Puerto Rico is a wonderful place to visit from all I hear. I'd love to go there someday if I ever could afford it. The people of Puerto Rico are warm and generous by all accounts. The problem I have with it is that it is neither fish nor fowl nor good red meat.

The United States gained Puerto Rico, along with Cuba, the Philippines, and Guam from Spain in the Treaty of Paris following the Spanish-American War. By 1917 Puerto Ricans were United States citizens and had a popularly-elected Senate and House of Representatives along with a governor appointed by the President of the United States. Following WWII the governor became an elected position as well. However because of its status as a territory its citizens couldn't, and still can't, vote for the president.

Puerto Ricans held an election in 1952 which changed their status to a commonwealth. It is a self governing unincorporated territory of the United States with commonwealth status. It is less than a state and more than a territory.

The fact that its citizens can't vote in United States elections for president and Congress has some people upset. They claim it is discrimination. "Why can't Puerto Ricans vote in national elections," they yell.

The answer is: They can. All they have to do is move to a state and take up residence. They have the right to move about the country as freely as any other citizen. Don't want to move to a state so you can vote for president? Then it's you're fault you can't, not anyone else's.

Puerto Ricans have had more than half a century to move forward to statehood or ask the United States to grant them independence. They do neither. It is obvious they don't want independence, the only independence party only gets about 5 percent of the votes. Oh sure, there are factions that demand one or the other of those conditions but they don't win elections, the elections that have been held.

Puerto Ricans sometimes claim that they are discriminated against because of the situation they are in. What they fail to acknowledge is that American citizens have often not had the vote in national elections. Their situation is no different than Hawaiians or Alaskans before their statehood. For that matter they are no different than citizens of Kansas or Missouri before their admission to the Union.

I'm tired of the complaining. If they want to have a say in Congress and a vote for president they know what they need to do. They should either do it or shut up about the injustice of it. They alone hold their future in their hands.

It is time, and past, that Puerto Ricans fish or cut bait.