[Attn] Habs

[Razgovory]

Habbaku is not Habs.      Even if he doesn't post here anymore, Habsburg has a permanent claim on that contraction.

Yeah, I thought that was strange as well.

[Neil]

Interesting, martinus. So what matters to you is that Canada lets quebec go democratically, instead of Quebec's wishes in the matter? What if Quebec voted to stay in the union but was kicked out?
What if Quebec voted to leave by an overwhelming majority but Canadians voted to keep it in?

The wishes of the population of Quebec are less important than those of the country as a whole.

Just wondering, what if Russia votes tomorrow to add Poland to the federation? To make things fair, the Poles can have a vote as well.

Russia would have to have the military strength to occupy Poland and the moral strength to enforce their laws and collect their taxes.

[garbon]

Habbaku is not Habs.      Even if he doesn't post here anymore, Habsburg has a permanent claim on that contraction.

I didn't feel like typing an extra B, since as you said, Habsburg is almost never here.

[Eddie Teach]

All fucking secessionistas must fucking hang.  This board is Unionist, and built to stay that way.
You don't like it, seceed to EUOT.

Nonsense, we seceded here from there in the first place.

[Berkut]

I disagree. I am not talking about a secession that is done within the democratic/constitutional process, but as a unilateral decision by some "nation" or its representatives that is not a sovereign. If a government of Canada decides to let Quebec go, then it is fine. If some more or less arbitrary group of people decides to "secede" from a democratic country, they are either criminals or madmen, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Yeah, only the people already in charge should decide whether its minorities get self-determination or not.  Goddamn minorities always fucking things up.

The irony of arguing for the right of the south to secede so they can own slaves on the basis of minority rights is really quite impressive.

[katmai]

This board hates unions!

[garbon]

And the Union! I can't stand MSil.

[Martinus]

@Marti - How do you feel about: Slovakia.  I think that was done with the approval of the Czechs, but I'm just curious and all.

I thought it was unnecessary. I didn't see the point.

[Martinus]

Yeah, only the people already in charge should decide whether its minorities get self-determination or not.  Goddamn minorities always fucking things up.

America just needs to rejoin the United Kingdom, then.

Last time I checked, people in American colonies had no say in the British government or British elections. Hence the system was not democratic, which was my main criterion. Besides, are you saying that Americans were an "ethnic minority" and that's why they rebelled? 

[Martinus]

For the record, I don't think minorities have any innate "self-determination" rights (if only because they are often completely arbitrary groups that can be theoretically divided into even smaller minorities infinitely, and it would be unworkable to argue every such smaller and smaller group has such "rights").

What matters is an existence of a democratic one-man-one-vote system and equality under law - as long as these criteria are met (i.e. a vote of a member of a minority is worth as much as a vote of a member of the majority; and members of a minority are not persecuted or have less rights than members of the majority) there is no reason whatsoever to argue that some minority group has a right to overrule the majority's will and unilaterally rebel. 

[Tamas]

For the record, I don't think minorities have any innate "self-determination" rights (if only because they are often completely arbitrary groups that can be theoretically divided into even smaller minorities infinitely, and it would be unworkable to argue every such smaller and smaller group has such "rights").

What matters is an existence of a democratic one-man-one-vote system and equality under law - as long as these criteria are met (i.e. a vote of a member of a minority is worth as much as a vote of a member of the majority; and members of a minority are not persecuted or have less rights than members of the majority) there is no reason whatsoever to argue that some minority group has a right to overrule the majority's will and unilaterally rebel. 

Well it is not THAT simple: what about for example an ethnic minority's use of its own language? If they can't use it in education or town halls, they dont have less rights than the majority, yet they are restricted.

[Berkut]

Comparing the ACW to the American revolution fails on two counts, I think.

1. When the rights of a population or group are not being fairly accounted for, the first recourse is clearly the agreed upon political system in place. When this system is representative, the claim that there is a need to go outside the system for redress is very dubious. The South had perfectly fair (even unfair over-representation if anything) in the political system of the United States. This is not at all similar to the American colonies under British rule, where the colonists were not allowed equal representation to have their grievances heard.

2. Assuming that you cannot resolve your issues through the system in place, the only other choice becomes revolution and rebellion. At this point, your ability to win that freedom via force becomes the recourse - might makes right, under the circumstances of the time. So the American colonies won their war, which proves that they had the right to wage it to begin with. The South failed, which proves they did not have the right to begin with.

However, #2 is pretty obviously not ethically satisfactory - but it is the practical reality.

The first is the key though - the South was not some minority that was oppressed - quite the opposite in fact, where the South had political power far greater than their actual population warranted, and hence the succession of compromises and accommodations the North made throughout the first half of the 19th century. It was not the denial of fair say in their governance that pushed the south to rebel, but rather the realization that their over-representation would not protect their Peculiar Institution forever in the face of the continued expansion of the non-slave-holding states.