I would not care if some other part of South Africa wanted independence. Good luck to them.
Hell, I’m all for independence for my home province, anyway. It’d be hypocritical to be against it for anywhere else.
Yes, and in fact, given that the impetus is on the secessionist side to show that they have the support of the population, a simple majority (clear or not) against secession means the secessionist side should gracefully submit. But the question is, what qualifies as a clear majority in the context of secession? Both Quebec referenda followed the presumption that 50% plus one vote in favour of independence was sufficient. This may be true, but on the other hand it is very hard to build a country with initial support from only 50% of the population. The pro-independence side in Montenegro was forced to accept a threshold of 55%. They still won (barely). I don’t know what the answer is, and it may very well vary from case to case.
I tend to agree with you, but taken to its extremity this could make countries essentially ungovernable since anyone who isn’t happy with the leadership could simply “secede”. So it’s not as simple as this. There is a principle according to which “peoples” are allowed the right to self-determination, but we first have to decide who qualifies as a people and who doesn’t.
The results of the breakaway region’s side should carry more weight, but there could fairly be some weight given to the rest of the country’s position - after all, a secession effects everyone in the country, and in mobile societies like Canada (or the US) a large number of people who live outside a certain region may have lived there previously, or have historic ties to the region. (This point, FYI, I read in some travelogue about Canada in regards to Quebec.)
Interesting question. For me the tempting scenario is for the USA: the Red States want to form Jesusland and the Blue States want to form New New England. I’d want to be in the Blue States and let the Red States go their own way, and stop subsidizing them, and lose their intrusive social agenda. But it’s such a big change that fear of the new would make me reluctant.
Still, if the alternative was a second Civil War, I’d probably dread that more.
It’s simple for me. Full all out civil war. All are welcome to leave Canada if they are not happy with it. Never forget it’s my country, all of it and no one is going to split it up without a major bloodletting as far as I am concerned.
I think if people want independence, then they should be able to vote and achieve it. That goes for Texas, Quebec, Karakalpakstan, Adjara, Northern Ireland or anywhere else. I might go with a “needs a 75% vote” as 50% + 1 might be too easy to lead to conflict, but when a strong majority want it, they should have it.
Hmmpph, the sooner we can get rid of Alex Salmond, Gordon Brown and a few others the better.
We should start a campaign to get rid of the Scots, they have an oversubidised economy due to some quirk in the way the Scottish grant was worked out.
If they leave the EU, so much the better, then we could impose work visas on them too, keep them out altogether. Passport control at Wallsend would suit me fine.
Is there any hope we could encourage them to secede? Probably not, they would never dare try to demand it seriously, they know we would not only call their bluff, we would bloody well do it!
If it were just some part of my country seceding over cultural or economic differences (and not in order to turn to the Dark Side); the secessionists had pursued their agenda by peaceful political means (and not by setting off car bombs or opening fire on federal military installations); there was a clear and convincing majority of the inhabitants of said region in favor of secession (not just 50%+1 of the people who bother to show up on some given Tuesday–“Hmm, there’s that bond issue…Some non-partisan judgeships…A couple of state constitutional amendments…Oh, and hey, did you know we’re voting on whether or not to declare independence?”); and adequate provision has been made to protect the basic rights of American citizens living in that territory (they’re not going to round up all the Yankees or Mainlanders or whoever and put them in re-education camps)…
Then I wouldn’t support civil war in order to keep them in the Union. But I wouldn’t vote in favor of secession, either, and I would be sad to see them go. I like my country, and I would hate to lose any part of it. I like that fact that it’s a big country, that despite all the homogenizing efforts of Wal-Mart and McDonald’s and suburbia that it still has some regional diversity to it (and certainly has vast physical diversity), and I like that I can get in my car and drive for a few thousand miles without having to worry about any damned border controls or having to justify the reason for my visit to any government official. I would personally not vote in favor of doing anything to diminish all that.
Your point is taken, but plenty of places in the world are subject to conflicting loyalties. How do we decide which one trumps the other? Serbs consider Kosovo the birthplace of their nation, but it’s also the Albanians’ country and they’re a majority there now. When Sudetenland was included into Czechoslovakia after WW1, it was against the German (Austrian) population’s wishes, and when it was annexed by Nazi Germany it was definitely against the Czech population’s will. In the case of Quebec, I know English Canadians consider it an integral part of their (our) country, but for me and my people it’s the only place in the world where we’re at home and no amount of French on cereal boxes is going to change that. Anglophones are the majority in all other provinces except part of New Brunswick, and they can act as such. The same analysis could be made with any part of the world that’s disputed between countries, or home to a self-determination movement.
Get rid of us? Keep us out altogether? That’s… wow.
Cite that the Scottish economy is over-subsidised? I hear this bandied about as fact whenever the issue of Scottish secession is discussed, but I’ve yet to see thorough and convincing statistics to back up the claim. I’m not saying it’s necessarily untrue but the numbers are definitely muddied.
In the absence of some huge social issue, I wouldn’t take any measures to prevent it. Not even a popular vote. Not here in the US. Who cares if I visit the state of California or the country of California? It would all be business as usual anyway. The border between CA and Nevada wouldn’t become some land-mined DMZ or something.
Does the use of political violence at some point in the autonomist movement’s history mean they forfeit the right to self-determination forever? Should Ireland have become an independent state? Do the Palestinians still have the right to eventually become an independent country, especially if they succeed in reining in the terrorists in their midst?
We all want to stamp out terrorism, but it is still used as a political/military tactic and as said before, someone’s terrorist is someone else’s freedom fighter.
In fairness, votes on independence usually have a very strong turnout. People tend to think this is important.
Well, being from Nevada, I wouldn’t stop the creation of a DMZ. 
Lincoln pretty much nailed it. This sums up my opinion on it and I’d fight tooth and nail to prevent any secession. If a state decided that it didn’t want to be part of our party for whatever selfish reasons I’d take that as an attack against the government. Secession would have massive implications from a national security and economic standpoint, and the voters of say, Texas, have no right to decide that me and the rest of the Americans no longer get the benefit to their resources and people. Texas is part of my country just as much as it is any Texan’s and they have no right to take that away from me.
Yes, you attack and I’d be signing up myself. Every state signed up to be part of this nation knowing the terms and knowing that it was a no-takesies-backsies. Every state owes it’s current existence and success to the Union that protected and cultivated it. Secession is not a local issue. The wishes of a state’s voters have no bearing on the decisions of the nation as a whole. It would take a majority of the entire nation to choose to change the nation, regardless of what any one subset wanted. The Civil War confirmed it as such, nothing has changed. Any people that seek to destroy and damage my country will be met with vigorous resistance regardless of their zipcode.
We’re a nation first, a state second.
The wishy-washy answer of course is “it depends”. Primarily it depends on what secession would do to the rest of the country, something that was also at issue during the Civil War. If a secessionist movement would more or less mean the collapse of the (rest of the) United States, then I might have to oppose it whatever its merits simply because I didn’t want to live in a balkanized North America constantly fighting border wars. Realistically, the legality of secession is held to have been decided in the case of Grant vs Lee, and its almost unimaginable that the federal government would ever permit a secession unless it were reduced to utter powerlessness.
In the case of the bolded, the majority don’t want to become independent, that was the problem.
Bear in mind the question was asked specifically about my country. I’m not aware of any region of the U.S. that is currently being violently repressed. If the Free North Dakota Movement (hypothetically) wants to campaign for a Free North Dakota, so long as they don’t start shooting at anybody or prematurely failing to pay their income taxes or obey other applicable laws, then the U.S. First Amendment says they should have a right to circulate literature, peaceably assemble, go door-to-door, put up billboards, set up Web pages, buy TV ads, and gradually win over the hearts and minds of their fellow North Dakotans, thus eventually winning a free and fair vote, even if I might personally find the whole thing deeply regrettable. (Of course we’re not going to let them keep all the ICBMs.)
But if they start out by shooting mailmen or bombing the local Social Security office, then I say to hell with them, even beyond my general Unionist sentiments. (I’m also not necessarily saying the hypothetical present-day Free North Dakota Movement is irredeemably tainted by the bombing campaign waged by the fictional Sons of the Northland back in 1903, or even 1973. Also, if they refuse to pay their federal taxes, but then politely go to jail as an act of civil disobedience, that’s one thing. If they refuse to pay their federal income tax on the grounds that they are Sovereign Citizens of the Sovereign State of North Dakota, and then ignore all the increasingly urgent letters they get from the IRS, and then when the federal agents or the local sheriff show up to seize the Supreme Headquarters of the Sovereign Government of Free North Dakota for back taxes and the FNDM starts shooting at people and gets in an armed standoff, then I say they aren’t pursuing peaceful political means for independence, and bring on the jackboots.)
Historically speaking, I would have, in principle at least, a certain amount of sympathy for various slave uprisings and American Indian wars, since those peoples were in fact being subjected to violent repression and were clearly in no position to either secede from American society (or assert their rights within it) by peaceful means.
I was being somewhat facetious. The real problem is if 90% of the eligible voters turn out–and the vote is 50%+1 (in either direction).
IfF Quebec (or any other province) were to secede from Canada by mutal consent, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Unilateral separation, however, is flatly a case of denying people their rights. I would support going to war over the matter and if that meant I was recalled to the Forces then I’d accept that.
Yes, I thought that maybe you were specifically speaking about the US, but I wanted to make sure.
Hmmmm. Well, if Quebecers democratically vote for independence, my loyalty is to Quebec first and foremost, even if the rest of the country doesn’t agree with our decision. If there is a war, I may be conscripted, but even if not I expect that I will volunteer to defend my new country.
Don’t worry though, this is all academic and I don’t expect anything close to what we’re detailing here to happen. In other words, Rick and I will not have to shoot at each other.
Except a somewhat arbitrary border was drawn so that they would have a majority in that territory. Northern Ireland and The Irish Free State were brand new political constructs in the 1920s. Although Unionists refer to their statelet as Ulster, it does not include the entirety of the historical Ulster within its borders. My opinion on NI these days is the UK can keep it, NI is not a cheap date and the ROI can’t afford it. 