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

31–40 of 86 posts

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#31

Post by Findeton »

I'm from Spain (Madrid) and I support the referendum, because I'm an economic libertarian and I support the freedom of association and smaller States.

BTW, this is not a real referendum, as there are no guarantees. Of course, the reason why there are no democratic guarantees is because of the actions of the Spanish government. But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1...

But I also have to say that there is certain hypocrisy in all this. Pro-independence people already have the pictures and excuses they wanted: Catalans voting and the Spanish police exercising violence. But, if Catalonia became independent, they would also have a police, a repressive force. So you can see how the excuse for creating a new State, violence of the State, is hypocritical for an economic liberal like me.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#32

Post by akvadrako »

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.

Hell, a bunch of semi-autonomous US states tried this in the 1860s and got crushed by the full force of the national military for their attempt.

There is clearly no internationally accepted right to self-determination. Maybe there should be, but I'm not sure it can be made fair and practical.

The status quo seems to be:

> According to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, the UN, ICJ and international law experts, there is no contradiction between the principles of self-determination and territorial integrity, with the latter taking precedence. ¹

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#33

Post by lz400 »

bitL wrote: post #29
lz400 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

You have already godwin'd me :) Anyway, imho this is still just fallacious. You are attaching to the Catalonian independence movement the adjective of "great". Then you say great movements are "illegal", etc. etc. Too much of a fact-less reasoning for me.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#34

Post by flexie »

jules wrote: post #21
flexie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree. That's also the only way to make sure the no voters participate.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#35

Post by fiblye »

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.

What? A group of people getting together to vote to make a decision in no way violates democracy. It's the very essence of democracy. Telling people "you aren't allowed to vote because this decision belongs to us, and so your actions are illegal" is anti-democratic.

A government saying that voting in a specific circumstance is illegal doesn't make the voting anti-democratic. That simply makes it illegal.

Another example is that under 18s can't vote in most countries. If 17 year olds decide to get together and vote anyways, what they're doing isn't anti-democratic. They're just doing something illegal. They're violating a restriction of democracy.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#36

Post by chki »

patrickaljord wrote: post #20

The fact that many politicians still don't know about the Streisand effect never ceases to amaze me. They should have let this slide and no one would have cared, heck most people can't spot Catalunya on a map and now it's all over international news with voters in blood including women and elderly people.

I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities.

By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control over a part of its own territory.

I'm also quite sure that their international reputation is not really that important to them when the state itself is endangered.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#37

Post by fiblye »

lz400 wrote: post #15
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…

Why is the referendum democratic? is it your opinion that unilateral secession of any region, under any circumstances is democratic by definition? I find that very strange. I don't agree.

Brexit was a democratic decision. People may hate the results and call it bullshit, say the vote shouldn't matter, etc. But it's still democratic.

A non-democratic option would be the government breaking off without consulting the residents. Or a government saying people who live in a region aren't allowed to have a vote to decide their fate because politicians from other regions forbid it.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#38

Post by nsnick »

lz400 wrote: post #15
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…

Why is the referendum democratic? is it your opinion that unilateral secession of any region, under any circumstances is democratic by definition? I find that very strange. I don't agree.

If you use violence to stop a group from voting on anything you are undemocratic.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#39

Post by ryanlol »

lz400 wrote: post #33
bitL wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

You have already godwin'd me :) Anyway, imho this is still just fallacious. You are attaching to the Catalonian independence movement the adjective of "great". Then you say great movements are "illegal", etc. etc. Too much of a fact-less reasoning for me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#40

Post by wilun »

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.

You can accuse any pool of not reflecting the wishes of the population, with the (poor and fallacious) excuse that some people choose not vote. Now remains the problem of having to make such a choice in case an illegal vote is organized, but there shall be no problem in the first place if the results are ignored.

But even then, you can't recursively deplete the meaning of the word "democratic" by tying it to pre-existing arbitrary constitutions, even more so when said constitutions trivially violates the right of people to self-determination.

Post reply on HN