"What is disrespectful and undemocratic?"

“What is disrespectful and undemocratic?”
Commentary, Viewpoint, The San Juan Star
Wednesday, March 15,2006


Throughout its history the leadership of the Popular Democratic Party has demonstrated that they suffer from a genetically endemic malady that nullifies even the slightest possibility of their abiding by strict national constitutional concepts and definitions. This syndrome provides the PDP a false premise to blissfully ignore its dire moral predicament of knowingly predicating and subsisting on lies that become even more evident in the defense mechanisms deployed when threatened with the truth.

As in the past, consider their unfailing accusations portraying the recent White House Task Force report on Puerto Rico as “undemocratic” and disrespectful for the simple reason that it does not conform to their prolonged deceit. According to their posturing the fact that the United States will not amend the national constitution to comply with the whims of a second-rate Puerto Rican political party is deemed “undemocratic”.

Legal and legitimate solutions to our colonial condition mandate an act of mutual self-determination on the part of the Congress representing our fellow citizens in the fifty states, and we the people of Puerto Rico. It is essential to understand and admit that any changes in the status of Puerto Rico will produce lasting economic and political changes to the lives of American citizens here and in the states of the union. So it is a democratic right and obligation of the Congress to exclude options that will allow Puerto Rico attributes denied the states, or conditions which would turn the United States into a “de-facto” colony of Puerto Rico. Simply stated, the United States will not surrender the national interest to the leadership of the PDP.

What would be undemocratic and morally reprehensible would be to provide a colonial solution to resolve the problem of colonialism. Utmost respect can only be demonstrated when people are offered alternatives that are not imaginary but viable and serve to underscore the difference between our current “political Disneyland” and the dignity deserved not by some but by all Americans regardless of where they are born or live. By their attitudes and destructive criticism the PDP has proven that what is disrespectful to them is the truth.

These false accusations designed to distract attention from the real issue of colonialism allow me this opportunity to try and remind the PDP cadre proven examples of what the terms “disrespectful” or “undemocratic” are truly meant to define.


It is disrespectful and superficial to define things exclusively by their name instead of their specific and detailed characteristics. Any one can take manure and call it by another name, wrap it in the finest silk from China, spray it with the finest French perfume, and embellish it with the finest lace from Belgium, but it still remains manure. Likewise you can wrap our condition under the name of “Commonwealth” or “Estado Libre Asociado”, you can provide it with fictional attributes and you can claim it is a legitimate and legal political status and yet it remains nothing more than an American colony subject to the plenary powers of the Congress under the “Territory Clause”.

Disrespectful is also what Mr. Acevedo Vilá planed and executed during the process of the “Young Bill” gathering Puerto Ricans who live on the fringes of stateside society and parading them through the halls of Congress, badly dressed, speaking loudly, throwing garbage on the floor, etc. trying to create a false image by portraying them as typical representatives of our entire society.

It is equally disrespectful to boast that Puerto Ricans cannot speak English giving the impression that we do not have the intellectual capacity to learn, and to portray our women as wanting to have children so that they can collect more welfare money. Or that federal taxes on local cemeteries would force the removal of the remains of the loved ones of those that couldn’t pay, or that with statehood families would be forced to communicate exclusively in English even at home.

It is also demeaning and disrespectful to create expectations in party followers with promises and definitions the PDP does not dare presenting to the Congress because they privately know and acknowledge that they would never be considered or much less accepted.

How dare the masters of disrespect have the audacity to accuse others of what they have blatantly disdained? How dare they speak of democracy when it was the PDP who designed a party-state to control every aspect of the lives of the citizenry and as a result become enabled to extract or extort the people’s political loyalties?

No, Mr. Acevedo Vilá, undemocratic and disrespectful conduct is what the Popular Democratic Party has perpetrated against the self-respect and dignity of the Puerto Rican people for over fifty years and not what President Bush and the Congress propose to do! For once and for all you must be demonstrated that it is fundamentally disrespectful and undemocratic to persist in trying to portray a pervasive lie into a present reality or much less into a future way of life.


Arturo J. Guzmán