The crisis in Spain

Where the Catalonian Crisis Came From

In what seems to have been the result of a boycott by "No" voters, of the 48% of those eligible who actually participated in the Catalonian plebiscite on independence perhaps 90% voted "Yes".

That is a result in stark contrast with recent polls showing support for independence only just above 40%.

And the whole process was illegal, anyway, though under the Spanish constitution it would be possible to effect, allow, or consider independence lawfully.

These are the points made by contemporary liberal onlookers, clearly very uncomfortable with the separatist movements within Europe's, NATO's, and the EU's core member states.

They could as well argue, but haven't, that I have seen, that basing so momentous a political event on a one time vote decided by a simple majority is ludicrous, particularly in the face of the fact that states with written constitutions do not allow even the smallest changes to them to be so easily - even frivolously - made.

Still, as for the vote and the process being illegal, the nationalist movements of Europe and elsewhere from the 19th Century on have almost all and almost always advanced their cause by unlawful means, none else having been made available by the powers that were.

Historically, liberals have been all in favor of those movements and did not cavil at their unlawful methods any more than they caviled, retrospectively, at the  revolutionary birth of the American and French Republics.

But lately they have been in a post-nationalist humor, opposing Israel's commitment to being a specifically Jewish state, for example, and condemning nationalist opposition to immigration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa, free movement of people among the states of the EU, membership in the EU, and among some the very existence of the EU.

It is the Buchananite right who love tribalism, now.