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Comment by kypro | Hacker News Reader

Secession should be a liberty afforded to all people. There is no excuse for forcing a group of people to live under a political system they disapprove of.

And in response to some of the commenters in this thread: of course an independence movement is going to be violent, especially when the state is trying to oppress it. The independence movements in the US, NI, and India were violent too, not because they were wrong but mostly because of mixed public opinion and an oppressive state.

Perhaps if we legally recognised the right to secession and offered citizens a democratic route to secession then violence wouldn't be necessary. Secession movements are going to happen regardless of their legal status.

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> Succession should be a liberty afforded to all people. There is no excuse for forcing a group of people to live under a political system they disapprove of.

Pro independent movements are quite against your first paragraph, according to discussions regarding either vall d’Aran or Tabarnia (two sub-catalonia independence movements, one based in history/culture, the other one in both jest (a la pastafarism) and anti-independence opinions.

That's just not possible though. Can I just secede all alone by myself?

Why make this argument, every time. Its not made in good faith and obviously nobody is discussing one-person states. Its always about a large group of people sharing an identity, without having their own country.

But it makes sense to ask that question! If I can rule myself on the sole basis of self-determination, it's turtles all the way down. Can Val d'Aran[1] secede from a seceded Catalonia?

Can I just ignore the rules of the country I live in on the sole basis of "a group of people sharing an identity" being people that are me?

The argument is worth having, because trying to secede part of a country unilaterally by "legal" means gets down to this absurdities.

One question that someone who wants to create a new country out of another, to put it that way, must ask should be "what can I give in return?"

If this is going to become a negotation, hopefully, then both parties must understand that there has to be compromises, and have to find common ground. Not just "this is my right because I say so", nor "this can't be because I say so".

Platitudes on liberty and justice and words that essential mean nothing lead us nowhere.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val_d%27Aran

What you are doing is a form of Reductio ad absurdum. You have to assume that people have their best interest in mind. They will refrain from forming states that are too small to exist, and apart from that this is not even a remotely realistic scenario.

In fact, mistrust that people can decide things for themselves and that localism leads to the best outcome for them is the hallmark of centralism and bureaucrats. Things we don't need more of.

I know! Because it is absurd to think that we can gerrymander who gets to decide what, which is what essentially what the regional government of Catalonia is scheming to do.

The issue isn't simple and I'm positive that this has nothing to do with "human rights" or "democracy" or else. It's much, much more complex than that.

It has everything to do with "human rights" and "democracy"! No one said its simple, but a generic „its complex“ is not a proper refutation. What exactly makes this impossible? Countries form along ethnic boundaries when permitted to do so, and it is then that they are most peaceful and stable. Otherwise you will end up with suppressed minorities and ultimately war. Look at what happened upon decolonization and the fall of Yugoslavia.

People are more peaceful as neighbors than flat mates.

It's not a reduction to the absurd, unless you can make at least a thoughtful argument for why it should apply to groups of some shared attribute, and not to individuals. Which, to be honest, is probably not a terribly hard argument to make.

If secession were allowed by any group, i think it would be profitable for single families to secede. Just the money you would save on taxes would be enough for some people to pay lawyers to handle all the government stuff.

> Why make this argument, every time.

Because it underlines the fallacy of appealing to an alleged right to cecede.

> Its not made in good faith and obviously nobody is discussing one-person states.

Strawman, and one that's based on a disingenuous premise. It's quite clear that the argument is on whether to draw the line of when a minority has your so called right to cecede. You already admit that your so called right to cecede is absurd and ridiculous if only one person wants out. How about two? Do you believe a couple has the right to cecede? How about two dozen persons? Two hundred? Do you believe a couple of appartment blocks have the right to cecede? Or is the whole idea and concept entirely absurd, and only pointed out as a self-serving tautology?

The right to secede is important because it's democratic by nature, the majority who runs the state has to arrange with the minorities to not lose them. And if this arrangement is successful there are no rational reasons to secede. I'd even say that countries that don't allow secessions aren't true democracies at the lowest level.

> The right to secede is important because it's democratic by nature

It really isn't, as it purposely excludes portions of the electorate that don't support the idea.

Do this dozen people have:

- a different language? - a well defined culture? - a political composition which differs greatly to that the rest of the country? (check the representation of the PP and PSOE)

If you are interested in discussing the reality of the Spanish situation, it is pretty clear where this right of seccesion might want to get exercised (Basque Country, Galicia...) and for sound, historical reasons.

> Galicia

We clearly don't.

Well, there are historical reasons for that too, Franco's repression on Galicia was brutal, but I agree nowadays BNG support is not comparable to the ones in Catalonia.

I was just listing regions that might have historical reasons and even parties with strong independent ideals, versus a group of friends wanting to separate from Spain for the sake of the argument.

I believe there is an argument here worth discussing.

At the end of the day no matter how many people it is you are still taking away resources from the state (land, tax revenue, etc.) and creating issues with political consequences, border control, and all sorts of things.

How many people does it take to make such actions "acceptable"?

Further, allowing groups of people to just break away from the state and create their own systems, creates a threat to the state from all non-indigenous populations.

Why allow any immigration if newcomers are just going to be able to take your resources and land whenever they feel like it?

I agree that in a perfect world none of this would matter, but currently I don't see a scenario where any state would allow this, regardless of the number of people involved.

Many countries were formed by exactly this method - including the US. If you were seriously living under tyranny I suspect you'd have a different opinion.

I'm of the opinion that more of this would be a good thing.

The point that I am making is that regardless of my personal feelings, I don't see any state giving up sovereignty in exchange for nothing.

More than half of Catalonia wants to stay, why is it bad faith and not calm, rational discussion of purported universal unalienable rights, providing counterexamples?

Wanted to stay.

I've generally either agreed with or appreciated your points in this thread, but this one triggered a reflex in me which has been honed by Brexit.

If we're talking about what a population of people want, we should qualify it with a reference to which poll we are citing. Otherwise it sounds far too agenda-y.

That is a completely fair ask. Here https://www.diaridetarragona.com/catalunya/Casi-la-mitad-de-... you can read that (little) less than half of the 1500 people sampled in March 2019 by Generalitat’s Opinion Studies Centre are in favor of independence. Admittedly even less want no independence in this study, and most are in favor of a referendum.

Of course these things would be decided by popular vote.

If you have enough money to buy large enough plot of land and to hire enough people to work as diplomats, border control, etc. there is no real reason why you should not be able to secede and form your own country, if everyone could actually do that, our governments would not be as crappy as they are, and would not be prison guards for their own population. At least that is the idea behind seasteading and charter cities.

No, obviously there would need to be a definition of what a legitimate secession movement is. There would be minimum population requirements I'd assume.

In that case, maybe you meant that secession is a right of peoples, not of people.

> Succession should be a liberty afforded to all people

I think you mean 'secession'. Anyway, what would be the minimum number of people to have the right for it? A region? A city? A 'barrio'? A family? A group of friends?

Thanks for the correction, I've updated now.

> Anyway, what would be the minimum number of people to have the right for it? A region? A city? A 'barrio'? A family? A group of friends?

If you're asking my personal opinion I think there would need to be a population of at least a few hundred thousand in favour of succession. I guess it would depend on how many people are required to run a functional state.

Perhaps there would be middle grounds where smaller groups can be granted some level of independence. Although that might naturally arise from states wishing to retain some level of control over a discontent population seeking independence. I know many believe devolution is the answer to Scottish independence in the UK.

I think Facebook, for example, could run a functional government. If they were allowed to secede and turn the land they own in Menlo Park into a small low-tax low-regulation country, that would probably be quite profitable for them. So be careful what you wish for!

Is anyone forcing people to live under a political system they disapprove of? People can move somewhere else where local politics is more fit to their worldview.

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