Quote:
Originally Posted by
AKHunter 
| I swear there are days I think we should just annex Mexico but, then I realise how silly that is. We already have enough corrupt politicians of our own! |
It's not the politicians who would be the problem, AKHunter. It's not even the ciminal element and the druggies. What would be the problem is the Mexican people.
I spent about a year, off and on, on the US East Coast to San Juan, Puerto Rico run. Every trip, we carried a 40 foot cargo container full of food stamps to San Juan and a US Marshal to 'guard' it. One marshal explained to me what would happen if Puerto Rico ever was given U.S. statehood.
He said that at that time (this was in the 1980s), the poorest state in the country was Mississippi. But compared to Puerto Rico, the average citizen in Mississippi, including the ones on welfare, made nearly twice as much as the average Puerto Rican did on the island. IF
PR came into the Union, the federal govenment would have to pick up the tab for all sorts of welfare benefits they did not then because
PR was a Commonwealth affiliated with the United States but not part of the United States. Puerto Rico paid no federal income tax, but paid a Commonwealth income tax to the Commonwealth higher than any state tax in America. Even if the taxes were reallocated, we still would wind up paying more to Puerto Rico as a state government than we'd ever collect in federal taxes. MUCH more.
He compared food stamps on Commonwealth status to a cut on your finger dripping blood on the floor. Statehood and all it would imply would be like cutting your wrists after a mile sprint with your heart pounding.
Just how many Mexicans living below the U.S. poverty line, who upon annexation would become instantly eligible for U.S. welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, etc., are there? There isn't enough gold in Fort Knox to fund that kind of a quantum jump in social services! And this horrorshow further ignores the cultural and language issues. Both are relevant.
American culture, when you get down to it, is descended of English laws and customs as modified in the American colonies. To the Brits, power devolved from God to the British Crown, which further devolved it onto the nobles in the House of Lords and the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. But it's worth noting that the full title of the parliament is "the Queen's Parliament" as in 1776 it was "the King's Parliament." Power diffuses from the top down, not from the bottom up.
The American colonists turned that concept on its head. In the United States, power is derived from the People. It flows upwards to the Members of Congress and the Senators, and on to the President. The first words of the Constitution are "
We the People," not "We, George, by Grace of God King and Sovereign."
Although they pay lip service to the concept of American-style democracy brought to them by Benito Juarez, in fact the Mexicans are still running on that older model of power from the top down instead of from the bottom up. The battle cry of the Sixties radicals, "Power to the People!" is meaningless to them. They expect the central power to at least tepidly take care of them, since the old Spanish model dating back to the Conquistadores was as corrupt as the day is long. The think the people have no power.
We've dealt with this situation before, a hundred years ago. It took the Filipinos about two generations to fully shuck the old Spanish model and realize in their bones that governmental power is derived from a mandate from the masses, not by an accident of birth equivalent to some farcical aquatic ceremony. But for those two generations, a lot of American wealth and manpower headed west to the Phillipines to change their world.
And do you think they will give up speaking Mexican dialect Spanish in favor of American Standard English? Don't make me laugh! They will expect US to change to THEIR language! You see it happening here already. And if you don't see that issue as a deadly dangerous threat to our national identity, you aren't as smart as I think you are.
The United States of America has fractures now. If you annexed a nation with a totally different culture, a totally different language, so poor it makes an urban ghetto dweller look wealthy, I truly believe it would sunder the bonds that hold this country together in a way even the Civil War could not.
No, AKHunter, don't even think about annexing Mexico. That's a nightmare no one in their right mind would want!
