Walking the Line: Puerto Rico is out of luck

Wednesday, November, 28, 2012; 10:32 PM | 27 | | Print

by Nick Cafferky, Managing Editor

One of the most interesting things to go unnoticed during this month’s election season was news that Puerto Rico has applied to be America’s 51st state.

On the surface, this looks like an easy admission: it has been a commonwealth for some time now, would be the country's 29th most populous state, and has finally come to a consensus on wanting to join the union.

However, I am here to tell you that I will not let it happen.

For starters, this is a bad case of Beyoncé’s “Put a Ring on It” — I really do hate the song, but it makes for a fun analogy.

It has been 52 years since America gave Puerto Rico the right to elect its own governor, and it took until now to apply for statehood? If it applied in 1950, it would have beaten Alaska and Hawaii by nine years and might have gotten in, but it waited too long and missed the boat.

Puerto Rico is the guy that did not want to be tied down, wanted to keep his options open and he is now out of luck.

Except this is not even a case of the guy contemplating whether or not to settle for someone he deems less attractive; this is Zach Galifianakis turning down advances by Kate Upton, and then deciding years later that it was a bad decision.

Both Upton and America are going to say, “No thanks. You had your chance.”

But here are my two main reasons for telling Puerto Rico off: we are not changing our flag and we are not breaking the even number that is our 50 states.

Our flag is faultless the way it is and under no circumstance should we be required to add another star to it and mess up its perfection. I have looked up just about every design possible that would incorporate 51 stars, and I am not sold on any of them.

Also, do you have any idea how many things I own with the American flag on them? I would have to take out loans to re-buy everything to incorporate the new design on it.

This is not a sports franchise that can change its logo and require its fans to buy new paraphernalia in order to call themselves true fans (actually, I will get to this topic next week).

I am aware the flag has been changed before; it was before I was born, but I am told it has happened once or twice. However, having 50 states just sounds better; it sounds like we planned it out.

Have you ever had a project where you kind of handle things when they come up, throw everything together at the last moment, and it somehow looks amazing? That is what happened with the formation of our states — we kept adding and adding, and when we were done, we had a nice, round number that made it look like we had planned it out perfectly from the beginning.

The second we add a 51st state, we become that sign you see at a sporting event where the person making it realized halfway through that they do not have enough room to spell out “Virginia Tech” and so the “-ech” is way smaller than the rest of it. We have all seen it; it is tacky.

Ladies and gentlemen, I refuse to let the United States of America become that sign and I refuse to do anything that would ruin the Anamaniacs song that helped me learn the states and all of their capitals.

Do I recognize that all of the points I have just made are inane and trivial? Absolutely; no one has ever successfully won a debate when using the Anamaniacs as a justification for anything.

But one of the perks of not having any real power and just pretending you do is that you can make justifications based on inane and trivial things. Try it sometime.

Along that same line, be sure to check out next week’s column, where I pretend America is my fantasy football team and I trade away states and rearrange territories, so Puerto Rico could still be admitted, while keeping the sanctity of the 50-state barrier.

Why? Because the trade deadline in my fantasy football league just passed and now I am bored.

A version of this article appeared in the Nov 29 issue of the Collegiate Times.

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Peter | # November 29, 2012 @ 9:11 AM — Flag Comment

Yes! Well put about PR being like guy who wanted to keep his options open! And they still do! I lived there for a year around 2005 and the divisions were very deep and bitter between the pro- and anti- statehood camps. Why the Republican Party would accede to such a suicidal move (not that they haven't done a pretty good job of that already!) escapes me as well.

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