group identity is malleable. Sometimes it’s dangerous.
We can see your join date. Even if you’re quiet, you’re not new.
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Yeah, but believe me when I tell you that I read Boing Boing for far much longer than I am a member of the BBS
Heck, I am old enough reader to remember that Violet Blue used to write here 
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Do I have a fundamental right to secede myself and my 35 acres from the state of Ohio and from the United States?
I can pretty much guarantee 86 percent favorable referendum results (I sometimes feel differently on Thursdays).
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modern scholarship of the past 30-40 years does not support that interpretation of the events leading up to the u.s. civil war. the most important factor leading to secession was for the protection of human chattel slavery and while the majority of the northern populace supported the war on the basis of maintaining the union at the beginning of the war there was plurality support for emancipation by the time of the proclamation and majority support by the time of the gettysburg address. simply wishing that slavery was not the main issue for the south does not make it so, regardless of the incredibly ahistoric approach to the subject taught in secondary schools in the south as recently as the 90s.
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Suppose some people on boing boing decided to try to compare apples to white nationalists in an attempt to muddy the waters of a conversation not about white nationalists…
Had Bush actually put in the work (and money) to reconstruct Iraq and actually bring that freedom and democracy, sure, that would have been justified.
Well, you’re going to have to make a compelling argument that you have sovereignty over those 35 acres, rather than just a deed granted by your neighbours. Then of course you’re going to have to figure out how you’re going to survive when no one opens their borders.
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Maybe we should shift this to /meta. What do you think, @orenwolf?
Sometimes, some of the newly joining accounts engage in discussions in interesting or even meaningful ways. From your comment, I assumed you were specifically addressing one side of the argument in this thread, and specifically one new user. I read their comments as a valuable contribution, especially since so many others irritated me. I don’t want this commenter to be discouraged, especially since I share at least singe of their opinions. It is very selfish of me, since I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have said something if I disagreed with them.
To to you.
I quite probably would have engaged with them, and tried to counter-argue. At least up to a point. The point were I had to assume driving trollies.
We’ve seen driving trollies in all forms. Judging from style and content, I wouldn’t assume this one user was driving trollies.
(Note: I realise the use of the plural pronoun here is confusing, since I apply it to a group and a single person in this post.)
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Yeats was a burgeois romantic, a nationalist extremist, and an occultist scatterbrain, so I’m not surprised he does not know a coup from a revolution. Probably one of the last people in the world I’d take political inspiration from.
…who actually lived through the Irish uprising and the Civil War.
Someone whose opinion I’d take over an armchair revolutionary theorist any day.
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Begins with twenty minutes of Spanish anarchist history, but discusses the current situation after that.
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Many people who did great things in their field were of questionable political allegiance. Yeats wrote marches for the proto fascist Blueshirts. I have no problem declaring from my armchair, that the great poet W.B. Yeats, and everybody who wants to sell him to me as someone to look for political advice, can shuffle off to their far right corner and f*ck themselves.
Except you seemed to imply up above that the right to self determination overrides just about all. To whom need I make this “argument”?? To the mayor of my town? To the governor? To president combover boy??
Historically speaking, a “compelling argument” in the case of secession involves weapons.
James Clavell put it nicely in his novel Shogun:
Toranaga: “There are no ‘mitigating circumstances’ when it comes to rebellion against a sovereign lord!”
Blackthorne: “Unless you win.”
Toranaga looked at him intently. Then laughed uproariously. “Yes, Mister Foreigner…you have named the one mitigating factor.”
To those you’re asking to recognize your claim.
No one, to my knowledge, even the Spanish government, is disputing the validity of Catalans claim to Catalonia. Spain seems to be claiming the Catalans themselves, which is obviously illegitimate.
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Measurably not so. Elecciones al Parlamento de Cataluña - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre is a good entry point to reach all result for autonomic elections in Catalonia (not very heavily attended, around 60%, evidence that people were not all that concerned about the autonomic government). ERC, traditionally the only independentist party of reasonable size through the years, got 8% of votes in 1980 and 10% in 1995, which would be a lot lower percentage if you considered the whole voting population (independentism would be a huge issue for somebody who feels highly “oppressed”, so one would assume most independentist would actually bother voting). Up until 2009 support for independentism in local government opinion polls was below 20% (12,9% in Nov 2005), as can be seen in graphs above.
The average Joe did not care about the Statute of Autonomy; it was requested by politicians. When it was finally voted in a referendum, not even half the potential voters showed up (48%). The ruling of the Constitutional Court over the Statute took place in June 2010, yet the big jump for independence support in opinion polls did not happen until Oct 2012 (again, see graph above). November 2010 election (can get there from first link) did also not register an increase in independentist vote (ERC got 7%). So blaming the trimming of the statute (as if the Constitutional Court could choose not to trim autonomic court rulings being above national ones) for an increase in independentism is just a lie repeated many times that clearly does not hold up.
On the issue of “españolization”, that text books in Catalonia often try to portray Spain as something alien as best, can also be seen in this extensive report (http://www.ames-fps.com/adoctrinamiento_libros_sociales_5y6primaria_cataluna.pdf) for text books used in primary schools, an issue that is denied by independentists everytime despite the evidence (each element being pointed might not be outrageous on its own, but overall they paint a clear picture to a child).
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Oooops, my mistake. I interpreted the attempt to shut down the referendum by force as “disputing the validity of Catalans’ claim to Catalonia”. I will try not to so blunder again.
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No, it’s fine, This article got a lot of play and I’d fully expect folks to join or speak up about it. the lurkers-to-posters ratio on the BBS is extremely high, with many folks only posting extremely infrequently. None of that is a reason to assume bad faith, though. A new poster should be looked at with the same critical eye as any new entrant to any discussion, but even if there’s many of them on a popular article, it doesn’t mean they are there for nefarious purpose.
/on-topic:
Most of us here have thankfully not had significant political realignments or revolutions take place either at all, or since we were very young. They are complex and complicated and therefore difficult to report on because media likes to whittle stories down to the bare minimum issues and good-vs-bad guy tropes. In addition, often the feeling in the street does not align with what the government on either side is advocating for. Opinions will be wide and varied, most will not be firsthand (as again, no recent revolutions for most of us) or in culturally different circumstances. That means you’re going to have a wide, diverse set of opinions on what is an appropriate or inappropriate stance for either government to take.
I think we can all agree, however, that militaristic intervention in circumstances like this tends to be almost wholly uncalled-for and overkill, unless you are facing full on rioting in the streets or somesuch. Putting your boot on the face of those with a mind to separate from your country isn’t going to change the discussion or win anyone over. It’s actually pretty much guaranteed to make the whole situation suck more.
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That’d be them trying to claim Catalans themselves, not kick them out.
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huh? I have no idea how you got that from my post. I never said anything about slavery not being the most important issue (it obviously was), just that, contrary to what you often hear, it wasn’t just an issue of state’s rights (from the confederate POV). The confederates wanted the continued federal protection of their right to own slaves (as was guaranteed under the constitution) to trump the northern states own anti-slavery laws (even in northern jurisdictions). And like I said, Lincoln would have allowed them to continue the practice of slavery (but only in states where it was already legal), as long as the non-slave-owning states didn’t have to enforce their slave-contracts by returning escaped slaves, he was not an outright abolitionist (he was in favour of ‘compensated emancipation’ to gradually end slavery), he supported the Corwin Amendment, and even during the Civil War was willing to compromise if it would end the conflict.
