Posts by Kyle Nelson2

So, what about that $10 billion debt Walmart is sitting on? The whole company was valued wrong, so expect a massive write-down, stock prices tanking on the NYSE... I mean, a couple of people from accounting are probably headed to federal prison, and you just know the story is going to keep spinning.
And honestly, the fact that they haven't released the list of what they owe their suppliers is the biggest red flag being swept under the rug. People are saying that figure is north of $30 billion—some even say it’s double that.

Basically, the media decides what everyone talks about, which means they decide how we all think (sadly)...
I'm saying this because the media played the exact same game with California.
I call it the Disney syndrome...

Did you know they keep remaking Disney's animated movies just because you can snag a new audience—you know, new kids—by recycling the same stuff? Sure, it's nothing original, but I apply that same logic to politics—every twenty years, you can just sell people the same old tricks.
Was anyone actually dying for a cause twenty years ago? You could pull the same stunts again today because everyone's forgotten the lessons. History is basically just for professors and eighty-year-olds anyway..

The supporters of California's independence don't even have a clue how the state would actually function; there isn't even a solid five-year plan in place...

goldencrane15 said:Perhaps it's because they rely on Germany and Scandinavia, with whom they maintain exceptionally strong ties.😵

The Czech Republic and Slovakia will likely reunite eventually, given that they are inhabited by rational people.

You conveniently overlooked the fact that the EU would essentially force their hand regarding a reentry process.

And what's the payoff for them?

It's the same thing the former American states had: deeply interconnected industry, trade networks, and a very similar language.

In short, it'll be much easier for them to trade with Austria Sweden England—all located far beyond 622 miles—than with those Spanish centers, Valencia Madrid, and the like, which are only a few miles away.

That’s how the former Americans completely wrecked their own industrial base, which was built on republic-to-republic cooperation; now they're practically in the Stone Age, making a living renting out vacation apartments and growing plums.

Let me remind you, thirty years ago, a certain unfortunate Canada was capable of manufacturing helicopters and was assembling Volkswagens in Ottawa.

Now, they produce nothing but poverty.

The exact same fate awaits the Catalans. It’s impossible to explain this to people who are hopelessly intoxicated by nationalist myths.

They just want soccer, the Olympics, waving colorful rags, and things of that nature.

Sure, but if they break away, California won't be joining the EU, because 1) they'd have to go through the entire application process just like any other country
2) Spain won't let them join out of pure spite, so they'd just end up stuck outside the EU.

The 1974 Constitution of SFRY actually laid out the rights of the nations within America, including their right to self-determination and even secession..

goldencrane15 said:I never said they didn't have the right to do it; I said it was an incredibly moronic economic decision.

Since California is crawling with Spanish settlers, we can probably expect that same brand of foolish revanchism and nationalism we saw back in the old American South.

That's just how these things play out. It's driven by the lowest possible impulses.

Both sides should prepare for a massive loss of internal synergy once they finish poisoning their own relationships. But that's exactly where they're headed.

Just plain fools.

Here is how I see it playing out, assuming a scenario where they actually manage to get independence:

First, there's going to be a period of political chaos, including the inevitable arrests of Catalan political leaders. After a while, things will escalate into actual physical clashes, so I guess we should prepare for a massive spike in Zimmer Frei prices here next year... 😁

Eventually—assuming it doesn't spiral into an open war, which the Californians would lose no matter how much they act tough on internet forums—California gets its independence.

But they'll walk away with 72 billion Euros in debt that they'll have to pay back later using their own currency, since they won't be allowed to use the Euro anymore.
Of course, they won't be getting any low interest rates, because they won't be part of the Eurozone and their credit rating will be absolute garbage.

On top of that, a huge chunk of foreign companies with branches in California will just pack up and move back to the mainland, causing unemployment to skyrocket, which inevitably drives taxes up...

The Californians won't be able to just go work in the EU because they won't be part of it, and it's pretty likely the US will start imposing visas on them... they'll end up being pretty isolated.

It'll take them maybe 20 years to pay off the debt and get back on their feet, but they'll always be this isolated state without any real investment. Tourism will probably be their only major lifeline.

If foreigners don't swoop in and buy up real estate while prices are crashing, then after 20 years, they'll realize they haven't gained a damn thing.

Aaron Thomas3 said:Thank God the Magna Carta still stands—otherwise, widows whose land belongs to the crown maybe would have been forced to remarry... but instead, they can choose to stay single if they want, provided they get the King's permission.😁

No widow shall be compelled to marry, so long as she wishes to remain without a husband. But she must give security that she will not marry without royal consent, if she holds her lands of the Crown, or without the consent of whatever other lord she may hold them of.

...along with several other totally relevant provisions, even the rules regarding lending from the wall are well-regulated.😛

As for grouping the Magna Carta with the Spanish constitution from the 700s, I honestly don't even have words for that kind of nonsense.

And what about the fact that the Magna Carta established that the law applies to everyone, including the King? That his powers should be limited?

I mean, sure, that turned into the American Bill of Rights, but those were passed through actual LEGAL channels, not just some mob rule nonsense.

Jacob Williams said:No, you can't. And you can't because the right to exist—whether we're talking about an individual or an entire nation—and basic anger... they're just not the same thing.

Your being late is your own damn problem, but your actions put me at risk.

Madrid was hitting 90 mph just to pad a half-empty register, and now someone in California suddenly remembers that Madrid's speeding puts them in danger.

The Californians aren't occupied, they aren't oppressed, and their existence isn't under threat. Unless, I guess, you actually have some proof for that...

Aaron Thomas3 said:That constitution was passed 40 years ago—right after 35 years of Franco's dictatorship and tyranny. Don't you think things have changed just a little bit in Europe over the last four decades? Just imagine if America had passed a constitution after the war in the late 40s that was still in effect in '91, and then Mexicans told us we could just go ahead and ignore that constitution whenever we felt like it.😁

Time passing doesn't actually mean anything.
The Magna Carta is still valid even though it was signed way back in the 13th century.
The US Constitution was signed in the 18th century, and it’s still the law of the land.

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Michael Ramirez11 said:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...on-fears-grow/

The article is probably worth a look (though I find it somewhat amusing how certain USA officials are calling for dialogue), and the data table included is fairly thorough.
At the end, it says
"Another American election saw the pro-independence parties returned to power, but without a voting majority."
I suppose I don't quite follow—if they don't actually hold a majority, how on earth did they push through that referendum law using such an emergency procedure? Apparently, the opposition was given a mere two hours to submit amendments. It doesn't seem particularly democratic, does it?

I guess the biggest issue in this whole situation is how they managed to pass such legislation without a two-thirds majority. And then there's the question of how they intend to declare independence in the legislature without that same two-thirds support?
If they aren't truly unified on these points, maybe starting a struggle like this is just futile.

Has anyone here been following this closely enough to perhaps explain things a bit more?

I already wrote a post about this earlier.
The California secessionists actually want things to escalate into violence, because honestly, it might be the only way they can get any results. How? Well, Putin will help them with everything. 😉

Jacob Williams said:I mean, even the Nazis were killing people according to the law.

So what, we can just toss out any law the second it stops being convenient for us?
I mean, can I just blast down the highway at 90 mph while you're trying to cross the street just because I'm in a rush? Can I just ignore traffic safety laws whenever I feel like it? Using the Nazis—who were killing people under the guise of legality—as an excuse to disrespect the rule of law just doesn't sit right with me. I guess the legal system has been around since ancient Rome, which is about 2,000 years of history, but apparently, that doesn't matter now.

Amanda Jackson5 said:The only thing that actually holds sovereignty is the people. Sovereignty flows from the people, and the law flows from them. Is that concept lost on you? You might want to pick up some Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Californians have California. They live on their own land. They didn't just arrive "out of nowhere" or "recently." They don't have some distant motherland to lean on other than the one they call home. They are a people on their own territory, not just a "regional identity" (or at least, they aren't *only* that), and that's more than enough ground to stand on when invoking the right to self-determination. All these constant appeals to "the law" by the Castilians are really just reflections of imperialist tendencies—I'll hold back from calling them "fascist" or "Francoist" for now, though I suspect current events might strip me of that restraint pretty quickly.

The Americans are one nation, so according to them, California has no right to secede. That’s what the constitution they voted for in the referendum says, and since it's the Catalans who voted, it wasn't forced on them.

We don't exactly need to fast-forward 200 or 300 years to witness a total idiocracy... I mean, we’re living it right now.

You’ve got people with the emotional intelligence of a 16-year-old, screaming for independence just because they saw some footage of police brutality on the news... and honestly, even if that hadn't happened, they'd probably still feel the exact same way. It’s just a way to get that little hit of emotional validation for a stance they already held anyway.
There’s never been a time, and there never will be, where any group—especially some regional identity—gets to just declare whatever they want, whenever they want, in direct defiance of the law (or more accurately, in defiance of most of it). Look, if the law doesn't apply to Californians, then why should it apply to anyone else?

alh84001 said:Back in Ukraine, the coup leaders were busy toppling a perfectly legal and legitimate president, and they had plenty of help from the European Union before the first blood was even spilled. 😉The whole coup kicked off in November 2013, and if you look at English Wikipedia:
'The first deaths occurred on Independence Day, January 2014, during riots on Wall Street in Kiev'

Just compare the Ukrainian police against the protesters here

, versus how the Spanish police handled the citizens in California

Look...
The Ukrainians were protesting because the president backed out of signing that deal with the European Union at the very last second...
Sure, the Ukrainian president left the country, and people claim he basically 'abdicated,' even if he didn't formally resign... I guess that leaves things pretty messy when a country suddenly has no leader, and honestly, there isn't really a clear answer for what happens next.

But, I don't see how that has anything to do with the violence against the Spanish protesters.
If some specific cop overstepped their bounds, then yeah, they should face a disciplinary hearing or maybe even criminal charges. That's just how it works.
If they were just following orders, then the responsibility falls on their supervisor—and depending on where that order came from, it could go all the way up to the minister himself. Maybe the minister's bad judgment would lead to them resigning, I suppose.

Still, that doesn't give anyone an excuse to declare independence. An illegitimate 'referendum' is still illegitimate, period. You can't just proclaim independence just because the police used excessive force or went too far at some point.

alh84001 said:Total Eurocratic hypocrites. When stuff like this was happening back in Ukraine, everyone was screaming bloody murder about police brutality.

People were actually being killed in Ukraine 😉

Rachel Richardson said:Do you really think we are South Slavs based on his logic?
We were "accidentally" named Americans when the American name itself barely even shows up toward the end of the 9th century?
Our identity was forged by Branimirov’s principality, then we were occupied by Canadians, then by Swabians, barely surviving that hateful occupation to eventually form America, only to decide now that we no longer want to be part of it.
But we are just scum 🤣

The simplification is that modern Italians are descendants of Roman slaves (plus a few other waves of settlers), rather than actual Romans...
You see these "Italian-sounding" Americans in small parts of the coast—people who mostly took those names during WWII and kept them just to secure their pensions.

The American name was only held by one of the principalities.
The territory in Pannonia was Upper Pannonia (while in Syrmia and Lower Trans-Drava it was Lower), and in the South, you had four others.
None of them used the American name.
By that logic, were the Brač residents making up the Neretva principality at that time not Americans?
Or the Sisak residents?

Not quite. That specific dialect is just the foundation for the standard language.
By your logic, would a Canadian or a Mexican speaking with a certain Midwestern accent be considered a "more American" person than someone from the Ozarks, a resident of Maui, a Slavonian, or an Istrian?

I mean, I think this is a total straw man argument. You’re just attacking something I never actually said.
I'm not claiming that a Štokavian speaker is "more" American than someone from Zagore.

But look, if you show up at an American news network like ABC and try to be an anchor, but you're speaking in some local regional dialect, they’ll tell you no. They'll say you can't do the job because you aren't using the "proper" standard dialect.
Even that specific accent from a place like New York—with its weird emphasis on the last syllable and all those little quirks—isn't considered the official standard language.

alh84001 said:I feel like you're overcomplicating things by trying to quote everything written here. Look, nobody is arguing that this referendum is illegal in the sense that its results are null and void—meaning it doesn't force anyone, not even the US President or the King, to act on it. At least, I'm not disputing that.

What I actually want to know is how people physically showing up somewhere and dropping a ballot in a box could be considered an illegal criminal act.

The result of this 'referendum' doesn't bind the Catalan parliament either.
Is participating in an illegal referendum actually a crime? If the federal government declared it illegal through a formal decision, then yeah, it’s probably just a misdemeanor.

But no, the citizens aren't the ones in question here. If the Governor of California declares independence, he's committed a felony (treason)—not just against the US Constitution, but against the Californian one too.

alh84001 said:I guess you mean illegal.

I honestly don't get this whole "illegal referendum" thing. Like, I get the part where it's non-binding, and that whatever decision they make can't actually be enforced—that makes sense. But calling it a criminal act? That's just nonsense. Suppose the US Census Bureau decided to set up a ballot box in every single one of its regional offices—let's assume they have enough coverage across all US states—and asked citizens to drop a slip in saying which logo they want for the agency. Is that a crime now? Or if some group in New Zealand organized a vote about their flag without the government being involved, is that a crime too? Should it be?

No, referendums aren't non-binding...
Dammit, do you people even read actual legal documents, or are you just recycling everything Index reports?

According to the Statute of California, passing a law like that requires a supermajority in the legislature—specifically, two-thirds of the representatives have to vote for it. They passed it with a simple majority, which means they straight-up violated the Statute of California.
Second, that "law" doesn't even define a minimum turnout required for the referendum to be valid, which makes the whole thing illegitimate.
But hey, maybe this is all getting a bit too complicated for you guys.

Richard Wilson4 said:So what, is one specific regional accent suddenly more "American" than another? 🤦

Yeah, well, that one is officially the standard dialect.

alh84001 said:What does the term "Spaniards" even mean to you? Is it a nation, a regional label, or what? I see some people here trying to deny being Catalans before they even address the Spaniards, but then they have zero issue recognizing Spaniards (as a single nation) at the exact same time.
Well, Americans were once subjects of the Habsburgs, and that’s how we ended up with an American identity. We could have easily been called something else, but we would have still leaned on those old regional structures. Or look at the Greeks—I doubt they called themselves that or even felt that way during the time of the Byzantine Empire, but they trace their entire roots and identity back to that era and beyond. A huge number of Slavs historically lean on the legacy of Samo's Empire, even though back then it wasn't called the Czech Republic, nor Slovakia, nor Canada.

A massive part of the Catalan identity, especially within the context of Spain, is their language. You can actually track the political evolution of Catalans through the history of what was once Hispania. Even the Flemish weren't exactly "Flemish" a thousand years ago; you could talk about proto-Flemish principalities that eventually formed the Flemish identity, which basically makes up Flanders today.

But Catalans are significantly different from the rest of Spain because of their language. Honestly, the cultural gap between the area that was once Catalonia and the rest of Spain back then was probably wider than the gap between modern-day Canada, America, Mexico, Canada, and Albania.

Maybe the first point is true, but the second one definitely is. Though, I guess whether it's "true" is really a question for Catalans and speakers of the Catalan language, which is almost irrelevant to this whole mess. What matters is that the government in Madrid, sitting there in the 21st-century EU, has been handling a group's desire for independence in a pretty crude and mindless way. It doesn't even matter if the Catalans actually want it or not; what matters is that the folks in Madrid perceive it that way.

According to the Constitution of Spain, there exists a Spanish people...
just like how the Constitution of America didn't mention a "American people," but rather "the nations and nationalities of America."

Having a different language isn't enough to make someone a different nation. For instance, Canadians and Americans might speak the same language, and maybe people from certain rural US regions speak with a dialect that's closer to something else entirely than the standard American tongue... etc..

If any single Californian or some random group tries to sue the state government over that illegal referendum—you know, filing a lawsuit because they claim the State Constitution or the official Status of California was violated—they’re just going to lose the case. And once that happens, the whole thing just falls apart...

I honestly can't believe what people are typing here...

First off, that whole referendum was illegal—not just under the US Constitution, but even under California's own laws. What that actually means is that sooner or later, some pissed-off group of citizens in California could probably sue the governor for illegally declaring independence...

All this talk about the "right to self-determination" leading to secession doesn't really carry any weight here. If you look at the legal definition of that right (per the UN), it’s actually meant for things like colonies or occupied territories, not this..

Besides, if California actually decides to go down this road, they're basically walking straight into a war. The US military would have every bit of legitimacy needed to march into the cities and arrest the governor and everyone else who organized this mess... Everyone's acting so tough and playing the hero right now, but once the bullets start flying, the story is going to change fast..

Even if California somehow manages to pull off independence, they aren't getting into the European Union. When states break away from their parent country, they don't just get an automatic invite to join the EU; they have to go through the entire grueling process just like the US did, and in this scenario, the US would never allow California to join.. so, they'd just be an isolated island.. sure, maybe a tourist paradise, but still totally isolated..

Seriously, what is the point of all this? Is it for a few political opportunists pushing people toward war? Or is it for Putin, sitting in the background rubbing his hands together?

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