Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 86 posts

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#21

Post by jules »

flexie wrote: post #16
s_kilk wrote: post #2

It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.

The violence part is a disgrace and likely extremely counterproductive. But there is not much democracy in the catalan referendum. It's unconstitutional, and there is little guarantee it's fair to the castellano half of the catalan population which is also much more likely to refrain from voting. The referendum will probably not reflect the will of the catalan population.

Then they should have helped organise a proper referendum, not repress this one with violence.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#22

Post by dandellion »

thesumofall wrote: post #9
DCKing wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing, but just a semantic argument here. The referendum is absolutely democratic. But it is also illegal under the Spanish constitution. The problem is that the Spanish constitution and the judge's interpretation (which is straightforward but unfortunate) patently would disallow self determination through a referendum, which to me is democracy in its purest form. The only reason it's illegal is because…

There will be people here with more knowledge about international constitutional law but I’m pretty sure almost every state has rules in place to prevent it from disintegrating. Otherwise, what would stop oneself to declare one’s own little piece of land as independent (with yourself voting for it) and stop paying taxes?

Without an army to defend your borders the government from which you claim independence could just remove you by force... You would have problems to trade so you would have to be completely self sufficient with food, energy etc.

You kind of need to reach some critical mass to be able to organize a functioning nation. Getting to city-states could be viable, but I don't think it can go much farther.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#23

Post by DCKing »

thesumofall wrote: post #9
DCKing wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not disagreeing, but just a semantic argument here. The referendum is absolutely democratic. But it is also illegal under the Spanish constitution. The problem is that the Spanish constitution and the judge's interpretation (which is straightforward but unfortunate) patently would disallow self determination through a referendum, which to me is democracy in its purest form. The only reason it's illegal is because…

There will be people here with more knowledge about international constitutional law but I’m pretty sure almost every state has rules in place to prevent it from disintegrating. Otherwise, what would stop oneself to declare one’s own little piece of land as independent (with yourself voting for it) and stop paying taxes?

The world is not a libertarian tax fantasy of that degree, no. But it should be possible for groups that have a significant cultural claim to vote on these matters. And it should be possible that if a significant amount of this cultural group agrees on the subject that a mutual understanding can be obtained between the main state and the group they govern over.

It seems to me this constitution article was put in place to specifically specific regional identity issues that the country of Spain was built on. Spain is moreso a collection of regional identities than a firm national national identity.

As a counterexample, the Dutch constitution does not identify what the unity of the Dutch state actually means or that breaking Dutch unity is against the law a priori [1]. Historically speaking, this has not been a great concern despite historical [2] and modern [3] seperatist movements, because the Dutch "identity" has historically been synonymous with the Dutch nationality to a very large degree. The same cannot be said for Spain.

As a disclaimer, I'm not advocating identity politics here. I'm just trying to give a historical explanation.

[1]: The Dutch constitution does define treason but what constitutes treason is left rather vague and therefore up to a judge to decide. Would/should the same Spanish judge have deemed this referendum treason in the absence "state unity" laws? Not a rhetorical question.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_National_Party

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#24

Post by lz400 »

bitL wrote: post #19
lz400 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.

Women's suffrage used to be illegal. Black movements in the US used to be illegal. Fight against apartheid used to be illegal. Now we have Spanish police beating ordinary people in the age of Internet. This is beyond Streisand-effect stupid. They should have done British style referendum, almost surely "Independencia" would have lost, and then could stick the result to the faces of local population for the next two d…

That's a very obvious fallacy. Women's suffrage used to be legal, therefore all laws are wrong? or, the law I don't like is wrong?

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#25

Post by protomyth »

bjourne wrote: post #12
s_kilk wrote: post #2

It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.

Indeed. But what if the inhabitants of the Navajo Nation ( http://www.nec.navajo-nsn.gov/portals/0/TEC%20US%20Map.png ) demanded sovereignty? The US would likely suppress its self-determination in exactly the same way.

Nah, these days the US government would just ignore them. It’s not like they take much of an interest in any of the tribal governments, unless it can get some politician some votes.

A better example would be California or Texas. I’m pretty sure we would not see the preemptive harsh measures Spain has engaged in.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#26

Post by Kenji »

lz400 wrote: post #3
s_kilk wrote: post #2

It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.

It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.

Morality and legality are orthogonal.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#27

Post by ekimekim »

lz400 wrote: post #11
s_kilk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a fundamental mistake in conflating legality with democratic will.

Surely part of the democracy is the rule of the law, isn't it? I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. You can think this one is particular is anti-democratic but most countries actually have similar laws against unilateral secession of a single region.

> I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies.

I can point to a HUGE number of laws that make a farce of the democratic process in almost any modern democracy. A short list that applies mostly to the USA but some to other countries also:

* Gerrymandering (the act of designing districts along demographic lines to influence an election outcome)

* First past the post voting (where voters can't vote for who they really want, they have to vote 'strategically' for the person they think will come first or second)

* Voter ID laws that seek to disenfranchise certain demographics by requiring hard(or expensive)-to-acquire ID they are less likely to have

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#28

Post by nickpp »

Classic "Atlas Shrugged" moment: the hard-working, tax-paying people of Catalonia are tired of supporting the wealth-redistribution, equalitarianist Spaniards.

A warning for other countries where the tirany of majority is becoming unbearable? That would be pretty much the whole Socialist West at this point, although I am not aware of similar geographical concentrations.

It brings back memories of the old communist regimes of Eastern Europe: you did't like it? Tough luck! Leaving the country was ILLEGAL.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#29

Post by bitL »

lz400 wrote: post #24
bitL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women's suffrage used to be illegal. Black movements in the US used to be illegal. Fight against apartheid used to be illegal. Now we have Spanish police beating ordinary people in the age of Internet. This is beyond Streisand-effect stupid. They should have done British style referendum, almost surely "Independencia" would have lost, and then could stick the result to the faces of local population for the next two d…

That's a very obvious fallacy. Women's suffrage used to be legal, therefore all laws are wrong? or, the law I don't like is wrong?

All great movements of the past were illegal; that's what made them great in the history books, even if they were carefully planned by Machiavellian types in the background. One very popular past dictator in Germany was democratically elected though. If Spain wants to stay united, they really need to start talking to Catalonia instead of literally kicking their butts and smashing them on the ground, or they risk an abrupt end (maybe not today, but in 20 years when a new generation remembering this comes to full force and resentment can't be contained any longer).

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#30

Post by lz400 »

ekimekim wrote: post #27
lz400 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely part of the democracy is the rule of the law, isn't it? I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. You can think this one is particular is anti-democratic but most countries actually have similar laws against unilateral secession of a single region.

> I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. I can point to a HUGE number of laws that make a farce of the democratic process in almost any modern democracy. A short list that applies mostly to the USA but some to other countries also: * Gerrymandering (the act of designing districts along demographic lines to influence an election outcome…

Sure but unless you are extremely radical, those are the exception not the rule. Most of the laws, that regulate murder, theft, libel, etc. are all right. At least I like to think that most first world countries are approximately democracies, otherwise what's the measure of democracy we can have? because as I said, no unilateral secession is a pretty universal coded law in the first world.
Post reply on HN