A Purely Federated U.S. "State" of Territoria?

This is one of those thoughts I had in the shower that might not go anywhere, but I wanted to run with it a bit.

As many of you know, one of my pet issues is statehood for all American territorial possessions. Not just DC statehood, but statehood for Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa -- the whole shebang. I'm actually a bit of a hardliner on this in that I don't think the territories should have the option of remaining territories -- either statehood or independence. There's no justification, in a modern democracy, for there to be territorial possessions permanently under the domain of a sovereign but lacking full democratic rights and representation in that sovereign.

One problem with my vision is that many of the territories in question are quite small -- much smaller than any current state. Leaving aside Puerto Rico, which is somewhat of a special case, the largest American territory by population is Guam, with a little over 150,000 residents. By comparison, the smallest U.S. state is Wyoming, with a population of approximately 578,000.

Now, in theory I have no problem with a little state-packing of territories with trivial populations (that's in part how we got two Dakotas). But it's also the case that if you add all the non-Puerto Rico U.S. territories together, the population totals close to 340,000 -- still considerably smaller than Wyoming, but not absurdly so. If the only objection to territorial statehood is population, I don't think that objection holds to the combined state of "Territoria".

Of course, it might seem absurd to combine into one state the U.S. Virgin Islands (in the Caribbean) with Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, and American Samoa (half a world away in the Pacific Ocean). Hell, even Guam and American Samoa, despite both being "Pacific Island Territories", are more than 3,600 miles apart. How would "state" government even work in that context?

But that made me wonder -- is there any problem with a "state" deciding to organize itself on a completely federated level -- total autonomy for each traditional "territory", with no or virtually no power in the "state" legislature? Could there be a "state" of Territoria which exists only to have a Representative and two Senators, but which otherwise is an empty shell comprising the actually active and empowered "local" governments of the constituent territories?

I don't claim this is a miracle drug solution. For starters, it would end the distinctive (albeit non-voting delegate) representation of each individual territory. Especially given that Guam would comprise almost 45% of the population of "Territoria" on its own, I can certainly imagine the other territories crying foul at that. And as I said, I don't actually have a problem with the "pure" state-packing play of giving the U.S. Virgin Islands and its 87,000 denizens full statehood on its own.

But it's an interesting thought, no -- the concept of a "state" that exists only as a vector for national representation, but otherwise makes no claims to be the governing body for its constituent territories? I at least find it a bit intriguing, if only as a thought experiment that might open other doors.

Packing Preparation

I continue to think that adding more states is more likely to occur during the next Democratic administration compared to adding more Supreme Court Justices. But it will be controversial, and, following Machiavelli, anything especially controversial should be done at the very outset of one's tenure as a ruler.* What that means is we want any new state admissions to be part of H.R. 1 (which most people already expect to be a voting rights bill). And in particular, we want the new states set to be added to be ready to go on inauguration day.

This is especially important if we want to extend statehood beyond the most obvious candidate, D.C.. Puerto Rico is a complicated case because statehood has been actively debated there and remains controversial. But there seems to be relatively little discussion of statehood for other American territories, such as Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands. Yet if those territories also were ready to announce, on day one of a Biden administration, that they were applying for statehood, it would be much easier to roll them into a larger bill than trying to mobilize them on the fly.

*  Machiavelli also suggests delegating the task to an underling and then, once it's complete, executing him in a high-profile fashion. Not all of his advice is applicable to the modern day.

American Territories

Can anyone explain to me why America is still in the business of possessing territories that do not have full voting rights? These would include (of places with permanent populations) Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Marinas Islands, Guam, and the District of Columbia. Politically speaking, of course, there are loads of reasons why these territories exist in a state of effective colonization -- they're too small, they're too likely to vote Democratic, they may desire independence (in Puerto Rico's case, there may be a virtual standoff between independence and statehood forces).


But it seems to me that there is no normative justification whatsoever for this state of affairs. Places should either be independent nations, or should have full voting rights in the country that maintains sovereignty over them -- it's that simple. Even size isn't really a barrier: D.C. is already bigger than Wyoming in terms of population. A unified "Pacifica" state of American Samoa, Northern Marinas Islands, and Guam would be the smallest U.S. state, but not by an unreasonable margin (it'd have roughly 322,000 people, against Wyoming's 563,000). Puerto Rico on its own would already have multiple Representatives in Congress (and would likely be combined with the U.S. Virgin Islands for statehood purposes).

And while I agree that these territories (absent D.C.) should be given an option of independence if they desire (akin to the Marshall Islands, for example), I also think their long-standing governance by the United States has given them a valid claim to statehood, if they want it, that we have an obligation to respect. In fact, I think democratic representation is so important that I don't think it should really be optional -- statehood or independence should be a mandatory choice.

It is frankly embarrassing that this country, which serves as a model for democracy the world over, has large swaths of people under its banner who don't have representation in Congress. It's wrong, and what's more, I can't think of any remotely plausible valid reason for allowing it other than bare inertia.

Element of Understanding

The Guam Catholic Archdiocese adopts the Dinesh D'Souza line of argument and says laws promoting gay rights show Islamic terrorists have an "element of truth" to their claims about American society:

The culture of homosexuality is a culture of self-absorption because it does not value self-sacrifice. It is a glaring example of what John Paul II has called the culture of death. Islamic fundamentalists clearly understand the damage that homosexual behavior inflicts on a culture. That is why they repress such behavior by death. Their culture is anything but one of self-absorption. It may be brutal at times, but any culture that is able to produce wave after wave of suicide bombers (women as well as men) is a culture that at least knows how to value self-sacrifice. Terrorism as a way to oppose the degeneration of the culture is to be rejected completely since such violence is itself another form of degeneracy. One, however, does not have to agree with the gruesome ways that the fundamentalists use to curb the forces that undermine their culture to admit that the Islamic fundamentalist charge that Western Civilization in general and the U.S.A. in particular is the “Great Satan” is not without an element of truth. It makes no sense for the U.S. Government to send our boys to fight Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, while at the same time it embraces the social policies embodied in Bill 185 (as President Obama has done). Such policies only furnish further arguments for the fundamentalists in their efforts to gain more recruits for the war against the “Great Satan.” ...

Wowzers. I find it particularly noteworthy that the archdiocese clearly finds Islamic terrorists to be morally superior to gays and lesbians. Not good people, but clearly superior. That's some cross-cultural understanding I'd rather not get behind. But it does follow a noted (and despicable trend) by which gay rights will "destroy the earth", are a graver threat than slavery, and are worse than child rape.