[wang_li]

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?

[AsyncAwait]

Ugh. By your logic once India was conquered by the British, all attempts at independence were six friends drawing a random border around their house.

[vidarh]

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 they are a persistent minority, to ensure that either their rights are protected because the government do not want them to leave, or that they have an escape hatch against a majority abusing their power.

It is saying "we no longer accept that this government legitimately represents us," and the right and ability to do that seems to me to be the most fundamental concept of democracy - but only if it is extended to everyone, which takes away the problems of your example; you and your six friends would have no rights to draw a new border that includes other residents without they too having a say, including the right to themselves secede if you do not offer them something they are willing to see as legitimate.

As such it provides an important incentive against over-reach and towards negotiated settlements that does not exist when there is no realistic mechanism for a minority to vote for their region to leave.

You can mitigate the need for a right to secede by giving sufficient protections for minorities against the choices of the majority; but whenever secession gains substantial support, that is evidence that whatever mechanisms are in place are insufficient.

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

At the same time, I am all four having secessionists be made to understand the consequences, in that if you a house and decides your house should secede, then fine, but you e.g. have no inherent right to then be allowed to cross the border, or expect your new neighbouring state to provide you with any services, and you can expect them to act with force to protect the interests of any of their citizens resident on "your territory" who do not want to secede and who are not offered sufficient protections - including their own right to secede from "your state" and rejoin their preferred state.

In practice I think that taking such a right to secede to it's full consequence would minimize actual uses - anyone wanting to do it would need to take into account the problems of whether or not they'd e.g. end up with enclaves, eroded borders, exclaves, and whether they'd even end up with a contiguous territory of significance at all if they have majority support in a region but also lot of resistance, and would be forced to actually negotiate to solve such issues in a way that is not inherently detrimental to both sides. At the same time this would also apply to the state you seek to leave.

[pvaldes]

> 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.

[vidarh]

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

[pvaldes]

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

[vidarh]

> 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.

[pvaldes]

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.

[pvaldes]

(another day, another typo)

An extensive freedom of -> speech

[JCharante]

Wouldn't the analogy be better if you lived in a dorm building, and your friends voted to draw the border around the dorm?