I feel a little bit disappointed with hacker news having this superficial and anti-analytical article in the front page. As a Spaniard id like to address some

I feel a little bit disappointed with hacker news having this superficial and anti-analytical article in the front page. As a Spaniard id like to address some points brought up here in the comments. I've read people comparing this with Crimea, thoughts on self determination, thoughts on the repression by the government, etc. The first thing is to question the referendum itself: there was no census, there are people from Madrid voting, people voting twice, people inserting 4 votes at once, etc. The percentage of Catalan people voting this probably doesn't even get to 15%. And the people how came to vote were the only the ones who believed this referendum was democratic (99.9% of people who want the independence). Then there's the legitimacy of this referendum. In order to make this referendum, the catalan parliament approved new laws without majority and breaking the Catalan laws in a dictatorial disgraceful manner. This referendum is illegal and unconstitutional. There are millions of public money and public space used in order to carry on with "crime of sedition", using the political force against the law in order to rebel against the institutions. If anybody recalls past dictatorships, many of them had these kind of referendums. After knowing how this referendum was done and why it was illegal and anti democratic, I'd like to address the people who can't conceive liberty with rules. Referendums on self determination are unconstitutional by law in Spain, I can agree on a change on the constitution. But to change the constitution in order to allow these referendums you need a national referendum, because your changing the constitution of all the country, not just Catalonia . I will finally argue on self determination and try to clear some superficial comments I've read. The first and impulsive thought all of us have is to think that everybody should decide about everything. But in reality, that extreme liberty can take on someone else's liberty. If you allow catalonia to self determine their independence and then they do get independent, the next will be país vasco, then Galicia, then Madrid, and so on. The problem with this is not that the country would disappear (I'm not very patriotic) the problem is you're creating extreme inequality by regions. If Madrid gets independent they become rich because they give a great percentage of their gdp to Spain in taxes. But andalucia or Extremadura would become extremely poor. If you have a little bit of socialistic view, you can understand this is wrong. It's against redistribution, against equality, against globalization, and pro-isolation, xenophobia and discrimination. Also, Catalonia can never be compared with Scotland, their history is null in contrast. Their identity is as special as many other regions of spain. [0]Here are some tweets on how the referendum was done: Guy votes 4 times https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016 https://twitter.com/key_opinions/status/914529367543382016 People voting https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957 https://twitter.com/juanmalamet/status/914448261964029957 Fake census on a small town https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566 https://twitter.com/yuyudecai/status/914577981812674566