RE: The Voluntary Exchange Podcast: News In Traffic
CATALONIA IS SPAIN: some politicians want an illegal secession from Spain, ILLEGAL FAKE VOTING!
Imagine that Babaria in Germany wants to separate from Germany, or that Provence wants to separate from France, or California wants to separate from the USA.
Do you think that Germany, France or the USA would allow such secession to happen?
Obviously not, because they are integral parts of their countries, the same than Catalonia is an integral part of Spain since the times before the Roman Invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.
If such an attempt of secession would happen on those countries, they will apply the law to stop it and the police and even the army to enforce the law because that is the reason of being of the police and the army.
That's exactly what is happening in Spain, the law, the Spanish Constitution and the orders from the Judges are being applied to stop an illegal voting instigated by the insurgent regional government in Catalonia.
The police is closing the places where the illegal voting is attempted and seizing all the illegal material, but the police are finding resistance and violence from some people with wounded people and police as result. The police need to use the proportional force when required to complete the work that the judges have ordered them with to enforce the law.
Catalonia is an integral part of Spain and it will always continue to be, that is not negotiable.
In the S.XX the secessionist took us to a Civil War, we are now heading to a similar situation so a future second Civil War in Spain is unfortunately now possible. We hope that this time the international community, Europe, and the UN supports the democratic government of Spain to reject the insurgent secessionists and avoid war.
Catalonia already had an autonomous government with more powers that the government of Scotland have
But what the politicians from the Catalonia region want is not self-governing, that they already have, but complete secession from Spain and that is utterly impossible.
Spaniards are very friendly and peacefull people but we cannot allow some local politicians to execute a secession are steal part of Spain from all the Spanish people.
CATALONIA IS SPAIN
I support all secession. Only governments hold guns to people's heads when they want to stop using their services and go off on their own.
It is not the Spanish government against its people. Most Spaniards are against secession, so the democratically elected government needs to follow the orders of the majority of the people that elected them, and that is that there is no option at all for the region of Catalonia to secede. The region of Catalonia will always be part of Spain, I just hope that the regional politicians of Catalonia don't provoke the Second Civil War like the provoked the first one.
I don't really care if the Spanish Constitution doesn't allow succession. People have a right of self-determination. No matter what some politician at the UN, EU or Spanish court says. If the majority of people within Catalonia are for it, then go for it.
I'm not under the illusion that politicians in Catalonia are in this for power, like all governments are, but this is not business of the international community to get involved and fight against this movement. The idea that "referendums are tools of dictators" as the Spanish Foreign Minister said is garbage and exposed the central government's hand.
In the United States, we had the right to secede, and the central government started a war to deny that right. Now it can't even be discussed that a state has the right to leave the voluntary union it joined. Of course the government would fight to keep part of its tax base under its control. I'm just not going to support the suppression of people to freely associate and disassociate.
Democracy is that all Spaniards decide whether they want a region of Spain to secede or not, anything else is not democracy but an illegal secession of a country against international law, the European Union Constitution and the Spanish Constitution. The world understands this and that is why all major countries have expressed the support to the Spanish government, from Merkel to Trump.
It is not about the right of people to disassociate but about preventing a small group of people stealing a part of the country from Spaniards. The region of Catalonia has always been part of Spain and they cannot unilaterally decide to steal part of the land of Spain. And with the Spanish Constitution and the law in had, the Spanish Army is ready to prevent such a secession if the regional government of Catalonia attempts to do it.
The United States had already a secession war, Spain also, let's hope that these irresponsible and totalitarian regional politicians don't make us go to the second one.
So do people from Montana get to decide for the people of California if they get to leave the United States or not? Since "international law" written by unelected bureaucrats trumps their right to associate.
I understand you're view, I just don't really care what the European Union has to say about a movement within a member state. The EU fears this type of move, as it will embolden other movements, and the EU can't function if it can't force member states to take on it's debts, economic regulations and refugees. The EU is on it's last legs, not surprising for anyone who understands that people from one culture don't want to be responsible for the mistakes of another.
You say "small group of people". What are the numbers of people within Catalonia that are for independence? If it is a majority, should they be forced to continue to live under the government of Spain and suffer from it's debt-ridden economic policies?
Even if all the people living in Catalonia voted for secession (and it is not all of them) they will still be a small group of people compared to the total population of Spain who are the ones that have the democratic right to decide about their own country.
And yes, if California wants to leave the United States it would have to be a poll on the whole of the United States to decide if they allow california to secede. Otherwise there would be a Second American Civil War and the secessionist do always lose.
It only becomes a civil war when the rest of America decides to force one piece of America is stay. A war doesnt have to be fought about secession. Especially in the United States. United. States. Individual states voluntarily entered into a union and created the federal government. The federal government didn't create the states.
Spain is still a kingdom if I'm not mistaken. You're speaking of mob rule. That a group of people hundreds of miles away get to dicate to others who rules them. Just not a viewpoint I share.
Read the US citizen comment here that wrote about how the secession of California would trigger an American Civil War.
Spain is very similar in size to California and California has a single government and not 17 mini-states like there already are in Spain that makes the country very inefficient with thousands of politicians and public servants multiplying by 17 the administration because each region has its own parliament, government, sanitary system, etc, etc... craziness and completely inefficient and productive.
Madrid, which is almost in the geographical center of Spain is only 372 miles from Barcelona, so not thousands of miles away like you think, and it takes only 2h by fast train to go from one city to the other. Furthermore, with IT effective distances are shortened even more as the information can flow easily at any distance.
Madrid became the capital of Spain in 1562 (previously in other cities) precisely because it was in the geographical center of the country to make the government more efficient. If that was done in 1562 now in the XXI century with a central government in the center of the country is more than enough to efficiently manage the country and make it prosper.