> You still do it within the context of existing laws.
Existing laws may be undemocratic and unjust. If your bar for secession is legality, I will have to point out that the United States should still be part of the British Empire (The revolution was illegal), Hong Kong should pipe down, and stop protesting (They are bound by CPC laws, which have ruled the protests illegal), and most of Africa should still be governed from London and Paris (Most of it did not leave in the context of existing laws.)
> what would be the limit to what you can justify
There really isn't one, but six people seceeding their house is not going to be a minimally viable country for very obvious reasons. When you secede, you lose a lot of benefits, including economic, military, etc, protection from neighboring states.
> There really isn't one, but six people seceeding their house is not going to be a minimally viable country for very obvious reasons. When you secede, you lose a lot of benefits, including economic, military, etc, protection from neighboring states.
I don't think that's really the right reason for saying a house isn't valid. Catalonia is a well defined, self-governing region of Spain. That means the Spaniards have already admitted that they're basically a sensible territory for being an independent state.
You could probably argue, in a case like the US, that New York isn't a valid territory for independence since it was created a long time ago prior to much settlement in the area - but the self government isn't revokable under the US constitution.
Catalonia has no such problem, since its autonomy is a relatively recent gift and is constantly revokable, so the fact that the Spanish haven't done it is proof that they think it's reasonable.
Even then, you still have places like Monaco and San Marino, which are very small. It's hard to argue they're minimally viable countries, just places history forgot, but they are independent.
It's curious how every example you mention refers to colonies. But Catalonia is not a colony.
Also, in every case you mention, there were international support for the secession, while the Catalan independist movement, in spite of its strong efforts, has got almost zero support. By the way, this is the same international community who thinks that Spanish laws are not undemocratic or unjust.
> but six people seceeding their house is not going to be a minimally viable country for very obvious reasons.
So you can find a limit. What if Barcelona does not want to be in that new country (and they don’t)? Will the borders of that new country inside which you start counting votes include Barcelona against their will? What freedoms do people who want to stay with the "original" country get? They suddenly become the oppressed minority. How many splinters is too many?
You object to the “dictatorship” of democracy in Spain but the plan is do do the exact same at a smaller scale in the new country to a newly created minority. The reason we’ve had the longest period of peace and prosperity in Europe’s history is that the rules are as they are now and they're the best compromise. Any “improvement” you want to get for yourself comes at a major cost for everyone.
That's not a fair response, since the two sides are not "Catalonia should be independent" vs "Catalonia should be part of Spain"; rather, the two sides are "Catalonia should have a right to discuss terms of independence with its own people and the rest of Spain" vs "Catalonia should not have the right to discuss terms of independence with its own people and the rest of Spain".
Catalonia should have a right to poll its people about whether to engage in negotiations, and to discuss terms with Spain (who, naturally, should represent coherent minority interests in Catalonia who do not want to depart).
Spain should have a right to say "Well, look, the border should not include Barcelona since 60% of them (or whatever the figure might be in a just and fair plebiscite) have expressed a desire to remain".
Once fair negotiations have taken place and each side has accepted that they have won some and lost some, Catalonia could have another referendum, and it might turn out that no-one wants independence from both Madrid and Barcelona.
Spain says it's illegal to start, middle and end the process. If the Catalans don't really want to separate, then starting is free. It will almost certainly increase the order and decrease the tension if they let a plebiscite go forward.
(The last paragraph is an irrelevance, since there's no evidence that a European Union of many smaller states, incapable of independently sustaining a modern armed force, will be any more likely to go to war than a European Union of fewer larger states, capable of independently sustaining modern armed forces. In fact, even putting the argument down in black on tan really brings out its ridiculousness.)
At difference than Norway, there is a silent majority in Catalonia that is fuming. They had being opressed in the last decades by separatism. Now they can't exit home without finding a burning barricade and the pavement vandalised, can't go to work without finding the highway blocked by a group of clowns sit singing kumbaya, can't enter in the university without the permit of masked people boycotting the classes and closing the doors (It does not really matter because they will not find a local job anymore in the 5000 companies that have quited the area by this permanent climate of confrontation).
Poor workers struggling to survive, students from modest families, owners of small family bussiness sued by using spanish in their small shops, elders that can't sleep by youngs playing war games all night... Being poked in the eye each month, each day, hour and minute, by children demanding permanent attention. Children that want to steal their rights and identity, make their lifes miserable and chase them off from their homes and properties...
In some moment of the future this silent half will face some apparently trivial issue, reach boiling point, explode and raise in a bloodthirsty rage swirl.
Separatists crave to achieve a reaction from Spain that would justify their agenda, but trust me, the mortal hit will come from inside.
The rest of Spain will take some popcorn and enjoy the carnage and backstabbing on TV
Sorry, after reading your text the one thing I can't do is to trust you.
> At difference than Norway, there is a silent majority in Catalonia that is fuming.
I would love to see data on that; right now, pro-independence parties are majority in the parliament and have had 10x times the amount of people on the streets (without the need of bringing outsiders). That majority is not silent, is inexistent.
> Now they can't exit home without finding a burning barricade and the pavement vandalised (...)
All that is false. I have multiple friends in Barcelona and protests have been focalized in a small area (spanish police station in Via Layetana).
> It does not really matter because they will not find a local job anymore in the 5000 companies that have quited the area by this permanent climate of confrontation
That is also false. There were some movements of the headquarters address that didn't really affected the business. The part that should be scary to all democrats is how the Spanish government created a law specifically to facilitate this change of address and how the king of Spain started calling companies to do that change.
> The rest of Spain will take some popcorn and enjoy the carnage and backstabbing on TV
And here we have in just a few words an explanation of why we know that Spain learnt nothing about democracy in the 20th century.
The rest of us know that you permit democratic expression so that the force is spent at a ballot box. Most people don't want needless change (in fact, the countries first used referendums used them precisely to prevent change).
If Catalonia had've been permitted to vote in a fair referendum, it would've been lost 45 to 55 and there would be peace and order in the streets of Barcelona, just like Glasgow.
Instead, the ignoramouses in Madrid thought force was the first choice, and now everyone in Barcelona suffers - those who want change, and those who don't.
All of these things sound horrible, as do the people doing them.
Why do you insist on keeping people who feel that way in the country, against their will?
It's something that often puzzles me against political stances that oppose separatism. Often, they both express contempt for the people who want to leave, while at the same time, not allowing them to.
If it worked the way you imply what would be the limit to what you can justify with “self determination”?