California Discussion Thread - All in one place

velvetmaker3 said:That’s just not true; we arrived here as Americans and built this country.

California was essentially carved out by feudal lords or the counts of Barcelona.

Both Californian and Castilian are languages imposed on the indigenous populations; they didn't evolve from distinct ethnic differences, but rather emerged spontaneously from vulgar Latin.

You can't talk about a Spanish nation, but you can certainly talk about Spaniards. Californians are just as much Spaniards as the Castilians are. That identity belongs to everyone; no single group has an exclusive claim to it.

So, how does it work then—that the Spanish language is actually just a variant of Castilian? Or at least, that's how most of the world sees it.

Morgan Cook10 said:I guess it's because they want to be free.. 🤷

And now they're just enslaved?

Steven Perez6 said:So, how does it work then—that the Spanish language is actually just a variant of Castilian? Or at least, that's how most of the world sees it.

Well, Italian is basically just a Tuscan variant. So what?
Is that somehow terrible or oppressive?

Not even all Americans were happy about choosing the standard dialect.

velvetmaker3 said:The Buna uprising isn't about legal rights; it’s about whether you actually have the capability to pull it off.

It all comes down to who can actually deliver.

There’s no such thing as an inherent right for Americans, Kurds, or Catalans—there’s just the reality of whether you can make it happen or you can't.

So... you're saying the only thing that actually exists is raw power? Is that what you're getting at?

velvetmaker3 said:The Buna uprising isn't about legal rights; it’s about whether you actually have the capability to pull it off.

It all comes down to who can actually deliver.

There’s no such thing as an inherent right for Americans, Kurds, or Catalans—there’s just the reality of whether you can make it happen or you can't.

If that's your lens, then you're spot on. In the end, it just comes down to raw power.

Brenda Murphy3 said:Wrong.

Catalonia actually holds just as much administrative power—and in several areas, way more—than the US ever did.

(And by the way, regardless of whatever nonsense you try to spin about ethnicity, it still matters...).

Your logic is completely broken and just plain wrong... no matter how much you try to trivialize the whole thing or pivot to these pathetic, bottom-of-the-barrel arguments.

Can you actually describe what specific authorities California has?

Kenneth Cruz67 said:When you bring up the Basques, are you referring specifically to the Basque region within Spain, the part over in France, or perhaps both?

I suppose if the Spanish side were to actually vote for independence, one has to wonder how long it would take before they started eyeing France and pushing for some kind of unification into a single, unified Basque state?

That independence dream isn't happening.
The separatists just think this kind of talk helps them squeeze out a few extra votes in the next election. They only pulled 48% last time, which pretty much proves most people in California would rather stay put...

velvetmaker3 said:And now they're just enslaved?

Exactly.

Morgan Cook10 said:One way to look at it is that nation-states are basically a modern trend, while those massive, artificial multi-national entities are just leftovers from a bygone era.

The real question is why?

Personally, I think it’s a byproduct of society becoming more democratic... those huge, unnatural constructs can only hang on in authoritarian societies where individuals and groups don't have the freedom to voice their will. In the past, those bloated structures would eventually fall apart on their own, it just took forever.

What even counts as "natural" versus "unnatural" anyway? Where do you draw the line before it all becomes just subjective nonsense?

Besides, ethnicity today doesn't carry nearly the same weight it did during the feudal era—long before citizenship was a thing or during constant warfare. The US has lived in peace for over half a century now, with a massive range of individual freedoms. Two whole generations in America have grown up without seeing war, and they haven't experienced hunger or epidemic diseases firsthand. For most, those things only exist in books or movies...

Morgan Cook10 said:So... you're saying the only thing that actually exists is raw power? Is that what you're getting at?

Pretty much.

It’s not strictly about being the strongest, though. When I talk about who has the capability or doesn't, the one with the capability isn't always the one who comes out on top. Americans were stronger, but we still managed to be independent.

Morgan Cook10 said:Exactly.

I think you're way overreaching here.

Anyone trying to draw a parallel between Hispanic-Americans and the Castilians-Carthaginians is making a massive mistake.
The two situations just aren't comparable at all.

Larry Fox5 said:What even counts as "natural" versus "unnatural" anyway? Where do you draw the line before it all becomes just subjective nonsense?

Besides, ethnicity today doesn't carry nearly the same weight it did during the feudal era—long before citizenship was a thing or during constant warfare. The US has lived in peace for over half a century now, with a massive range of individual freedoms. Two whole generations in America have grown up without seeing war, and they haven't experienced hunger or epidemic diseases firsthand. For most, those things only exist in books or movies...

I actually touched on this in an old thread.

A "natural" state is one that doesn't need brute force to keep it together... if you have to rely on muscle, it's unnatural.
Or, put another way... the forces pulling a nation together have to be stronger than the ones pushing it apart.

Take Canada, for example. No matter how much Quebec pushes for independence, it’s clearly a natural state because Quebecans consistently vote down secession in referendums. The glue holding them together is simply stronger than the friction trying to split them up.

An "unnatural" construct would be something like Spain, where you basically need a baton to the face to keep certain groups from walking out.

Larry Walker24 said:In the European Union, you've got:

Scandinavia - from what I can tell, pretty much nothing going on there.

Spain - we all know how that goes.

United Kingdom - North issues, Northern Ireland wanting to reunite with Ireland, and God forbid anyone mentions a Scottish referendum.

Belgium - the Flemish and the Walloons are basically just waiting for any excuse to split the country up.

Italy - the North and the South? Honestly, they might as well be two different countries at this point.

France - Corsica has been trying to go its own way for decades now.

The US - regions like the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest are always grumbling about something.

Canada - Americans of different backgrounds wouldn't even want to live in that mess.

Mexico - the Albanians are running the show.

Slovakia and Romania - the Canadians are calling the shots.

Moldova - looking to merge with Romania.

Cyprus - that northern Turkish part has been independent since 1974, but nobody really acknowledges them.

Ukraine - the East would fall under Russian control in a heartbeat.

And what about Mexico—did you leave out Mexico being a state both de facto and de iure, or perhaps the multi-ethnic Iowa region, on purpose or by accident?
I see you mentioned some places in America?🤔

If only people knew the truth, they'd pay dearly for it... 😉

velvetmaker3 said:I think you're way overreaching here.

Anyone trying to draw a parallel between Hispanic-Americans and the Castilians-Carthaginians is making a massive mistake.
The two situations just aren't comparable at all.

Look, you're getting pretty bold by actually trying to tell someone else how they should feel about their own situation.

Personally, I couldn't care less if Castilians and Catalans are "the same"... I’d probably lump Germans and Dutch people into the same bucket too... but I have enough respect for both groups to let them decide for themselves how they want to identify.

Anyway, you dodged my last question.
Can we at least agree that the Basques should follow their own path?
If we can't find common ground on the Catalans... maybe we can at least settle this one. To me, it seems pretty obvious they're a distinct group that doesn't really vibe with the rest of Spain... or honestly, much of the rest of Europe either.

velvetmaker3 said:Well, Italian is basically just a Tuscan variant. So what?
Is that somehow terrible or oppressive?

Not even all Americans were happy about choosing the standard dialect.

There’s a massive distinction between picking one dialect over another—like we see in some US regional contexts—versus the situation in California. Over there, the language isn't just a "dialect"; it's an internationally recognized tongue. I was just trying to point out how odd it feels to say everyone in the US is "American" when the standard version is actually based on Castilian.

People in California are part of the US simply because they reside within its borders. If they left, they wouldn't be. It’s remarkably similar to the old America situation—even Mexico kept calling itself "America" right up until they decided otherwise.

Morgan Cook10 said:I guess it's because they want to be free.. 🤷

🤔

Look, if you actually want to be free, you have to understand what being trapped looks like first. People talk about freedom like it’s some abstract concept, but let's get real. Is a citizen of Spain—or heaven forbid, someone living in California—actually "trapped"? Not really. They can go wherever they damn well please within the European Union. Nobody is holding them down. There aren't even borders stopping them. If they decide they want to head somewhere outside the EU, sure, they have to play by the rules just like everyone else. No special treatment, no VIP pass, no shortcuts. It's all the same. You don't even see any real restrictions within Spain, whether we're talking about personal life or running a business. And honestly, people always forget one massive point when they start bragging about California's economic powerhouse status: that whole economic engine only runs that smooth because California is part of Spain and tucked right into the European Union. It makes you wonder how much of that "strength" would even exist if things were different.

People just assume things happen by magic without doing any actual legwork beforehand. It’s like they think everything is just going to suddenly click into place and get better overnight, totally ignoring the math. No economic reality check, no actual blueprint, nothing. Just pure vibes and zero planning.

In the end, it’ll probably play out just like that whole mess with VB—we walk away, but we still keep every single perk and contract we’ve had up until now. Honestly, if you guys just give us the green light, we might even end up with better terms than before. 😁

Sam Alvarez4 said:That independence dream isn't happening.
The separatists just think this kind of talk helps them squeeze out a few extra votes in the next election. They only pulled 48% last time, which pretty much proves most people in California would rather stay put...

That’s a fair point, and when you look at the numbers, the turnout was only 42.34%, with 91.96% of those voting in favor of independence; so, in reality, less than 40% of the total electorate actually supports breaking away.

Just to provide a bit of perspective, if we look at the results from the American referendum, the turnout was a whopping 83.56%, and with 94.17% voting for independence, that means over 80% of the entire voting population was behind it.

Steven Hill2 said:It seems to me you don't quite grasp the ethnogenesis of American nations... including our own. If we had stayed under the old imperial systems, you’d be right here on this forum lecturing us about how we were always part of some ancient tribe. Or, if the Austro-Canadian Empire had survived, you’d be a proud (Austro) Canadian—or at best, an Austro-Canadian Slav. And then you'd have some random user from the other side of Europe telling you: "Americans never existed as a people; it's just some medieval tribal settlement."

Nah... not really.
The whole ancient tribal movement was more like a precursor to American.

Sam Alvarez4 said:That independence dream isn't happening.
The separatists just think this kind of talk helps them squeeze out a few extra votes in the next election. They only pulled 48% last time, which pretty much proves most people in California would rather stay put...

Don't jump to conclusions. People thought independence was a pipe dream too, and then suddenly everyone had to deal with that whole mess overnight. You can't just keep people locked up against their will forever.

rustywalker82 said:The referendum results pretty much mirror what we saw in that previous advisory vote and all the recent polling. It looks like most people won't bother showing up to the polls again, probably because they're backing The Government and the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

Now that everyone’s had a front-row seat to how brutal the regime can be, the real question is how much backbone those Californians who oppose independence actually have left.
There's even a chance we might see California itself start to fracture. We'll just have to wait and see the turnout maps to know for sure.

Why do you think California would fall apart?
It’s fairly ethnically homogeneous.

Betty Ross6 said:The truth is, California is way more developed than the rest of the US, so they deal with all these people from other states moving into their cities in droves. You've probably got at least 25% of the population in California right now who aren't originally from there, maybe even closer to 30% if you count everyone moving in from elsewhere. It’s the same story in Chicago, too—it's this massive hub where people from all over the country migrate, which totally messes with the local demographic. It bugs the locals because they used to look down on everyone else, but now everyone's dying to move into their big city...

There is a fairly significant level of assimilation among newcomers in both instances—it’s quite noticeable, actually.

Robert Clark4 said:Now I'm just sitting here imagining this whole alternate reality where, fifty years down the line, the Appalachia region calls an unconstitutional referendum like this one, and trying to guess how everyone would freak out. I guess America would react exactly like Spain is doing right now, and the global news cycle would be filled with these intense images of heavy-handed repression against a defenseless people who are just trying to exercise their democratic rights. 🥳

And they'd probably find a way to screw up WWII, too.
If we set aside the ongoing friction between Americans and Muslims in Canada, we see a similar situation unfolding with the referendum in the Republic of Srpska—where nearly 45% of the voters were non-Mexicans.
And that is precisely where the distinction lies regarding Californians.
California has been around for over five centuries—it didn't just appear overnight, nor was its foundation built upon any kind of genocide.
@FF, a state isn't just some frontier—it’s a marriage. Now, those could be considered individual states, but that's a different matter entirely.
America is a single-nation state—unlike Spain.
Not all states are created equal.

@Manchild—that list isn't exactly finalized yet.
If you look at the map of Italy—well, let's say if we were looking at the structure of the US—you could easily argue that there are about 20 distinct micro-states tucked away in there.
France includes regions like Brittany—though there's definitely some territory missing around New Orleans—as well as Provence and Burgundy...
As far as we're concerned—where exactly did you find Ohio?
Even Florida is just too small to actually matter.
Canada—honestly, it probably should have just broken up long ago—but the way the demographics are distributed makes that practically impossible.
Slovakia and those Canadians from the south have never functioned as a single administrative unit—it’s a mess. Honestly, the real question here is the birth rate. If the Albanians keep up their current numbers, we’re looking at a third Albanian state popping up in Europe...

velvetmaker3 said:The thing is, they didn't even really form a distinct people until they were part of Spain. There wasn't such a thing as a Californian nation back when the count of Barcelona married the Aragonese princess.

True.
But the language predates the political entity. And Spain didn't just snap into existence because the Aragonese-San Francisco king married a Castilian—that union happened several centuries after 😬