I think I honed what civics skills I have over years of teaching, especially the standard course on social problems. In that course I would assign students articles from both the left and right on various issues, and after awhile you get the hang of the customary ways each camp argues. Of course, you also pick up factual information on a variety of issues, but it’s more important to understand the structure of different lines of reasoning than the facts, since those structures are repeated over and over on different issues with different facts.

Writing my own books has helped too. I happen to be acquainted with the numbers of immigrants to the US receiving refugee status by country because I looked it up while researching my book about Nicaragua. (Nicas received refugee status easily during the 1980s and still have an easier shot at it than most others.) Having done that, I was attracted to a recent article on the subject that showed Cubans still entering the US at high rates.

Of course, the Social Security and Florida issue is standard stuff on the topic of the elderly in social problems courses, and it’s even standard stuff in TV political discussions. I don’t really know much about Cuba, but it comes up often in a tangential way in the usual left/right debates, as well as debates about US foreign policy etc.

Giving Florida back to Spain was a joke, but hey it might please Ticos, since they’d have an easier time getting visas to visit Disney World.

I am from the US but have permanent legal residency in Costa Rica, so I guess I’m a resident here now.

Actually, Florida is also the main obstacle to sensible Social Security reform. Perhaps the smartest US move would be to give Florida back to Spain?