Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's just the way nation-states are setup, as part of being in the union constituent states give up part of their autonomy. This happens all the way down the governmental ladder. The other states (or regions I'm not sure how Spain is divided so I'll just say states) also definitely have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the whole nation. Over the years money has flowed both ways both from the other states t…
That's all fine and dandy, but it presumes the participating states actually want to be part of the union. Otherwise it's tyranny in my humble opinion.
Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
371–380 of 541 posts
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they just need the rest of the country to agree with them leaving I wonder if the American colonies which seceded from Great Britain in 1776 received the agreement of King George or of the people of Great Britain in general. Secession without consent of the sovereign was not part of their law, so the action was clearly illegal and unethical and the colonists simply in the wrong, do you think? Also there is the matt…
The comparison is flawed because Catalonia, like all other regions of Spain, is represented in the Spanish parliament through a democratic election process. In contrast, the US was a colony of the UK with no direct representation. Also note how, just like in Spain, the US Constitution today does not allow for a state to secede, and in fact there was a civil war when some states tried to do just that. The potential in…
This is completely untrue. The US Constitution has no such clause. Let's have a wager. We both transfer $10,000 to an independent bookie. Then we each submit our evidence that the US Constitution prohibited secession in 1861. An independent panel of judges rules and winner takes all. I'll give you 30 minutes to accept the wager and transfer your contact info.
The War between the States was an illegal war. Because the Northern Aggression won and wrote the textbooks of course they justify their illegal actions, just as the US currently justifies its illegal war crimes in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Disagree? Under what legal theory does the US have the right to seize Syrian oil fields as it is currently doing? That's the latest action this week. There are similar absurd and illegal claims of the US government going back centuries. What legal theory do you think the US claims for their seizure of native american lands and parallel mass genocide? Are you aware it's not the Doctrine of Conquest, but the Doctrine of Discovery that the US Supreme Court cited as legal justification? That the first Christian to eye lands held by non-christians permanently and irrevocably has sovereign ownership of the lands, as well as the right to enslave and kill the "pagan" populace. Do you believe this Doctrine of Discovery is a valid legal principle? Or do you agree the US has no legitimate legal claims whatsoever over the much of its territory, which it seized through genocide and deceit and spurious insane pseudo-legal principles. The Doctrine of Discovery has as much validity as the spurious claim that there was anything questionable or illegal or especially unconstitutional about southern secession, and as much rational basis as the european and puritan claims that witches can be detected by attempting to drown them, pile stones on them until they asphyxiate, or that werewolves are responsible for crop failure.
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Spanish Inquisition did all that and much worse. How much Moorish blood remains in the people of Spain today? How many conversos did the Inquisitors burn at the stake, generations after their ancestors converted, on the strength of rumormongering by jealous neighbors? The Christian and Jewish traditions — clerics, holy books, writing systems, and all — survived centuries of Muslim rule. What today survives of the…
> How much Moorish blood remains in the people of Spain today? There wasn't much to start with, since the moorish conquest didn't displace the people but "incentivized"(ahem...) people to convert. > How many conversos did the Inquisitors burn at the stake, generations after their ancestors converted, on the strength of rumormongering by jealous neighbors? It's hard to know, but I've seen stimates around 3k-5k. German…
I brought it up because the centuries-long intellectual blight that resulted from it is a salient example of the corrupt fruits of the poisoned tree of state censorship, a tree whose root in European history is that very Inquisition.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21397905 for a slightly longer disquisition on that theme.
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are quoting from the English-language Wikipedia. Contrast that with [0], which states "El Gobierno es el principal pilar del Estado; ... ejercicio del poder ejecutivo del Estado", the latter of which links to [1], which clarifies, "el poder ejecutivo es una de las tres facultades y funciones primordiales del Estado". [0]: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobierno [1]: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poder_ejecutivo
You seem to be talking about the meanings of some Spanish words, but the disagreement is about the meanings of words in English, which is not the same language as Spanish. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21397278 .
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#375Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have a constitution that was voted in referendum in 1978. Most people in Catalonia voted in favor of these constitution, and Catalan parties have been an essential part of the governments we have had since then. Moreover, not even half of people in Catalonia (more or less) want independence.
>Moreover, not even half of people in Catalonia (more or less) want independence. The results of the elections and the independence referendum strongly disagree. >Most people in Catalonia (1978) voted in favor of these constitution, Unlike those that voted the Estatut d'Autonomia (see below), many of these people are dead. There was no alternative to this constitution as it happened in a very unstable climate after t…
The turn out in the 2017 one was 43% and iirc at the time those against the referendum were encouraged to and did sit out as a way of saying 'this is not legitimate' which kind of muddies the water a bit on the actual numbers. [0]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
[0] Of course this is the problem with any low turn out election, how do you account for the people that don't turn out? Are they protesting, happy with either choice or something else?
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's all fine and dandy, but it presumes the participating states actually want to be part of the union. Otherwise it's tyranny in my humble opinion.
You could use this argument for the South (US) in 1800s
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not buy the argument that unilateral secession is clearly forbidden in the US and I don't think the American Civil War settled that point. The Confederates stood a decent legal chance to secede from the Union. It was a constitution crisis. Instead the Confederates choose to throw constitutional avenues away and engage in a war of aggression against the North. The South didn't need to raise armies and launch an a…
I'm sorry but your misreading of American history is substantial. Texas v. White in 1869 made official that which Shay's Rebellion, the annexation of the Texas Republic, and the Civil War had established by actions--that secession in the US is illegal.
>Well, as both Americans and Spanish might say, "we had a war to settle that issue."
My main point was reacting to your statement above. A particular set of wars does not settle those issues.
What prevents a secessionist legal action to be heard by the Supreme court and for them to overturn the Texas v. White decision?
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes we can. There are independentists in parliament. The president of Catalonia is an independentist. Pro-independence demonstrations happen and there are no arrests just by going there (except in riots, but that's because the police force is way too uncontrolled, not because of a general freedom of expression issue). This takedown was to an app that was used to organize a blockage of a major airport. I do not agree…
The treatment of Carles Puigdemont and others is hardly consistent with free expression.
Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I highly value freedom of expression, and to me it is especially important to me that a code-hosting and (like it or not) a social media website holds to that value as well. This will definitely affect whether I choose Github or Microsoft in the future. Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws? Most governments ( no doubt, yours too), want companies operating under their jurisdiction to…
>Would you rather choose a company that doesn't comply with local laws? Absolutely. Companies and the individuals who make up companies should not comply with unethical laws just as people at large should not comply with unethical laws. Ethics stands above the law.