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

Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 175 posts

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#61

Post by farresito »

notspanishflu wrote: post #27
farresito wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Let's not negotiate. Consequences? You have a region where 50% of the people are so discontent with the situation that they are willing to go independent. Unsustainable. So you basically give them no option: they can't hold a referendum for an independence, you don't want to find an agreement with them... What kind of government would do that?

Following your argument: lets make happy that 50% breaching the law, and lets punish the 50% honoring the law. That doesn't make any sense.

Firstly, being pro-Independence, as the other person mentioned, isn't breaking the law. Secondly, you didn't understand the point of my comment. My point was that if a good percentage of the population are so discontent with the situation that they are willing to go independent, then there's a problem, and to go as far as wanting to be independent from a country where you have lived all your life you need to be VERY discontent. Turning a blind eye and saying gibberish about the Constitution and blah blah blah helps very little with the problem. Aren't politicians in power to represent us and to try to solve these kind of issues? Maybe we can find a middle point that will satisfy both sides. I'm certainly very biased, like you are, but I think we need to make an effort to understand what every party wants.

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#62

Post by kobeya »

JaumeGreen wrote: post #3

The sentiment on the street is to keep pushing forward and declare independence. The opposition to this rule is huge (there has been a new huge demostration today). If this happens civil disobedience will grow. There won't be a civil war (we are peaceful people and have no guns), but we won't obey what comes from Madrid.

> There won't be a civil war (we are peaceful people and have no guns)

Myanmar has gun controls too. That’s really working out for its populace /s

The ignorance and naïveté in this statement is astounding.

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#63

Post by sbmassey »

njarboe wrote: post #22
lordnacho wrote: post #9

Assuming there's a group of people who more or less agree to be separate from some larger group, it's hard to think of legitimate reasons why they shouldn't be allowed to secede. Their forefathers having signed an agreement is hardly a convincing reason to hold them in a union they no longer like. Neither are issues of the current political situation ("it would destabilize the region..."). There's still hard question…

"The people" includes a lot of people who don't want to separate. If 99% want it I would say OK, maybe. Where does one draw the line? Take a look at how the separation of India and Pakistan went if you want to get an idea of how it might go.

Czechia and Slokavia would seem an apter comparison.

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#64

Post by iagovar »

TomK32 wrote: post #34
navigator01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone on Earth has a petty identity. If we allow secession just so every self-identifying group can 'rule' themselves then we encourage those petty identities when we should be discouraging them and instead encouraging universal humanism.

Germany is a federated state, stark differences between the regions (the dialects vary a lot, but not as much as the Spanish and Catalan languages differ) but it does work because the government is not centralised like in Spain or France, and the Bundesländer have their say there's a lot of respect for each other. Spain's PP has always shown disrespect to any federalization and autonomy of the spanish regions.

Except the government in Spain is not centralised at all. The comparison with France is just...

IDK where are you getting this ideas but is mostly the opposite. PP is disrespectful about everything but that doesn't mean that there's no autonomy, there's a reason why every region has an "autonomous government" and are called "autonomous communities", basically because they have that autonomy.

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_communities_of_Spai...

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#65

Post by avar »

JaumeGreen wrote: post #3

The sentiment on the street is to keep pushing forward and declare independence. The opposition to this rule is huge (there has been a new huge demostration today). If this happens civil disobedience will grow. There won't be a civil war (we are peaceful people and have no guns), but we won't obey what comes from Madrid.

    > We are peaceful people and have no guns.
You might be peaceful, but according to Wikipedia Spain has 10.4 guns for every 100 people[1].

You're either entirely wrong, or Catalonia is an extreme statistical outlier when it comes to gun ownership in Spain.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#66

Post by notspanishflu »

ardit33 wrote: post #59
product50 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my sentiments. What is the point of the constitution if one of the country's region starts disobeying and unilaterally declare independence? These are kind of disobediences which the Spanish government must fight - even if they lose.

Communism/Socialism, was part of the constitution on most of the eastern European countries, and it didn't make it right. People rose against, somewhere peacefully and somewhere violently, it and it is not anymore. Those countries are much better off now. Constitutions often can be unjust, at time to time they get thrown away/re-rwitten.

I think you have a conceptual problem because you're mixing the basics.

We are talking about democratic constitutions, quite different from legal texts from totalitarian regimes.

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#67

Post by ardit33 »

notspanishflu wrote: post #50
ardit33 wrote: post #43

It looks like Spain are coming as the bad guys in the whole ordeal, trying to keep their "vassal" state at any cost. Seems like a throwback to feudal times. They could have made a reasonable deal. Referendum would be valid if there is over 50% participation and a super majority 2/3rds approve it (over 66% of YES, for independence). Most likely the independence vote would have lost, people felt they expressed their ri…

Spanish sovereignty resides in all Spaniards, not just a part of them. It is in the Spanish Constitution. If secessionists lose an election, they'll keep asking for another, and another.

Lol, no, it resides on the folks that live on those states. Constitutions change. (the last change was in 78, right?).

Fromer Yougoslavia broke off, as the separate states wanted their own countries. Somewhere was peaceful (Slovenia), and very bloody, (the rest of the states).

They are much much better off by themselves right now. Things change, and if Catalonia wants their independence they should.

Re: Spain Will Remove Catalonia Leader, Escalating Secession Crisis

#69

Post by pjc50 »

JaumeGreen wrote: post #3

The sentiment on the street is to keep pushing forward and declare independence. The opposition to this rule is huge (there has been a new huge demostration today). If this happens civil disobedience will grow. There won't be a civil war (we are peaceful people and have no guns), but we won't obey what comes from Madrid.

> There won't be a civil war

It's increasingly clear that the only two possible outcomes are either abandoning the idea altogether (possibly with an overall reduction in autonomy or proscription of the pro-independence parties); or violence.

You can see even in this thread that nobody in the rest of Spain is even going to consider the possibility of peaceful secession. It's going to end up like 70s Belfast if people go down this route.

Post reply on HN