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Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

theguardian.com

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Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#41

Post by noncoml »

gtirloni wrote: post #34

I understand the freedom argument but it's probably coming at a very high price for little practical gain. It seems a form of Brexit, based largely on emotions without a clear path forward. Catalonia becomes a nation state and then what? Are they now an island in the EU? Easy trade with all other regions in Spain now has to go through taxes and trade agreements? How much is debt increasing? https://www.cnbc.com/2017/…

I think it’s more similar to the Scottish independence referendum than to Brexit.

Even if there was no good reason for independence to begin with, police violently trying to stop the referendum makes now the best argument for independence.

Edit: And I say that as a strong supporter of a tightly unified Europe with a single constitution, government and all.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#42

Post by bassman9000 »

Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #25
Mikeb85 wrote: post #7

It's absurd that in a Western 'democracy' you'd have the national police out to suppress a referendum and attack peaceful voters. Good job Spain, you just legitimised the referendum and gave Catalonia a ton of international sympathy.

The optics (at the moment) seem to be the most important issue here. Whether or not the vote is legitimate is quite irrelevant in immediate aftermath. This is a government using physical force against its citizens for, of all things, voting -- a core democratic principle. Democracy must be tolerant of peaceful protesting. An "illegal" vote (depending who's lens we are viewing this from), to me, is a form of peaceful…

It was an illegal act, funded by public money. Had the government not acted, it would have set a bad precedent: that constitution doesn't hold weight in real life.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#43

Post by nine_k »

argonaut wrote: post #12

I thought this analysis article was really thought-provoking and now I have uncertain and mixed feelings about the referendum: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/europe/independence... . Basically, when it comes to things like this there's a conflict between two international ideals: integrity of national borders and human rights . And there are some thought provoking ideas in the article. If you think about it…

Integrity of national borders against infringement from outside is good because it prevents aggression. Separation within the borders can be violent or not; for instance, separation between Czech Republic and Slovakia was a slow and entirely peaceful process. Most of the time, though, there is a significant faction that does not want to let go of a part of "our land", even if they have no ties to it and never even visited it.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#44

Post by eesmith »

coenhyde wrote: post #17
argonaut wrote: post #12

I thought this analysis article was really thought-provoking and now I have uncertain and mixed feelings about the referendum: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/europe/independence... . Basically, when it comes to things like this there's a conflict between two international ideals: integrity of national borders and human rights . And there are some thought provoking ideas in the article. If you think about it…

I don't think it's appropriate to ask the citizens of the rest of the country if they support the secession. To create a simple analogy lets say you have a group of five people. One is a captive and four are the captors. Is it appropriate to have a referendum with all five people to vote on if the captive is allow to go free? No the four captors are always going to vote no. The captive has to escape without the suppo…

There's no need to argue via analogy.

Who gets to decide if the Principality of Hutt River (75 square kilometers, so larger than San Marino) can secede from Australia?

Only those who live there? Or can other Australians be involved?

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#45

Post by evanlivingston »

charlesism wrote: post #22
coenhyde wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's appropriate to ask the citizens of the rest of the country if they support the secession. To create a simple analogy lets say you have a group of five people. One is a captive and four are the captors. Is it appropriate to have a referendum with all five people to vote on if the captive is allow to go free? No the four captors are always going to vote no. The captive has to escape without the suppo…

The whole idea of a democracy is that the majority wins (which is why we need liberalism to offer protection for the minority). Every minority is a majority of itself . This is one reason why trying to deal with secessionists in a democracy is so difficult (see also Canada, and Ireland).

Perhaps that's a point of failure in democracies as we have seen them implemented, in that a large group of people are sometimes beholden to a larger group of people with whom they don't identify.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#46

Post by lacaza »

I feel a little bit disappointed with hacker news having this superficial and anti-analytical article in the front page.

As a Spaniard id like to address some points brought up here in the comments. I've read people comparing this with Crimea, thoughts on self determination, thoughts on the repression by the government, etc.

The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%. And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence).

Then there's the legitimacy of this referendum. In order to make this referendum, the catalan parliament approved new laws without majority and breaking the Catalan laws in a dictatorial disgraceful manner. This referendum is illegal and unconstitutional. There are millions of public money and public space used in order to carry on with "crime of sedition", using the political force against the law in order to rebel against the institutions. If anybody recalls past dictatorships, many of them had these kind of referendums.

After knowing how this referendum was done and why it was illegal and anti democratic, I'd like to address the people who can't conceive liberty with rules. Referendums on self determination are unconstitutional by law in Spain, I can agree on a change on the constitution. But to change the constitution in order to allow these referendums you need a national referendum, because your changing the constitution of all the country, not just Catalonia .

I will finally argue on self determination and try to clear some superficial comments I've read.

The first and impulsive thought all of us have is to think that everybody should decide about everything. But in reality, that extreme liberty can take on someone else's liberty.

If you allow catalonia to self determine their independence and then they do get independent, the next will be país vasco, then Galicia, then Madrid, and so on. The problem with this is not that the country would disappear (I'm not very patriotic) the problem is you're creating extreme inequality by regions. If Madrid gets independent they become rich because they give a great percentage of their gdp to Spain in taxes. But andalucia or Extremadura would become extremely poor. If you have a little bit of socialistic view, you can understand this is wrong. It's against redistribution, against equality, against globalization, and pro-isolation, xenophobia and discrimination.

Also, Catalonia can never be compared with Scotland, their history is null in contrast. Their identity is as special as many other regions of spain.

[0]Here are some tweets on how the referendum was done:

Guy votes 4 times https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016

People voting https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957

Fake census on a small town https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#47

Post by bassman9000 »

Seeing threads like this makes me want to go back, and ask for forgiveness for all the occassions in which I strongly voiced an opinion in matters I had absolutely no background, and for which I was utterly unqualified to talk about.

Because it's clear that most people here have no clue about how Spanish constitution works, how it was ratified in 78/79, including Catalonia, what are the consequences of using public funding for illegal activities, including polling, and how states have a say in their whole, and each of their parts.

Lesson learned. I'm sorry.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#48

Post by ssambros »

kcorbitt wrote: post #21
argonaut wrote: post #12

I thought this analysis article was really thought-provoking and now I have uncertain and mixed feelings about the referendum: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/europe/independence... . Basically, when it comes to things like this there's a conflict between two international ideals: integrity of national borders and human rights . And there are some thought provoking ideas in the article. If you think about it…

In a divorce, you don't require that all parties agree that divorcing is the right decision. If a single party wants to dissolve the relationship, that is sufficient. There's more nuance when we're talking about entire states, but I believe the same principle should apply. This particular vote was irregular enough to not really be legitimate, but the Spanish government should recognize that some sort of Catalan refer…

> If a single party wants to dissolve the relationship, that is sufficient.

Interestingly enough you will find that this is not the case in all jurisdictions.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#49

Post by Y7ZCQtNo39 »

bassman9000 wrote: post #42
Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optics (at the moment) seem to be the most important issue here. Whether or not the vote is legitimate is quite irrelevant in immediate aftermath. This is a government using physical force against its citizens for, of all things, voting -- a core democratic principle. Democracy must be tolerant of peaceful protesting. An "illegal" vote (depending who's lens we are viewing this from), to me, is a form of peaceful…

It was an illegal act, funded by public money. Had the government not acted, it would have set a bad precedent: that constitution doesn't hold weight in real life.

Maybe a court should be deciding whether or not it is illegal, not the police. Again, my comment was about using the proper response to a given situation.

I don't think the use of public money for the illegal act necessarily sets a bad precedent. The constitution didn't say to go out there and spray rubber bullets at civilians. So how a government can respond to this illegal act is a subjective choice.

Spain could have chosen to use less authoritarian methods to deal with the consequences of this ballot without setting any precedents. It could have been declared unenforceable by a court, which is a more appropriate venue.

Re: Catalan referendum: preliminary results show 90% in favour of independence

#50

Post by wott »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #26
bjterry wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game theoretically, the fact that the Spanish government was so dead set against the vote implies that they thought there was a significant probability that it would be over 50% regardless. It seems like if a government resorts to violence to stop separatism movements, that violence is prima facie evidence that the separatist sentiment potentially represents the majority of a region. I have actually been surprised by…

No western government believes in self-determination. They only believe in results that favour western hegemony. For example, Orange Revolution = good. Crimean referendum = bad. Arab Spring = good. Independent Kurdistan = bad. And so on.

Cataluña es España = good

Косово је Србија = bad

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