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We should have kept so much stuff in the Pacific Okinawa is fine but US administration would have been so good for the Philippines compared to what it is today
by vmception 5y ago
We should have kept so much stuff in the Pacific
Okinawa is fine but US administration would have been so good for the Philippines compared to what it is today. We should have kept that for 100 years by now.
- LatteLazy 5y agoPuerto Rico hasn't made much progress. Plus you can't insist possible rivals (Brits) give up their empire while building your own...
- vmception 5y agoI thought about that too, we’ve had PR since that long But I think Philippines would have still attracted capital to create Manila and for everything outside of it there would be a better baseline of infrastructure and rule of law
- LatteLazy 5y agoIf it became a fully integrated state then maybe. But Puerto Rico is routinely excluded from all sorts of "baselines" sadly (so are other non-state territories). I sadly doubt the US (at the time still refusing to give black people the vote) would have welcomed a state filled with Asians, made of 4000+ Islands. The islands have over 100m people, so they'd basically decide federal elections, plus that's a lot of people to suddenly have to bring up to baseline.
- vmception 5y agothese were the primary arguments in Congress against admitting Hawaii into the union as a state until some routine "support my other bill I'll support that bill" all the way till 1959 there were just enough representatives that couldn't imagine the "absurdity" of having Asian representatives for Asian/Polynesian constituents in the United States
- LatteLazy 5y agoRemember as well, Hawaii (pop 1.4m) gets 2 reps and 4 electoral college votes. That's a much easier swallow than whatever 100m Philippinos would get...
- vmception 5y agoPhilippines has a third of the US population size by now, or well it would be one fourth of the US population size if it was included but in 1900 it had 6.5m while US had 76 million. So it would be 8%, not insignificant but nowhere as wild as you would think at the time. in 1960 this proportion would have ballooned to 14% Just some additional perspective
- sudy7egeg 5y agoWhy not? You can demand anything you want and I've yet to see a country agree to a demand simply because the other party wasn't a hypocrite.
- LatteLazy 5y agoAt the end of WW2, the US needed all the allies it could get against the USSR. They were the real winners of the conflict, the red army was considered unstoppable and Stalin controlled everything from the sea of Japan to (well past) the middle of Germany. The assumption was that if Russia didn't stop when they met the Western allies' lines they would have taken mainland Europe within a few weeks. It was a crazy time.
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoGDP per Capita in PR is still about 3-4x higher than nearby Caribbean nations.
- LatteLazy 5y agoTechnically their closest neighbour is the British Virgin Islands. Gdp per capita is about 45k there. It's only 32k in PR right? But that's not really fair of me. I think its hard to find a good comparison here. Even my choice of PR is deeply flawed (population 3m vs the Philippines at >100m). For me, the question is mainly political. Its not "could the US have made the Philippines a richer more developed nation" because the answer to that is YES. The question is "would the US political system and electorate every have permitted the project to happen". That's a much harder question to say yes to imho.
- philwelch 5y agoPuerto Rico’s HDI is .845, the same as Argentina. The highest HDI for an independent Caribbean island state is .814, which the Bahamas and Barbados both have. Cuba is at .783 and the Philippines are at .718.
- gurleen_s 5y agoNone of that belongs to the US… we shouldn’t have touched it in the first place.
- Craighead 5y agoInstead it belongs to a warlord.
- spfzero 5y agoWell it didn't belong to Spain either, which I imagine would still have it if the US had not "touched" it.
- refurb 5y agoNothing belongs to anyone. It’s about what you can occupy and defend. Ask Ukraine about Crimea.
- whack 5y agoSo in your book, if USA were to invade and occupy Mexico, that would be morally justifiable. Got it
- thedudeabides5 5y agoWell it’s not ok, unless you say the magic words. Repeat after me. “Taiwan has always been an integral part of China” “The Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia” What you call Mexico, well that has always been an integral part of Texas. Also, while we’re talking about feelings, we prefer the term “South Texas.” Its a way of honoring our people’s long historical and cultural tie to the land. Calling South Texas anything else will be seen by the appropriate authorities as a grave insult and an offense deserving of economic consequences.
- refurb 5y agoNo, my point is the morality of it doesn’t matter in the end. Is it immoral that Russia invaded and took Crimea from Ukraine? Maybe, I don’t know enough about it. Does it matter whether or not it’s moral? Nope. If Ukraine can’t take it back it’s not theirs any more. You can have the most impeccable moral case for why that land is yours but if you can’t take it and defend it, it’s just a sad story. It’s kind of like crossing the street when the sign says “walk” and getting run over and killed. Were you right and the driver wrong? Definitely. But you’re dead so right or wrong doesn’t really help you.
- gumby 5y agoThat is the classic argument of the colonizer.
- vmception 5y agoyou say that like its a pejorative we had the Philippines, and it sucks now. The US is fighting Al Queda in the remote islands the more dense islands are run by an autocratic psychopath, sustained because the people are tired of all sorts of other vices running rampant
- chaorace 5y agoIt is indeed a perjorative.. I don't particularly think you will be very successful in convincing anyone otherwise. This is usually the part where dogwhistles come in handy -- stops people from utilizing those pesky lessons learnt in history class
- refurb 5y agoI’d be super curious what countries of the world aren’t former “colonies”. The dominant ethnic group in China overtook other ethnic groups (and their land). Same with the Vietnamese (booted Cambodia out of the Mekong Delta). Japanese were not the dominant ethnic group on many of their islands. The whole world is a series of winners and losers when it comes to territory. Seems odd to just focus on the “colonizers” of the past 200 years and ignore the rest.
- whack 5y agoColonialism has historically not worked out well for the colonized people. If you mean incorporating Philippines into USA and giving them full citizenship, voting rights, and representation in the House/Senate, that's something I might find more agreeable. But I suspect most people who are pro-colonization would hate the idea of locals being given voting rights in the mainland.
- spfzero 5y agoRemember that then, pre-jet-travel, the Philippines were very remote, and shipping including paper mail took weeks. It wouldn't have been an easy task to integrate into the USA, when looked at in 1946 or whenever. As a former colony itself, the USA was somewhat anti-colonial in its diplomacy in the early 19th century, especially in regards to (pre-communist) China. Helping a former colony become an independent democracy would have been the more attractive option at the time. It's likely true many things would be better for the people living there now, if the US had kept it. Not arguing. But those are the people who deserve to run it, for better or worse. The US is free to make whatever agreements, treaties, etc. that both parties think make sense, just like US relations with any other country. When their interests align with those of the US, the US would be smart to encourage. When not, it's just not to be.
- Apocryphon 5y agoMore like, we should’ve held a plebiscite in the Ryukyus to allow them to determine their future. They were a fairly late addition to the Japanese empire, after all.
- vmception 5y agosure. I'm all for some semblance of due process. That wouldn't have stopped the people that disagree from sharing misinformation about some illegal occupation on instagram, like they do for Hawaii.
- Apocryphon 5y agoBack in the 1970s?
- vmception 5y agoNo now. It doesnt matter how many ways people reached consensus, someone will still claim some indigenous victim mentality.