Freedom from Teetotalitarianism. Read the original…
There was a time when Borinken had the cojones to demand freedom from President Herbert Hoover and his dry Gestapo.
Puerto Rican demands for freedom from America’s Sharia Law Amendment and dry laws declaring light beer and even Bacardi Rum felony narcotics were getting hard to ignore. Rebellion was also brewing in These States.
From Prohibition and The Crash–Chapter 144:
Illinois State Senator Walter A. Huebsch warned executives that their businesses were secure only as long as the government was secure. The popular will, he claimed, was for repeal, and governments which set themselves against the popular will were inevitably overthrown by force. He urged that government restrict itself to maintaining peace and defending property.[1]
This seemed to be the sentiment in “Porto Rico,” where the Supreme Court had held on December 19 that the “People of Porto Rico” would no longer prosecute the U.S. Government’s prohibition cases. The truth was that the people of Puerto Rico had never had a fanatical dry movement, nor any quarrel with bootleggers or smugglers. Farmers on the island were anxious over lost profits and longed for a return to the good old days when rum flowed freely and sugar was sheik.[2]
[1] (CT 1/18/31 9)
[2] (CT 1/19/31 26)
As always when browbeating the little people of the banana republics, Hoover traveled by fully armed naval warship and the White House announced his intention to tour the possessions. The Chicago Tribune had since January 19 of 1931 given front-page coverage to the conquered island’s struggle for freedom and independence.
March 14/31, White House statement on the President’s Caribbean tour: To SECURE a short rest and to settle certain administrative problems regarding American possessions in [the] Caribbean, President Hoover will go to Porto Rico and probably to the Virgin Islands next week on the reconditioned battleship Arizona which is undertaking its 10-day test run at sea. (…)
The trial run of the Arizona has been scheduled to the Caribbean to start on March 17. (…) (Hoover 1931 1976 143-144)
Behind the scenes, Puerto Rican judges had refused to hear cases against their dashing, romantic, defiant bootleggers running the Demon Rum to America’s thirsty millions. El Presidente Prohibicionista was not going to sit still for back talk from uppity natives. America’s altruism toward our little brown brothers, outlined for the world by William Howard Taft would not let up. In the words of Chicago’s philosophical saloonkeeper, Mr. Dooley, to the inhabitants of the conquered Philippine Islands:
An’ now, ye mis’rable, childish-minded apes, we propose f’r to larn ye th’ uses iv liberty. In ivry city in this unfair land we will erect school-houses an’ packin’ houses an’ houses iv correction; an’ we’ll larn ye our language, because ’tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours. An’ we’ll give ye clothes, if ye pay f’r thim; an’, if ye don’t, ye can go without. An’, whin ye’re hungry, ye can go to th’ morgue—we mane th’ resth’rant—an’ ate a good square meal iv ar-rmy beef. An’ we’ll sind th’ gr-reat Gin’ral Eagan over f’r to larn ye etiquette, an’ Andhrew Carnegie to larn ye pathriteism with blow-holes into it, an’ Gin’ral Alger to larn ye to hould onto a job; an’, whin ye’ve become edycated an’ have all th’ blessin’s iv civilization that we don’t want, that ‘ll count ye one. We can’t give ye anny votes, because we haven’t more thin enough to go round now; but we’ll threat ye th’ way a father shud threat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye’er bodies. So come to our ar-rms,’ says we.
That, in effect, was Hoover’s message to recalcitrant boricua judges in 1931, albeit couched in a much more diplomatic threat to make them diplomats in some equally dry satrapy dominated by Saracen berserkers where women wore balaklavas. From Hoover’s news conference of March 26, 1931 at Porto Rico. (…)
I am advised from every quarter in the island that there would not be a popular vote of 5 per cent in favor of independence. (…) It [PR] has a population of nearly 900,000… There are 760 police in the island. That includes all forms of peace officers. (…) I was a great deal struck with the many capable people there, especially the judges and the Chief Justice. He is a man of very considerable parts. We could use them to advantage. We should give them an opportunity in our diplomatic service. narcotics (Hoover 1931 1976 153-4, 157)
So now that relegalization of the Demon Rum and boricua womanhood’s realization that statehood is preferable to murdering their superstitious bruto pendejo idiota papist husbands for trying to ban abortion have both worked to increase the vote for statehood by an order of magnitude. The said statehood, if achieved, will necessitate the redesign of “th’ starry banner iv Freedom,” I have here a modest suggestion for that new flag.
Thinking outside the box gives a better reflection of our position–oh jes, I am boricua and proud of it–as advance guard in defense of the Panama Canal. Jackbooted minions of the Papacy of Rome might likewise torment the flower of Cuban womanhood, and if that island decides the 14th Amendment is preferable to papal coathanger abortion laws, starvation, or communist slavery, there could someday be two estrellitas down in the Caribbean portion of the starry banner. Until voters replace Republicans with Libertarian politicians, there is danger that godless Canada might beat us to the punch and offer Canadian freedom (with zero abortion laws and not much prohibition) to those happy escapees from the cruel hand of the Spanish Inquisition.
If you ever need a crisp and idiomatic translation of Puerto Rican papers for emigration, or contracts or laws for investment, think of me, HenriquePhillips.com or www.tradutoramericano.com
Find out the juicy details behind the mother of all economic collapses. Prohibition and The Crash–Cause and Effect in 1929 is available in two languages on Amazon Kindle, each at the cost of a pint of craft beer.
Brazilian blog…
libertariantranslator 
The USS Arizona was destroyed at Pearl Harbor ten years later, thanks in part to Herbert Hoover’s 1931 Moratorium on Brains standstill agreement. That agreement enabled Germany to rearm instead of pay of war reparations.
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