politics
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
view the rest of the comments
It would be like someone saying they support American Samoa independence. You'd basically be telling the US that its territories should be independent nations, which the UN recognizes as "a dick move".
What happens if Taiwan attempts full autonomy or China attempts full control might be a different story, though. We'll have to see how trade is going at that point.
Agreed. The idea that the US should be saying it supports Taiwanese independence when Taiwan doesn't is just a very silly take.
Whatever change in status happens or doesn't happen in Taiwan in the coming years or decades needs to start from the will of Taiwan. There's no reason for the US to be dictating it.
Not really a good comparison.
If American Samoa had been an independent country for the last 75 years, operating pretty much completely independently, had 23 million people, claimed not to be ruled by the US, and other people were saying "we recognize that it has been independent for decades at this point" then it'd be comparable.
Are you implying Taiwan isn't already fully autonomous? Or that China has any control over Taiwan...?
You are really simplifying the ROC vs PRC situation and leaving out a mountain of important context here.
Implying? I'm not implying anything. But for clarity's sake I'll say very clearly that Taiwan was part of China, China still considers Taiwan part of China, and Taiwan disputes this. Largely because the ROC leadership fled mainland China to Taiwan, and after the 1980s largely because of their economic power.
In either case, my comparison seems fine still. In fact, if you go back to the Samoan Civil War, my example works even better than you realized. What happens if Samoa says they still control American Samoa and they want their islands back? Pretty much the same situation as PRC vs ROC, but 55 years earlier.
What do the people of Samoa want? As an American I want to know what they want, this is the first in my almost 50 year of life I've even heard the idea. (and about the 10th time total I've heard of them at all - they are not often in the news or discussions)
By contrast Puerto Rico I hear of a lot, but so far as I can tell the people the there are divided and so I guess status quo is just as good/bad as everything else - but this is only because they don't agree on what they want, if they did I'd support it.
Last I heard Puerto Ricans largely supported statehood, not independence.
Lat I heard the independence supporters (claimed!) that the votes were not fair and so they stayed home. I'm not really in position to look into it. I'm all in favor of statehood if they want it.
Long story short, Puerto Rico doesn't want to leave the USA. All of the choices the people tend to sincerely consider (regardless of reason) are some sort of deep relationship with the US mainland, whether statehood, status quo, or Free Association.
That's the long-standing baseline of the past 70 years
Samoa and American Samoa are two different places. Samoa is an internationally recognized nation whereas American Samoa is a US territory. So in this case asking what Samoa wants is equivalent to asking what China wants to happen to Taiwan.
Puerto Ricans are considered US citizens, whereas people from American Samoa not born on a US military base are NOT US citizens. Because the territory is messy, and the politics are complex, because the history is messy and complex. You can thank Germany and the US for that between Samoa and American Samoa.
They are still debating, they were generally ok with the status quo because they were US nationals and thus were not subject to the full constatution, but I haven't checked on Samoa since citizenship was thrust on them, doubt they'd be happy