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Comment by oliverx0 | Hacker News Reader

Exactly, you don’t simply try to separate unilaterally from the country. That’s what Catalonian leaders did, and got punished for it.

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They did, because the central government have refused to agree to talk with them. If the central government had played ball and allowed a real election over independence, then the whole thing wouldn't have happened.

The Spanish government can't talk or agree on having an illegal election about a portion of people deciding about National sovereignty.

Article 1.2 - Spanish Constitution: 'National sovereignty is vested in the Spanish people, from whom emanate the powers of the State.'

http://www.congreso.es/constitucion/ficheros/c78/cons_ingl.p...

Exactly. What proindependence needs to do to try to have their way legally is to work towards a whole restructuring of the constitution. They just don’t care for that, they took an illegal shortcut, misusing funds in the process.

That's like telling a poor person that they just have to try to win the lottery. Everyone on both sides knows there's no chance in hell the rest of Spain will ever accept secession. Telling them to accept that is honest, pretending there is another path with any real chance of succeeding isn't.

I think that metaphor is not very apt, nor neutral. Catalonia is not poor in political power by any means, they have been pushing very successfully for years towards decentralization towards Barcelona. And winning the lottery is random, you can’t really negotiate.

In my opinion there are huge stresses in Spain that will open the can of worms that is redefining the Constitution during the next decades. Republicanism, decentralization, chunks of the constitution that nobody really puts in practice, etc. That wont happen in 2 days. But it can happen.

>separate unilaterally

The whole US was founded on the idea of a right to self-determination. Without unilateral separation, it would still be part of England.

Yet the US itself doesn't allow secession, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_U.S._state_secession_peti...

And if the revolutionary war had been lost, all those founding fathers would have found their heads separated from their torsos. And it would have been the legally correct thing to do.

That’s the thing with revolutions. They are only ok if they work.

Ergo, if you want something "not yet legal", you need violence and be sure to win. Really sad.

Not to mention killing a lot of people that had arrived first.

It seems that the holy right of self-determination does not apply if you are a native indian for some reason. Is even more strange if we think that indians comprised once the big majority of people living in that territory.

This shiny right does not apply also if you belong in the majority comprised by non-nationalist people living in Cataluña. Is strange that people so democratic and pacific didn't noticed that other people has rights also.

And yet, the only time any states seceded from the United States, the US declared war on them to bring them back into the Union, then went on to win that war and brought the states back into the Union.

Spain is not a federal country. Furthermore, this is closer to NYC trying to separate from New York State.

England wasn't a federation when America seceded either. The idea of "rights" (or at least the idea the American founders had in mind) is that they're moral concepts independent of whatever the legal system grants.

Sure, and they had to bring about a civil war to secede, because it was illegal.

That also happened some centuries ago, what was politically acceptable or moral was quite different then. I’d like to think that we now have the political maturity to do this slowly, legally and peacefully if it needs to happen at all.

I think it's beneficial to see it as: secession (in the US) became definitively illegal because of the Civil War.

It was specifically left out of the Constitution, for a few complex reasons, but from a de facto / de jure perspective, was ambiguous at best, until decided by war.

America had been taken over by the British. You cannot extrapolate that to every other country. That is certainly not the history of Catalonia.

The America that was taken over by the British (native Americans) weren't the ones seceeding. The ones seceeding were the descendants of British settlers/conquerors.

Fun fact: British America was around 200 years old when it gained independence. Catalonia has been part of Spain (as opposed to an independent principality) for around 300 years.

Were it not for the utterly ill-thought heavy handed actions of the East India company, governor and Lord North, the secession wasn't even wanted. They just wanted better representation within.

Poor handling, and particularly heavy handed handling, turned those moderates with a valid grievance into revolutionaries, and secessionists. The East India company was trying to screw over both Britain and the American colonies in equal measure.

There probably is a modern lesson in there, which is what results from overly draconian response, and something something overly powerful corporations.

And beforehand was part of Aragon. The independence of Catalonia is mythical.

> Catalonia has been part of Spain for around 300 years.

I bet that this land didn't arrived in a ship and was in the same place for a few millions of years at least. Spain has more than 300 years of history.

Sure, iberians, carthaginesians, fenicians, greek, romans, goths, arabs... but until the XV century it was several independent kingdoms, most important one Aragon and Castilla. So Spain as it is now is relatively recent. Also Portugal belonged to the same Kingdom for a while.

Yep. Well, then I'll won't marry anyone, because if the other part doesn't want to divorce, then you're married for life. At least you get to choose who do you marry. (A referendum is what was requested for years). I don't get the fierce defense of the unity thing, sorry. There's people demanding a referendum (as seen in Scotland) you just put them in jail, problem solved.

Marriage is a overused analogy that's pretty wrong if you ask me. It's only useful if you want elicit a "beaten wife" kind of comparison.

There are other kinds of contracts(marriage is a contract), where one of the partners can't just walk away from it with its share of the assets.

> There's people demanding a referendum (as seen in Scotland) you just put them in jail, problem solved.

It only seems a good example because it didn't pass. I bet it would be a worse-than-Brexit one if it had. The reality is that a country(a modern state) is built over a thousand of trade-offs that can't be just decided in a referendum.

I wish it would be that easy. I'm pretty tired of this mess.

Well, we can also look for an analogy of 'beaten wife' in an state.

Only if you want to trigger an emotional response. Territories aren't beings.

That's a very bad analogy because you use it opposite from how the situation is. A marriage exists within the context of state laws. The same state laws that say you can divorce also say you can't secede. So trying to secede is like trying to prohibit your partner from divorcing you. And yes, if you try to tie down your partner to stay with you it's exactly like trying to cut the ties that hold a state together.

Any criminal could just "vote" that what they did is legal. How would that work?

Yes, the same laws that do not allow a gay marriage or women voting, or allow 14 hours shifts, or slavery. Law is not my bible, I may have to obey it, but I can form my own opinions against it and fight for it.

> Law is not my bible

Sure, form opinions, ask for change, make it better if you and others see fit. You don't even have to follow he law. You just have to understand that if you break it you get punished. So as long as the law is there and you break it you are a criminal whether you believe in it or not.

What you said is exactly the kind of excuse any criminal would use: "I'm not guilty because I don't believe in that law". Which seems to match perfectly with the reasoning used in the dozens of comment you posted about this, alongside some bad examples and analogies that attempt to support it.

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