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Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

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Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#531
post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a country be called democratic if me and six friends are not allowed to draw a random border around a house and then vote to murder the residents with only our votes counting because only those inside the arbitrary border we drew are allowed to vote?

Unless the residents you vote to murder are also given the same freedom to secede and draw a border that excludes you because they do not consider your rule legitimate, this certainly would not be democratic. Your analogy illustrates why a right to secede matters: It is the ultimate peaceful (if the right is protected) tool for those who feel disenfranchised, whether by being robbed off the chance to vote or because…

> To me, a government that feels a need to deploy police to stop a region from demanding independence is inherently illegitimate.

And to the rest of the planet is totally legit

Deploying police when there are serious disturbs by groups of organised people that are purposely preventing people from leading a normal life, ravaging and creating really dangerous situations for everybody is: NORMAL.

Name a country in the planet. Whichever country. This is exactly what the government of that country will do in the same situation.

Maybe for a few people is a videogame and lots of fun, but for the rest of us is a rock put in the path of the train when we or our loved ones are travelling. You will eat this rock if I would see you doing that.

For the rest is their small shop set in flames or ravaged. Is huge bills in damages and healthcare that they will have to pay. Is, undoubtely and crystal clear, Terrorism.

And deliberately sending your minions to disturb the peace and convivence of the society, unless you agree to "talk with me" accept my new twisted concept of "democracy" and gave me something for telling my people to stop and go home. Well, this has a name also in any part of this planet and the name is blackmail.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#532
post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the residents you vote to murder are also given the same freedom to secede and draw a border that excludes you because they do not consider your rule legitimate, this certainly would not be democratic. Your analogy illustrates why a right to secede matters: It is the ultimate peaceful (if the right is protected) tool for those who feel disenfranchised, whether by being robbed off the chance to vote or because…

> To me, a government that feels a need to deploy police to stop a region from demanding independence is inherently illegitimate. And to the rest of the planet is totally legit Deploying police when there are serious disturbs by groups of organised people that are purposely preventing people from leading a normal life, ravaging and creating really dangerous situations for everybody is: NORMAL. Name a country in the p…

You are arguing a strawman. I never suggested the behaviour you are describing is legitimate either.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#533
post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, a government that feels a need to deploy police to stop a region from demanding independence is inherently illegitimate. And to the rest of the planet is totally legit Deploying police when there are serious disturbs by groups of organised people that are purposely preventing people from leading a normal life, ravaging and creating really dangerous situations for everybody is: NORMAL. Name a country in the p…

You are arguing a strawman. I never suggested the behaviour you are describing is legitimate either .

So we both agree that could be some legitimate reasons to send police to stop a region for demanding independence. It depends on how is demanded.

And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination.

The main festivity in the region has been replaced by groups of people showing flags and asking for indepencence, year after year, after year. Everybody can find decens of videos on internet. Do you know what? As everybody can confirm easily, the number of people detained for asking independence peacefully in this kind of events is: zero.

Every independentist is crying slogans, singing and walking with banners and flags. No police is sent to stop any of their performances or demand silence, we are a society proud of granting an extensive freedom of speach

...with some limits of course. Like in many democracies, there are laws pursuing libel and protecting right to honour. You can't claim anything you want from other people without showing proofs, and this is not a bad thing

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#534
post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m from Canada and we let the separatists have a referendum and tried to change their minds. The referendum failed. I don’t know anyone who took it personally or wanted to invade Quebec to make them stay or violently stop the vote. Quite frankly I find it baffling that people care so much about violently forcing provinces they don’t even live in to stay in their country.

No-one is violently forcing provinces they don't even live in to stay in their country so I'm not sure what you are insinuating there. People were disrupting public order and doing an illegal activity (referendum) with public money. Normal people couldn't get to work or go to the doctor because people were blocking roads. That is what police is for basically, I am glad we have police to protect us. Maybe your constit…

> No-one is violently forcing provinces they don't even live in to stay in their country

What I saw in the news at the time was that the rest of Spain shipped in armed goons from outside Catalonia in to beat people up who were trying to vote in the independence referendum.

Did that not happen?

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#535
post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are arguing a strawman. I never suggested the behaviour you are describing is legitimate either .

So we both agree that could be some legitimate reasons to send police to stop a region for demanding independence. It depends on how is demanded. And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination. The main festivity in the region has been repla…

(another day, another typo)

An extensive freedom of -> speech

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#536
post #526
post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are talking about a region of Spain that in 1978 voted YES to approve the Spanish constitution. More reductionist argument. Catalonia, and any other region in Spain voted between a constitution and a possible new dictatorship. Trying to imply that, since a group of people signed something 40 years ago, everybody in that region is rejecting their rights not explicitly expressed in that constitution is dishonest.…

Read that report you linked. According to it, most Catalans are not so eager to leave as you say (and I would not call it an impartial source). For example, in page 4 you can clearly see: 43.6% wants an independent Catalunya, but 48.2% wants to remain being a part of Spain. Why is the tyranny of the majority wrong (this is what most people would call democracy) but you see no problem with the tyranny of a minority?

Most would vote Yes to independence. Most would rather have a different relationship with Spain and yes, a big chunk of people would have liked to remain in Spain with increased autonomy. Since this seems impossible and the direction Spain is taking is the opposite, with strong repression, people that were not pro independence would vote Yes in a referendum.

> Why is the tyranny of the majority wrong (this is what most people would call democracy) but you see no problem with the tyranny of a minority?

Tyranny of the majority is not what you think it is. It happens when a some minority is part of a larger group that limits their freedom because of its larger number. This minority is usually focused on a specific region, and one of the the tools used by the majority to restrict this freedom is centralization and uniformity.

A good example of this are the 32 laws the Catalan government tried to push that the Spanish government sent to the constitutional court to be banned [1]. As a reminder, members of the constitutional court are selected by the main Spanish parties.

[1] https://ca.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llista_de_recursos_o_sent%C3...

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#537
post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are arguing a strawman. I never suggested the behaviour you are describing is legitimate either .

So we both agree that could be some legitimate reasons to send police to stop a region for demanding independence. It depends on how is demanded. And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination. The main festivity in the region has been repla…

> So we both agree that could be some legitimate reasons to send police to stop a region for demanding independence. It depends on how is demanded.

No. I agree that there are actions that are legitimate to stop by force. Demanding independence is not one of them. Using violence while demanding independence if you have other means of obtaining independence would be; using violence against people who are not representing the government denying your claim, would be.

Notably Spanish police were deployed to stop the independence vote itself. To me that means the Spanish government inherently lost legitimacy. They are oppressors, and by extension Spain is denying democracy to a substantial portion of its population. I'd hesitate to call Spain democratic at all as a result.

The supporters of independence are dealing with an oppressive government that are denying them rule by consent, and which by extension they have every reason to see as illegitimate, and they have no reason to respect that governments right to a monopoly on the use of force.

Subsequent actions are largely secondary effects; you can not expect people to remain peaceful in the face of an oppressor.

But that does not mean that violence or destructive actions targeting people who have nothing to do with the oppression they face is acceptable.

> And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination.

Again, I've never suggested this. You seem incredibly intent in reading things into what I wrote that is simply not there.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that but I think that the economic objection doesn't carry much weight: I guess that Catalonya paid its own share of the infrastructure of the other regions of Spain. Same thing with Brexit: the EU benefited from having the UK in the Union (money and not only that) and viceversa. Then the UK voted to go and they go (well, maybe, the way they're handling it is so weird.) I think it ends up to what people…

Sorry but you are comparing apples to oranges. The EU is not a country, it is a club of countries. The EU doesn't and never will have the power to choose whether a member state can leave or not. That's how it is. So it is wrong to compare a region of a country seceding than comparing a country leaving the EU. Which is more similar to a country leaving NATO for example.

You don't need to go that far back before you could have replaced EU with USA and the statement would have sounded equally plausible. Then it stopped being plausible. The EU is more tightly integrated in many ways than the US was during the period of the Articles of Confederation.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#539
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The nation of Spain chose to specify the rights extended to its people through the constitution, and through specific laws. From that, Catalonians, as part of the Spanish nation and subject to its sovereignty for as long as they reside under its jurisdiction, stem the rights Catalonians have as people. Interesting. I belong to a country where we think of ourselves as telling our rulers what our rights are -- derivi…

Note that I said "[t]he nation of Spain", not the "rulers" of Spain. It's exactly the same as in US: in both cases, the nations codified the rules through the constitution they made the law. If anything, it is more of the case with Americans who are given down rules from above: the American constitution was created and voted into the law by the representatives of the people, while in Spain, the people themselves vote…

The point is that in the case of most modern nations, they did not exist as separate nations until they asserted that they were, often by waging war on those who insisted they were not.

These nations bootstrap their nationhood, and are first legitimate after the fact.

One would hope that we will extend civilization to the point where people who want independence don't need to kill to prove they're serious.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#540
post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we both agree that could be some legitimate reasons to send police to stop a region for demanding independence. It depends on how is demanded. And if you are trying to suggest that the police is sent to stop the region each time the people demands peacefully independence because, duh, "Spain, evil people", let me inform you that this only happens in your imagination. The main festivity in the region has been repla…

> So we both agree that could be some legitimate reasons to send police to stop a region for demanding independence. It depends on how is demanded. No. I agree that there are actions that are legitimate to stop by force. Demanding independence is not one of them. Using violence while demanding independence if you have other means of obtaining independence would be; using violence against people who are not representi…

You can twist the words anything you want and repeat oppresion ten times in a row. But this house of cards simply do not resist the tiniest breeze of logical reasoning.

You know that both the first and the second referendum were just clownery and embezzlement. Everybody knows it yet.

We know now that of the around 300 detained for violent disturbs, 32 were directly incarcered for their participation in the most severe disturbs. Of this 32 people 27 where Catalonian independentists. Not evil spaniards "infiltrats" as they claimed. The rest were well known foreigners "professionals of violence" (from Italy and France for example).

We know that the anticapitalists can't build a Tsunami democratic app. For common people is just technically too expensive to hire programmers for that and maintain the system running. Only relatively rich people with lots of money to burn could be at the other extreme of the app.

Enough is enough. All the lies were exposed again and again by proven facts. Nothing that came from separatism mouths is trustable anymore.

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