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Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

bbc.com

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Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#261

Post by asjhg »

d_burfoot wrote: post #211

Many commenters seem to be appealing to an almost religious defense of present political borders. That attitude is untenable: there is nothing sacred about national boundaries, they are mere political artifacts like rules, regulations, tax codes, etc. If the people want to change them, they absolutely have the right to do so. https://unifixion.substack.com/p/political-boundaries-are-no...

Cool. I suppose we'll see the U.S. support referenda in the Basque territory in Spain, Northern Ireland, the West Bank, Gaza, and Texas soon. Maybe in Guam and Hawaii, too.

Nice NED propaganda.

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#262

Post by 8note »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90
jgon wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Wrongthink". Lol man, if you think that taking money from a country whose head of state has recently said that they may need to forcibly annex your own country, and then using that money to illegally obtain the personal information of citizens so you can attempt to break your country apart is merely "wrongthink" then you need to completely recalibrate yourself. The really galling thing here is that as an American yo…

> you would absolutely never tolerate a country like, say, China, supporting, both monetarily and otherwise, a group agitating for California to leave the union No. But I don’t think we’d put people in jail for it unless they were ready to overthrow the government. (Hell, we didn’t even charge the actual people trying to violently overthrow the government with treason.)

creating the petition and getting it approved through the alberta government is actual action to overthrowing the government.

it left the thinking and talking side when it became actions.

"we" in this case is canada and the canadian government, and have had no such armed attempted to overthrow the government.

For a similar item you should instead compare to the truckers thing, where a group similarly collected agitation money from the US, then did the agitation. Their bank accounts are still frozen afaik, and some are finishing their prison sentences now

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#263

Post by throwthrowuknow »

triceratops wrote: post #154
flossly wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider I like this idea of being able to vote yourself out. This is the ultimate test of a democracy, imho, that you can leave it democratically (by vote and not by force). We've seen some interesting cases of this, in Spain and in the Donbas of the last years. I think the outcome of people voting against it is a great outcome. You have the freedom. You paid for the vote (its expensive) and "they" did not win…

> As an outsider I like this idea of being able to vote yourself out "Voting with your feet" is an option available to almost everyone except North Koreans.

It’s also a very anti-democratic option whether taken voluntarily or forced.

When you leave you cut all important ties to the polity, you surrender your ability to participate in democratic processes and you revoke control over yourself and your property. It’s the nearest thing to direct violence you can do without crossing that line

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#264

Post by arlort »

arrowsmith wrote: post #120
gausswho wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall correctly, the Brexit referendum wasn't binding either. When the result ended up the way it did, there was sufficient political capital to push it through without a follow up vote.

The Brexit referendum was non-binding for important constitutional reasons. Legally, leaving required an Act of Parliament. To hold a binding referendum, they would have had to pass an Act that says "here are the exact details of how we'll leave the EU, coming into force if the referendum passes". But that would have required them to figure out all the exact details of what it means to leave the EU, and they didn't b…

Also I believe there just isn't a constitutional mechanism in the UK for parliament to bind itself in such a way

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#265

Post by ryandrake »

d_burfoot wrote: post #211

Many commenters seem to be appealing to an almost religious defense of present political borders. That attitude is untenable: there is nothing sacred about national boundaries, they are mere political artifacts like rules, regulations, tax codes, etc. If the people want to change them, they absolutely have the right to do so. https://unifixion.substack.com/p/political-boundaries-are-no...

The huge problem is that geographical borders don't nicely line up with cultural/ethnic/attitude borders. Let's say you let a province (or US state) secede over political/cultural issues. What happens to all of the people who don't want to go along for the ride? They're now at a huge risk. Those dissenters might even be persecuted or, at worst, cleansed, depending on the laws of the new seceded country.

So then you say, ok let's do it by county (or whatever the Canadian equivalent is) instead. Same problem. Even within a county-sized area, you're going to have dissenters who are at risk in the new country. Even within a single town. You can't draw geographic borders around and write laws for swiss-cheese-shaped clumpings of individual people.

I live in a pretty "red" area in a "blue" US state. If Team Red decided that half of my state (including my home) was going to secede into their own Red Utopia, my family would legitimately be in fear for our lives. I don't think secession is ever going to be a viable option in the real, polarized world where political beliefs are peanut butter spread across the geography.

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#266

Post by xboxnolifes »

triceratops wrote: post #154
flossly wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an outsider I like this idea of being able to vote yourself out. This is the ultimate test of a democracy, imho, that you can leave it democratically (by vote and not by force). We've seen some interesting cases of this, in Spain and in the Donbas of the last years. I think the outcome of people voting against it is a great outcome. You have the freedom. You paid for the vote (its expensive) and "they" did not win…

> As an outsider I like this idea of being able to vote yourself out "Voting with your feet" is an option available to almost everyone except North Koreans.

How does one draw new political borders that way? There is practically zero unclaimed land.

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#267

Post by chaostheory »

8note wrote: post #251
chaostheory wrote: post #170

If Trump didn’t threaten annexation of Canada, this would have a much higher probability of success. It would also likely lead to Alberta becoming the 51st state

it would also have a much lower chance of being put on the table. the separatists are the people that heard trump say that, and said YES PLEASE

Disagree. For decades, Alberta has been subsidizing Quebec and other no productive provinces. They’re sick of it. It also doesn’t help that Canada is a confederacy where the provincial governors have more power than your PM.

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#268

Post by xboxnolifes »

ryandrake wrote: post #265
d_burfoot wrote: post #211

Many commenters seem to be appealing to an almost religious defense of present political borders. That attitude is untenable: there is nothing sacred about national boundaries, they are mere political artifacts like rules, regulations, tax codes, etc. If the people want to change them, they absolutely have the right to do so. https://unifixion.substack.com/p/political-boundaries-are-no...

The huge problem is that geographical borders don't nicely line up with cultural/ethnic/attitude borders. Let's say you let a province (or US state) secede over political/cultural issues. What happens to all of the people who don't want to go along for the ride? They're now at a huge risk. Those dissenters might even be persecuted or, at worst, cleansed, depending on the laws of the new seceded country. So then you s…

> Let's say you let a province (or US state) secede over political/cultural issues. What happens to all of the people who don't want to go along for the ride?

Well, thats politics? The people proposing this are supposed to be considering that. And the people in that position are supposed to be considering that.

Every day there are votes with outcomes people dont want to go along with the ride for. But they do, or they resist, or otherwise.

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#269

Post by gambiting »

ryandrake wrote: post #265
d_burfoot wrote: post #211

Many commenters seem to be appealing to an almost religious defense of present political borders. That attitude is untenable: there is nothing sacred about national boundaries, they are mere political artifacts like rules, regulations, tax codes, etc. If the people want to change them, they absolutely have the right to do so. https://unifixion.substack.com/p/political-boundaries-are-no...

The huge problem is that geographical borders don't nicely line up with cultural/ethnic/attitude borders. Let's say you let a province (or US state) secede over political/cultural issues. What happens to all of the people who don't want to go along for the ride? They're now at a huge risk. Those dissenters might even be persecuted or, at worst, cleansed, depending on the laws of the new seceded country. So then you s…

>>What happens to all of the people who don't want to go along for the ride?

All of Scotland voted against leaving the EU. Every single county has voted no. And yet it still got dragged out.

So I guess the answer is - people get told to shut up and deal with it.

Re: Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

#270

Post by melesian »

joe_mamba wrote: post #147
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is still in play as the failure of Brexit solidifies. They can follow the lead of Ireland and the arrangements for the land crossing with N.I.

>That is still in play as the failure of Brexit solidifies. To be fair, the failure is on the UK governance itself, not on Brexit. Other major EU economies like France and Germany have seen similar economic trajectories since 2020 as the post-Brexit UK, despite them still being in the EU. The post-2020 Covid and Ukraine crisis are difficult to isolate from Brexit to know if it's just Brexit alone or the world economi…

Every single one of the predictions of the Brexiters has been exploded: migration, taxation, funding the NHS, better public services etc.

The cost of implementing customs controls ALONE amounted to more than the sum total of UK contributions to the EU budget from day 1 of the UK joining the common market. The losses to the UK economy have been staggering -- up to 8% of GDP on a recurring basis. And no the UK didn't have a cold-turkey exit from the EU, that would have been a "no deal" exit.

But... but... splutter Brexiters, "look at Germany". Always looking at growth rates and cherrypicking data. Germany has had a massive increase in energy costs, far greater than experienced in the UK.

Go on: tell us Brexit is a mere "flesh wound"

Brexit has been a bone-crushing failure and repeated polls show a majority of the electorate knows it. A toxic minority of older voters, the UK's MAGA cohort, is ready to double down, and all they will achieve if they get anywhere near govt is the breakup of the UK, wihch of course many younger non-English voters support. Either way it's been a quite boon to the EU.

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