 $49,280
18 Nevada $53,341 $56,361 $55,062 $50,819
19 Wyoming $52,664 $53,207 $51,731 $47,227
20 Vermont $51,618 $52,104 $49,907 $51,622
United States $50,221 $52,029 $50,740 $46,242 (2005) [4]PDF
21 Wisconsin $49,993 $52,094 $50,578 $48,874
22 Pennsylvania $49,520 $50,713 $48,576 $47,791
23 Arizona $48,745 $50,958 $49,889 $46,729
24 Oregon $48,457 $50,169 $48,730 $45,485
25 Texas $48,259 $50,043 $47,548 $43,425
26 Iowa $48,044 $48,980 $47,292 $47,489
27 North Dakota $47,827 $45,685 $43,753 $43,753
28 Kansas $47,817 $50,177 $47,451 $44,264
29 Georgia $47,590 $50,861 $49,136 $46,841
30 Nebraska $47,357 $49,693 $47,085 $48,126
31 Maine $45,734 $46,581 $45,888 $45,040
32 Indiana $45,424 $47,966 $47,448 $44,806
33 Ohio $45,395 $47,988 $46,597 $45,837
34 Michigan $45,255 $48,591 $47,950 $47,064
35 Missouri $45,229 $46,867 $45,114 $44,651
36 South Dakota $45,043 $46,032 $43,424 $44,624
37 Idaho $44,926 $47,576 $46,253 $46,395
38 Florida $44,736 $47,778 $47,804 $44,448
39 North Carolina $43,674 $46,549 $44,670 $42,061
40 New Mexico $43,028 $43,508 $41,452 $40,827
41 Louisiana $42,492 $43,733 $40,926 $37,943
42 South Carolina $42,442 $44,625 $43,329 $40,822
43 Montana $42,322 $43,654 $43,531 $38,629
44 Tennessee $41,725 $43,614 $42,367 $40,676
45 Oklahoma $41,664 $42,822 $41,567 $40,001
46 Alabama $40,489 $42,666 $40,554 $38,473
47 Kentucky $40,072 $41,538 $40,267 $38,466
48 Arkansas $37,823 $38,815 $38,134 $37,420
49 West Virginia $37,435 $37,989 $37,060 $37,227
50 Mississippi $36,646 $37,790 $36,338 $35,261
Puerto Rico $17,500 $17,000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKFGr_mkQaA
From youtube: Mitsubishi EVOLUTION ("EVO") decides to disgracefully side-tackle a pillar after a low dyno run of 450hp. How unsportsmanlike. This might have happened at Mech-Tech College in Puerto Rico this week.

Public education is facing permanent shuffling around the world. The public's wealth is becoming private business and profit potential. No longer students, words being used are 'customers'. The ability to think is no longer needed in the labor force. Hence a 60 day occupation by students in Puerto Rico and a growing student movement across the US. Education is a human right!

I just ate spaghetti for lunch. As for here, I assume Italy. If so, then nope. The farthest from USA is Puerto Rico, Vancouver, and Hawaii (wait, that's still USA).

In reply to this comment by emy:
>> ^ant:


I noticed you're from Italy. I love Italian food like pastas, lasagnas, etc. Dang, now I am hungry and it's only 7:31 AM PDT!


I'm hungry tooo, it's 13:26 here now, and i haven't eat yet.. but now it's too late and i don't wanna go bed after have eaten few min before.
Have you ever been here?

What I find most troubling is that this case went forward without any evidence that she WAS underage. Keep in mind that Puerto Rico is part of the US from a Federal perspective, it is part of the first-circuit which is based out of MA... Kinda scary that you can get brought to trial just because someone THOUGHT the actress looked underage.

*WTF

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Jose Feliciano, guitar, Puerto Rico, blind, amazing' to 'Jose Feliciano, guitar, Puerto Rico, blind, amazing, bolero' - edited by rasch187