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Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#601

Post by StreamBright »

ben_w wrote: post #192
nemo44x wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. Certainly an argument in support of the second amendment of the United States.

I suspect the only reason the US government lets Americans think the second amendment would enable the population to forcibly remove an undesirable government, is because the weapons and strategic/tactical/leadership skills of the population are vastly out-classed by the armed forces. What good is a semi-automatic against a supersonic jet that just fired an air-to-ground missile in your direction? Plenty of AK-47s in…

US army is not authorized to operate on US soil. I like how you want to drag this conversation into something totally else.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#602

Post by coryfklein »

microcolonel wrote: post #437
ben_w wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genocide isn’t the alternative but rather the escalation in the hypothetical where the 2nd Amendment is relevant. The US does have nukes, after all.

I don't imagine there would be popular support for the U.S. government nuking Americans in Seattle over a sovereignty dispute.

It would only come to nukes if the other side escalated to weaponry just below nukes. In that case, it's not "nuking Americans in Seattle", it's "nuking well organized terrorist cells using advanced weaponry, in order to save further loss of life."

The point is that no matter how much "power" the federal government has granted to civilians via the 2nd amendment, the federal government will ALWAYS have more.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#603

Post by pakitan »

smilekzs wrote: post #576
pakitan wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how referendums work. Are you saying that if tomorrow you and few buddies decided to set up a new country, on a land you own, via a "referendum", the government should just go with it?

More like you and a couple millions of buddies?

Why does the number matter? Lots of people here (including the person I was replying to) talk about the "right thing" to do, not about military power. If it's the right thing to allow for millions of peoples to secede, why isn't it the right thing for me and few buddies to secede? Are we inferior in some way? Where is the cutoff? Is it ok to secede if we are 1000 people? 10K? 100K?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#604

Post by StreamBright »

ben_w wrote: post #192
nemo44x wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. Certainly an argument in support of the second amendment of the United States.

I suspect the only reason the US government lets Americans think the second amendment would enable the population to forcibly remove an undesirable government, is because the weapons and strategic/tactical/leadership skills of the population are vastly out-classed by the armed forces. What good is a semi-automatic against a supersonic jet that just fired an air-to-ground missile in your direction? Plenty of AK-47s in…

On the other side, if I remember correctly a few AK47 and bunch of men was pretty strong against USA army in Vietnam. How come?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#605

Post by smnrchrds »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #486
mvitorino wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they would, but once they are independent, they can't legally use the Euro. Would they even continue to be Spanish citizens and be able to travel freely in the Schengen area? A new state takes years to join the EU (assuming the EU would accept). How about sovereign debt? All these (really important) issues that should be part of an extensive debate so that people could understand better what is expecting the…

Of course they can continue to use the euro. They wouldn't have any control over it, but a country can use whatever currency their population will accept. IIRC there are a few small nations that don't really have their own currency and just use USD instead.

Zimbawe did exactly that after their hyperinflation reached a point where they had to print 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar banknotes.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#606

Post by coryfklein »

simion314 wrote: post #46
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…

But the referendum was invalid because of the constitution, you can't ignore the constitution because you want, you need to change the constitution.

Look at the reverse: can the U.S. amend the constitution to say, "The U.S. is made up of the fifty states, plus Mexico"?

Certainly Mexico would hold a minority vote and not be able to influence the outcome. Does that mean that all the people of Mexico are "ignoring the constitution" if they don't want to be in the United States?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#607

Post by alvatar »

phaemon wrote: post #432
alvatar wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not limited to that. I agree that you should be able to learn in Catalan (but have the option of Spanish too). Visit the Catalan wikipedia, and you'll see how History is changed there with respect other Wikipedias. Read their books to see the bias in the way History is told. Indoctrination is a message with a "them and us" message that polarizes society, and has successfully done so. We all know words can be use…

Once again, vague accusations with no concrete examples. I'm not convinced. Sounds like you just have a bias against Catalonia.

I do have a bias against independentism/nationalism because I've lived through it. I cannot give concrete documents about this because there aren't such. Contrary to police violence of which there are. You don't have to be convinced, I'm just trying to express my opinion, not trying to convince anyone of who is better or worse here. But I can confidently assert that there are no "good and bad" in this story, just a war between two different stories with lots of falsehoods in both sides.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#608

Post by alvatar »

setzer22 wrote: post #585
alvatar wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incorrect. It might be your impression, but Spain is actually one of the most decentralized countries in the world. Catalonia has something around 5% of their state workers depending on the central government.

To me, it doesn't matter. If the Catalan government doesn't have freedom to create their own laws, and all the money goes through the main government, it matters very little who do those 95% people work for.

They do have plenty of freedom, own embassies, own top-level domain, lots of local laws, complete control over education (that is basically the foundations of the strategy of independentist movements during at least 20 years). It is basically the money what drives all this, you are spot on. I wonder what is your reference for regional freedom exactly? I think the next step really is total independence, which is what part of the society wants there. I'm gonna clarify that I actually want the independence of Catalonia, because I think that's the only possible resolution, but I just disagree with that. It's a fact that Spanish autonomies have a lot of freedem in how to apply even the centrally decided laws.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#609

Post by kgwgk »

alehul wrote: post #594
StreamBright wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the word nationalist implies that Catalonia is a nation that was never true.

The same could be said of Estonia in the recent past, and it has done quite well as an independent nation.

What does “recent past” mean for you? Estonia became independent in 1920 (or 1918 if you count since the beginning of the war of independence) and was independent until the Soviet occupation in 1940.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#610

Post by notyourday »

iaw wrote: post #540
notyourday wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the same logic NYC can be independent of the NYS and the rest of the United States, which is ridiculous considering that it won't be able to withstand a week without food and fuel supplies from outside the five boroughs.

Independence does not mean without trade.

When your trading partners do not recognize your independence you won't be trading with them.
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