Comment by yiyus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yiyus | Hacker News Reader

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> I don't know why anyone in Spain seems to care about Catalonian independence.

I never cared, but I do care about the image they are projecting of my country (specially as someone living abroad). Moreover, they are doing great getting the worse of everyone.

I never liked nationalism (including Spanish nationalism) and now it's worse than ever. And I do not like anti-riot police, and I do not want my government to close web sites, and I do not like to see Barcelona burning, and I do not like the hate I see in the eyes of the independentists when they talk about Spain, neither I like the hate I see in the eyes of some people when they talk about the Catalan independentists or even about Catalonia. And I think I could accept all this if it was for a good reason, but I think it is just stupid nonsense (did we learn nothing from Brexit?). We should be moving forward towards some kind of United States of Europe, and worrying about doing something with all these people from Africa who keep coming here, not about breaking apart and stupid flags. I get many questions from friends from all over the world, and I do not know how to answer them, I just feel shame. That's why I care. If tomorrow the Spanish state disappears and we just become one big European country, I would not mind at all.

By the way, you are right about what would happen if an independent Catalonia joint the EU. As a wealthy region, they would have to pay. However, why would the EU allow to join a wealthy country who just decided to break their own laws in order to not subsidize poorer regions?

If tomorrow the Spanish state disappears and we just become one big European country, I would not mind at all.

I have unfortunate news for you.

People hating larger governmental forces that control them isn't something weirdly unique to Spain or European nations. It is a part of the universal human condition.

If all existing European nations were abolished and merged into a new EU "country", guess what? The "nationalists" would hate the EU instead. This already happens in fact. Why do you think Brexit won? It won because so many people really don't like the EU and the way it works. The entire British population was threatened by its own government with ruination and told anyone who voted Leave was thick and racist, and Leave still won. Imagine how much bigger the result would have been if the government hadn't relied on such aggressive tactics.

Worse still, people who think they aren't "nationalist" would also be filled with hate, but towards imaginary external enemies instead. Go listen to the people who run the EU. Listen to people like Juncker, Verhofstadt and Merkel. They can't stop talking about the EU empire and the threats posed by "China, Russia and the United States". The USA is rather different to China but to the new Europeans, it's just another foreign enemy.

The way to stop people hating on each other is to help them resolve their differences amicably. Lots of votes, lots of tiny nation-states or even city states, and yes lots of borders, ideally of the smartest possible type to ensure they're hardly noticeable. In the end, forcing everyone to comply with one small group's set of preferences will always create big tensions. The solution is thus not fewer countries, but more.

That's an interesting point of view I cannot say I disagree with. I do not see big fundamental differences between many small countries working together with those smart borders you mention or some kind of big federal estate that gives a large autonomy to its members, but you are right that what you propose may work better in practice.

Either way, my point was that the reason I care is not the unity of Spain. You said you did not understand why anyone would care and I said why I do. You do not have to agree with me.

Yes, I understand, fair point.

> And I think I could accept all this if it was for a good reason, but I think it is just stupid nonsense (did we learn nothing from Brexit?).

It's not for you to decide that. If a majority of people in a region (yes, still to be conclusively shown for Catalonia) wish to have independence and their own self-government then they should have it. Otherwise you are promoting tyranny. You're like the husband who tells his wife that she is wrong for wanting a divorce because he's still happy with the marriage. Actually, the principle of indissoluble marriage has a lot in common with Section 2 of the Preliminary Title in the Spanish Constitution:

> The Constitution is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation

Both principles of indissoluble unity - both in marriage and in the constitution of a state - are expressions of tyranny.

When I say "this", I do not talk about the independence of Catalonia. I refer to everything I wrote in the previous paragraph that you have ignored to instead talk about divorces (a bad analogy, by the way).

They have created a problem that is directly affecting me, and only for their own benefit. And I am the tyrant here?

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