I can't propose anything. If they desire independence enough, they'll earn it however possible, through violence or a peaceful measure. However no, they don't have a right to independence. Like I said in my post, the referendum they held was illegal. Illegal in this case has no morality. These are not human rights, this is a State in Spain.
Yet, a majority of Catalan voters in the referendum voted to secede. I would say democracy is a human right, no?
Correct. Law is not always right, but this is a purely subjective thought. If we take what is currently happening right now in Spain and apply it to any other modern nation, would you still agree? Does Chechnya have the right to secede and form their own independent nation? What about any states in the US? How about the ongoing issue in Ukraine, such as Donbass?
It's true that "is the law right?" is a subjective question. But since you're asking: Chechnya, US states, and Ukrainian regions all have a right to secede
so long as they have the support of the people (and aren't doing for the purpose of human rights abuses, such as the Confederacy.)
I'm not rationalizing what they're doing or even defending it. What is happening is terrible and shouldn't be solution. The only thing here I am defending is Spain's right to preserve their union.
I see.
I wanted to isolate this because this is a very anarcho-communist statement. There's a reason successful nations have contracts between the people and their governments. (Forgive me I don't recall the appropriate term for this type of political agreement.)
I don't think it's an anarcho-communist sentiment - I think it's a democratic one. I don't believe that there shouldn't be states (in fact, I can hardly fathom how an anarchist society is supposed to function), nor do I believe that states have no rights at all. However, states exist to serve people, not themselves; so states have rights against other states (e.g. wars of territorial aggression). When the rights of people are in conflict with the rights of states, the people should prevail. I can already think of a few things that might pointed out as counter to this, such as taxes, and so I'll address that ahead of time. States have the "right" to impose taxes only if those taxes have been enacted through democratic means. Essentially, the people have granted the state the right of taxation; at any time, a democratic society could conceivably enact legislation to halt taxation altogether. This is a terrible idea, but it could happen. On the other hand, taxation by authoritarian states is not legitimate, but then again, authoritarian states are not legitimate to begin with.
And, as an aside, I appreciate that you're willing to debate things reasonably and calmly without resorting to insults. Thank you.
