Have you been to Puerto Rico? It's quite beautiful! I was there just this past January. You just described a large and diverse island with millions of people a

Have you been to Puerto Rico? It's quite beautiful! I was there just this past January. You just described a large and diverse island with millions of people as some sort of homogeneous culture, using terms like "the place" and "a slum." Yes, Puerto Rico has places like La Perla in Old San Juan, which are infamous for being rather unsavory. But that's not at all representative of the entire island. To be clear, I'm not saying that you're necessarily wrong in your normative claim - that Puerto Rico should be independent - but your positive claim (that most of the island is simply a slum) and your dismissive presentation of such is simply poor. A more nuanced and charitable argument is that the island could have far more economic output than simple tourism if it were provided with the same support as the rest of the states in America, or that it would fare even better with independence. But you're not making either of those arguments, you're just saying we need to get rid of them as though they're a burden. That's not productive for anyone involved.