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Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#471

Post by kobeya »

hummel wrote: post #88

Spanish here, I have family and home in Catalonia. 1) You need to read history to understand the situation. But not the history of the last 100 years, but of the last 1000. Catalonia was never independent, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom of Aragon and the castle kingdom allied in a dynastic way and created what is known today as Spain. There is no 2) Voting is illegal, it is not illegal to vote but…

Let’s say you’re black in the American south before 1868, or South Africa before 1993. Voting or any sort of civic duty is illegal for you. Does that mean that you shouldn’t be allowed to vote?

I am NOT saying Catalonians are oppressed the way blacks were in the American south or South Africa. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m purposefully using a more extreme example to illustrate that this is a moral, not legal question.

Self-determination is a fundamental human right, by the philosophy of the Enlightenment at least. And this remains true whether or not it happens to be codified in law. If the Spanish constitution blocks reasonable paths to self determination, then the constitution is wrong—morally, not legally, of course.

And why should we support an immoral law? There are good reasons for doing so in fact — preventing anarchy in the pejorative sense — but only if a constructive alternative is provided to fixing the law within the system in a reasonable amount of time. Surely there is a process for modifying or amending the constitution? Spain didn’t try.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#472

Post by stevedekorte »

flexie wrote: post #242
johnnyfaehell wrote: post #29

From my not so knowledgeable point of view we have: It seems the Spanish government messed up massively here. Instead of embracing a referendum about independence they decided to flatly declare it illegal and attempt to ignore the problem. If they initially embraced the referendum they could have won, I believe that a Yes vote to independence nearly always ends up failing. But instead what happened is, they blankly d…

I cannot imagine that it ends in a civil war. Civil wars happen when you have 1) a lot of young men, 2) who have little to lose, and 3) who are used to living a life with not much more comfort than that of a soldier (maybe even less) The young generation in Catalonia is small, they have a lot to lose, and they live very comfortable lives. I don't see them taking up arms. Maybe they will take to the streets for a few…

Is this not true of the young on both sides? Is it safe to assume that the part of the Spanish military from Catalan will not side with Catalan?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#473

Post by RobertoG »

pvaldes wrote: post #465
RobertoG wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you feel the need to use slavery or communist as an example here, instead of, for instance, secessionist. Maybe you expect to elicit a sense of horror in your readers?

Well, some of the ingredients here are the comrades of the self claimed anticapitalist party Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) asking for some veeery peculiar things, (i.e. proposing to expropriate the Cathedral of Barcelona to make a market and a school of music there), and there was also a larvate (and sometimes not so larvate) racism and harassment against non indepentendist spaniards that last for years. Taking all o…

I checked.

CUP, 8% of the votes. The other pro-independence parties mostly from the right.

There goes the communism thing, what about the slavery thing?

It seems to me that you are trying again the same trick.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#474

Post by kobeya »

saimiam wrote: post #263
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US "the government" typically applies to either all three branches (courts, legislature, executive) or occasionally to the latter two only. The latter definition is typically only used in the case of a lawsuit involving the state. This is in contrast to parliamentary systems where the government is formed of the dominant political party or coalition in parliament, and also gets to act as the executive branch.…

> more common This doesn’t sound right. I’d like to see some proof of this. I’m from India and I only use government to refer to the legislature which happens to commingle with the executive branch. I’d love to join the mainstream if my usage is in the minority. Also, Spain is a parliamentary monarchy so in a thread centered on Spanish politics, I feel you should use the word government as used by Spaniards.

Internationally “government” refers to either the monarchy in a strong authoritarian regime, or the ruling coalition in parliament. The US model of separate but equal powers in a federation is somewhat unique.. although it is more of clusters on a spectrum and many countries copied he US model (or had it forced upon them).

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#475

Post by dang »

narag wrote: post #116
Ygg2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new reality is that Spain is probably going bankrupt.

Nonsense. Most of the big companies have left Catalonia last month. Half of Catalonia population doesn't want independence. Rule of law will be restored in a few weeks and all the thugs that have promoted this idiocy will be jailed. Edit: to the person responding, you only see what you want to see. Police acted according to judiciary orders and there were no deaths and just a handful of injured people. Try to resist…

Please don't break the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Your comment is problematic because you crossed into incivility. Pugilistic comments on divisive topics produce conflagrations. Those are all the same on the internet and therefore they are all boring and therefore we don't want them here. Since this thread has managed to remain relatively civil despite people being on opposing sides of the issue, a comment like this does more relative damage even than it usually would. That's probably the reason for the downvotes.

The guidelines also ask people not to go on about downvoting, so please don't do that either.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#476

Post by bad_user »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #188
hummel wrote: post #88

Spanish here, I have family and home in Catalonia. 1) You need to read history to understand the situation. But not the history of the last 100 years, but of the last 1000. Catalonia was never independent, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom of Aragon and the castle kingdom allied in a dynastic way and created what is known today as Spain. There is no 2) Voting is illegal, it is not illegal to vote but…

>> The illegality of their vote is supported by the judicial system, not political. However it came about, that's a really political situation to be in. It sounds to me like Spain has set up a legal framework in which war is the only way to leave a democracy. I'm not familiar enough with Catalonia's motive's here to judge their decision, but that's a shitty situation in which to make that decision. And to be clear, I…

You mention democracy and the "tyranny of the majority", but that's exactly what a democracy is, a doubly edged sword. At this point Spain's citizens have the right to determine Catalonia's fate, just as the people living there. Not saying that democracy is an end goal and should be protected against all odds, but if you don't like how democracy works, you're free to propose an alternative.

> "pay the price for living in a civilized society" or you end up in an armed battle

But that's how it has always been. In general the state has sovereignty over its territory, which is in general considered to be indivisible. And this is a civilized society, because in such a case people would hang for treason only a couple of hundred years ago.

If I can proclaim my own bedroom to be independent, making up my own flag, then what's the point of having countries with borders and a Constitution?

> "oh okay - I'll stop using nationally-funded roads and you can stop taking my money to start wars elsewhere."

Well, that would be nice, except that you're also occupying a land that belongs to all citizens of that country, being your "property" only because the country's constitution allows it. If you're no longer willing to uphold that constitution, if you want to be free from the state's rule and laws, then it's no longer your land, unless you're able to defend it.

So unless you have an army at your disposal, your only choice is either to bend over, or to move to another country, as people are in general free to seek their happiness elsewhere — unless you live in an isolated country that has closed its borders completely, like what happened in the Soviet block, in which case you're fucked, so I'm personally happy with the status quo.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#477

Post by switch007 »

astronautjones wrote: post #421
alexandrerond wrote: post #202

It's very hard to see a discussion on this topic that does not miss the true point: This "conflict" is the fight between nationalist movements (Spanish and Catalan) which re-enforce each other in every turn for the worse of the majority and of the European Union. On the Catalan side, the Nationalist movement is used by dubious politicians which belong to the richer statements of Catalan society to grab power and "mak…

this was all brought about by Rajoy's current conservative government breaking tradition and taking away Catalonia's autonomous privileges

Are you referring to acts before or after the referendum? If the former, what were they?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#478

Post by curun1r »

hummel wrote: post #88

Spanish here, I have family and home in Catalonia. 1) You need to read history to understand the situation. But not the history of the last 100 years, but of the last 1000. Catalonia was never independent, it was part of the Kingdom of Aragon. The kingdom of Aragon and the castle kingdom allied in a dynastic way and created what is known today as Spain. There is no 2) Voting is illegal, it is not illegal to vote but…

I have relatives who live in Catalonia, though they aren't ethnic Catalans. One of them works as an education official in the region, so her view may be skewed, but she also has a view of the situation that others don't necessarily see. She believes there's a systematic attempt by the government in Madrid to minimize Catalan culture and assimilate its people into a single Spanish culture. The Catalan education system has repeatedly had funding and other support denied for Catalan language, history and culture programs.

It may all tie back to money, but painting it as "rich Catalonia wants to not pay to support the rest of Spain" is a 1-sided view of the subject. It's also possible to see it as "powerful Madrid trying to protect its golden goose by actively trying to stamp out Catalan culture." Both have some merit.

What's interesting is that my relatives believed there was very little support for independence before the response from Madrid. But now with their heavy-handed tactics (they witnessed the violence first-hand...I saw their cell phone videos), more people support the idea. Before the violence, as a non-Catalan Spaniard and an American she married who both chose to live in Barcelona for work, they both thought independence was a stupid idea. But now, as she put it, "I now feel that the government in Catalonia is incompetent and the government in Madrid is evil. If I have to choose between the two, I choose incompetence."

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#479

Post by kobeya »

gsnedders wrote: post #171
eumenides1 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Canadian kid, i never understood why they would let Quebec go through with a referendum. Seems insane to just "divorce" a country (for lack of better words). As i grew up, i thought it was pretty progressive to allow it. As an adult, it seems like the only logical tactical option. A lot of people will claim that it isn't legal. They will be right. But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind.…

> But their constitution wasn't written with modern times in mind. 1978 really wasn't that long ago. I'd call 1978 modern times!

It was coming out of a fascist dictatorship at the height of the Cold War. I’d say the context was pretty far removed from the modern EU, even if it was in living memory.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#480

Post by dang »

alvatar wrote: post #75
icebraining wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is just the propaganda machine is much more developed on that side Thus supporting the case that Catalonia is being dragged down by Spain - even their propaganda machines are better! :D

Thank you for polarizing into "better and worse" humans.

This breaks the HN guidelines. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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