Should the United States Offer Haiti and other Carribean nations statehood?

• BoatShoes

  If Haiti were a state in the Union, it is likely that the recent Earthquake would not have had such arduous consequences because the infrastructure in the country would be much better. It would also afford many of our fellow human beings the guaranteed protection of the rights our Constitution guarantees.
  
  The same goes for other poor Carribean countries.
  
  Thoughts on if the U.S. attempted to do this?
• tk421

  

  NO! We can hardly afford to have 50 states, don't need/can't afford any more. Especially Haiti and the like. We'd hardly get any tax money from them. Talk about a drain on the economy.
• I Wear Pants

  No, it'd be a burden to the rest of the Union and there's a pretty large culture divide.
  
  The reason we can have all the states we do now is that we all have pretty similar cultural attitudes and upbringings (Hawaii is probably the biggest exception) and I don't think any of the states are quite as destitute as Haiti and the like.
  
  Same reason the EU does/doesn't add new members. If the new state can't bring anything to the table or is radically different it doesn't really help anybody but puts a drain on the whole union.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  On a personal level, it wouldn't bother me.
  
  Realistically, it would be the catalyst of our swift and terrible ruin.
  
  Politically, that's ALOT of "expansion" (for lack of a better word) for other countries to take notice of and be affronted by.
• Al Capone

  Thats all we need is 9 million more unemployed people on welfare.
• CenterBHSFan

  

  Al Capone wrote: Thats all we need is 9 million more unemployed people on welfare.

  
  That is a politicians dream!!!
  
  Think about all the "feel good legislation" that would be going on.
  
  ..whether we could afford it is another thing!
• Cleveland Buck

  

  That's 9 million more votes for sale. They would love it. Of course we can't afford it, but we can't afford what we are doing now, so we might as well go out with a bang.
• 2kool4skool

  

  I think the United States should operate much like European Soccer, relegating the worst states every year to a lower "league."
• sjmvsfscs08

  Absolutely not. They're poor and they speak Spanish/French/Portuguese. There is massive potential for the tourism industry to takeoff. When it does and they have cash, they wouldn't need us anyway.
• BoatShoes

  Eh, I was hoping at least one person would take the other side...but I suppose I will.
  
  1. Perhaps we could allow for temporarily lower labor standards in Haiti and incentivize business' who currently relocate overseas to skirt labor laws could relocate to Haiti to encourage economic development and the United States would have first dibs on Tax dollars. Even minimal labor laws would be better than what are used in developing countries outside the sovereignty of the United States.
  
  Also, perhaps gradually bring them into social programs, etc. over time so as to not greatly burden them.
  
  2. We have a new group of people who would be grateful to be a part of the United States and have a strong sense of Nationalism. When I was in Haiti, all the kids talked about was wishing they could come to America and live in peace and freedom and opportunity. We could bring America to them and we would have a new demographic of hard working Americans unlike the current generations growing up watching Cribs and Sweet 16.
  
  We'd also have fresh bodies who could serve in the military.
  
  3. The United States has been committing aid there for years but with no stake to get anything back. It would make much more sense to invest in the country with the hopes of future tax dollars coming from that investment.
  
  4. Maybe instead of thinking "More poor people on welfare", think, "more people who could be given the opportunity to live the American Dream and be guaranteed the right to life and liberty and a fighting chance to pursue happiness"
  
  I don't necessarily take these positions; I just thought it the answers aren't so clear cut as the previous posters have laid out.
  
  For instance, in the basic small moral hypothetical...if some is crushed under a building, most people it seems, would give little care about debt or ruining their fancy clothes or car, or losing money to save that person. If this intuitively seems the moral action, why not the same conviction in the present case.
• Cleveland Buck

  

  4. Maybe instead of thinking "More poor people on welfare", think, "more people who could be given the opportunity to live the American Dream and be guaranteed the right to life and liberty and a fighting chance to pursue happiness"

  You can think this same way about all of the social programs we have now. Unfortunately, there isn't enough money on Earth to pay the obligations of those programs.
  

  For instance, in the basic small moral hypothetical...if some is crushed under a building, most people it seems, would give little care about debt or ruining their fancy clothes or car, or losing money to save that person. If this intuitively seems the moral action, why not the same conviction in the present case.

  I would like to buy a house for every homeless person, but I can't afford to do it, so I don't. Hell, maybe if we didn't send so much money over there, their own government would have to figure out a way to get money from their own citizens, meaning putting them to work and taxing their income.
• BoatShoes

  Cleveland Buck wrote:

  I would like to buy a house for every homeless person, but I can't afford to do it, so I don't. Hell, maybe if we didn't send so much money over there, their own government would have to figure out a way to get money from their own citizens, meaning putting them to work and taxing their income.

  Eh, but in reality, the world could afford to offer better lives for the poorest nations we just do not. If every country ate like we do in the U.S. we would need three earths to produce that amount of food. We spend more on a cup of coffee every day than most people see in dollars in a whole day. I'm not saying that this world we live in is wrong...but we, if we acted collectively...er, ahem, marxist/communist/socialist/anti-country musically...it could be afforded.

• Glory Days

  

  BoatShoes wrote: 4. Maybe instead of thinking "More poor people on welfare", think, "more people who could be given the opportunity to live the American Dream and be guaranteed the right to life and liberty and a fighting chance to pursue happiness"
  
  I don't necessarily take these positions; I just thought it the answers aren't so clear cut as the previous posters have laid out.
  
  For instance, in the basic small moral hypothetical...if some is crushed under a building, most people it seems, would give little care about debt or ruining their fancy clothes or car, or losing money to save that person. If this intuitively seems the moral action, why not the same conviction in the present case.

  because as a whole, we have become a selfish country. we cant even stick it out in afghanistan and iraq to give people freedom, there is no way americans would give haiti or any of those other countries a chance.
• tk421

  

  BoatShoes wrote:

  Cleveland Buck wrote:

  I would like to buy a house for every homeless person, but I can't afford to do it, so I don't. Hell, maybe if we didn't send so much money over there, their own government would have to figure out a way to get money from their own citizens, meaning putting them to work and taxing their income.

  Eh, but in reality, the world could afford to offer better lives for the poorest nations we just do not. If every country ate like we do in the U.S. we would need three earths to produce that amount of food. We spend more on a cup of coffee every day than most people see in dollars in a whole day. I'm not saying that this world we live in is wrong...but we, if we acted collectively...er, ahem, marxist/communist/socialist/anti-country musically...it could be afforded.

  Never going to happen.

• iclfan2

  

  Boatshoes, I really don't know where you come up with these outlandish ideas. And for the record, the U.S. has helped Haiti a ton, and the country was stable (because of us) until THEY decided they needed to be ruled by "one of their own". Well look at the thriving country that got them. Thing is in America if you force them to be helped out people complain, and then if you don't help them out people bitch even more. It is a never ending cycle of bitching. And btw, who said any of these countries would want to be part of the U.S? Puerto Rico has voted on it before and they don't want to be.
• Gobuckeyes1

  Maybe instead of thinking "More poor people on welfare", think, "more people who could be given the opportunity to live the American Dream and be guaranteed the right to life and liberty and a fighting chance to pursue happiness"

  It would be nice if people thought like that...unfortunately many are programmed to see the worst in people and not the best.
  
  It's an interesting question...Haiti is basically going to be starting from scratch once they get this mess cleaned up. The tourism angle makes me wonder if investing money there would eventually pay off, given they would become a U.S. state or territory to begin with.
• ytownfootball

  

  My thought is it would be viewed as expansionism by the rest of the world and would result in the appropriate responses. Probably not something we need.
• cbus4life

  Probably wouldn't turn out too well.
• rookie_j70

  

  The U.S. needs to start dropping states. Michigan is a good start.
• Footwedge

  Haiti is no use to the empire. No natural gas, no oil, and very, very little food. If they had anything of value, we would have blamed then for 9-11 and democratized their ass by now.
• LJ

  

  rookie_j70 wrote: The U.S. needs to start dropping states. Michigan is a good start.

  Only after Toledo is given to them as a parting gift.
• Hesston

  

  No I don't think so
• majorspark

  

  Gobuckeyes1 wrote:

  BoatShoes wrote:Maybe instead of thinking "More poor people on welfare", think, "more people who could be given the opportunity to live the American Dream and be guaranteed the right to life and liberty and a fighting chance to pursue happiness"

  It would be nice if people thought like that...unfortunately many are programmed to see the worst in people and not the best.
  
  It's an interesting question...Haiti is basically going to be starting from scratch once they get this mess cleaned up. The tourism angle makes me wonder if investing money there would eventually pay off, given they would become a U.S. state or territory to begin with.

  I thought only the neocons thought like this. Who would have thought BoatShoes and Gobuckeyes1 were really dreaded neocons.
• Shane Falco

  Somebody once said we already had 57 states.
  
  I would need a list of all 57 before I would consider adding more.
  
  
  
  
  
  On a side note... Hell no!
• Al Bundy

  Shane Falco wrote: Somebody once said we already had 57 states.
  
  I would need a list of all 57 before I would consider adding more.
  
  
  
  
  
  On a side note... Hell no!

  Actually he said he had already been to 57 states and had 1 more to go, and he hadn't been to Alaska and Hawaii. Does that come to a total of 60 states?