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Venice votes 89% to secede from Italy

TrainedMonkey 13y ago
"Campaigners say that the Rome government receives around 71 billion euros each year in tax from Venice - some 21 billion euros less than it gets back in investment and services." [0] There does appear to be significant economical imbalance, however it would take blood being spilled before powers that be would let any kind of secession stand. [0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes-split-Italy-89-citys-residents-opt-form-new-independent-state.html#ixzz2wvv3Ls20 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes...
- quesera 13y ago
  There are several US states that would be happy with a 77% return on federal tax revenues collected from their residents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_b... Good thing Minnesota and Florida are so far away from each other. Ya, you betcha!
- jmspring 13y ago
  Given California gets about $0.80 per $1 of taxes sent to the Federal government back in terms of Federal spending, I can understand the Venetians in this desire.
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    I mean this in the most generous possible way: good luck and please go. One of the best possible outcomes for all Americans and humans would be the the breakup of the USA as it currently exists. California could probably get that party started in the best possible way.
    - stefan_kendall3 13y ago
      I think California is more likely to split into multiple states before any of them consider secession. Shaking up the state borders might give a few states pause, though.
      - mpyne 13y ago
        You can't change the California state borders without getting the affected states' legislatures to also ratify the change, as well as Congress. Simply splitting California up would also require action by their legislature in addition to approval by Congress.
    - jmspring 13y ago
      As a native Californian, I'd love to break from the union more than the idiotic "6 Californias" currently scheduled for the next election. Yes there are differences in the state, but as a whole it is way more suited to be self sustaining than a lot of states sucking on the Federal largess.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        "Six Californias" isn't scheduled for any election, its approved to begin gathering signatures for a petition to put it on the ballot -- and it would be on the ballot the election after next if it gets enough signatures.
        jmspring 13y ago
        Sorry, I meant the ballot initiative. Given the money behind it, I suspect it will qualify and basically figured it is a given to be on the ballot.
- ronaldx 13y ago
  > it would take blood being spilled before powers that be would let any kind of secession stand. It's difficult to understand what blood would be spilled within the EU. The UN constitutionally stands for the right to self-determination and that needs to be respected. For now, that's difficult within the EU is because several states are in danger of losing their integrity: UK, Spain, Belgium, Italy, perhaps even Germany. No country wants to let the others split up because of the potential consequences for themselves, so they make political statements supporting the others (but not more than statements). In the end, one properly official referendum falling on this side will force some fair rules of secession to be drawn up: I don't see any option but to respect these movements.
ekianjo 13y ago
> Given that Obama recently declared all secession movements illegitimate (except those supported by the US Government, of course) it’s unknown how much support Venice can expect from the international community. What? Obama is clearly off track here. The right to secede is in the American constitution from its very beginning. Any State in the US can decide to become independent if their population really wants to. Whether it makes sense is another story, but it certainly would not regarded as illegitimate.
- mixmastamyk 13y ago
  The civil war comes to mind. However, I do wish there were a US state separated from the federal government.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    The civil war was unlawful. Lincoln was against the secession and waged war against the States which were in their Right from the beginning. It's not because Lincoln's side won that it made it right.
    - mixmastamyk 13y ago
      I'm not passing judgment... the reality is likely that Washington wouldn't allow it.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      The secessions were unlawful. After all, when the Northern states were compelled to return fugitive slaves to the South, that was done on the basis of text in the Constitution that was binding on all of the states (namely, about returning those fleeing from bondage to their masters). In fact the Constitution included many regulations and prohibitions regarding the power of individual states, so it can't be claimed that the Constitution wasn't the ultimate arbiter of power within the federal framework of government. So with that in mind a unilateral decision by a single state to change the Constitutional government for all of the states can hardly have been legal. And even the parts of the Constitution talking about the territorial integrity of a single state all include the clause the Congress must approve the change in addition to the state itself. If a state really wanted to secede it would have to have come up with some legal procedure at the national level from which to even make that change possible. Probably by using the Constitutional Amendment process (which is, after all, the built-in designed mechanism for altering the federal framework of government).
ekianjo 13y ago
By the way, as the article mentions, Italy was almost never unified as a country in History. It's a VERY recent creation (just before WW1) and during more than 1000 years it was actually a jigsaw puzzle of small states. Germany has a longer History of federation, though. EDIT: You can actually see this very clearly in the video showing the evolution of borders in Europe (that was shared last week on HN).
- jerf 13y ago
  I think one of the lessons we'll take away from the 19th and 20th centuries is that just smashing some things together and calling it a "country" by fiat from people hundreds or thousands of miles away doesn't do anybody any good.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    I agree, yet that's still the model for all the major developed nations around the world. Which is kind of depressing while there could be many more ways to make people participate in how things are run.
  - wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
    Indeed. And maybe that straight lines on a map of Africa do not countries make.
  - chrismcb 13y ago
    And the 18th century, and the 17th and the 16th and .... Countries have been conquering and absorbing other countries for a long time
    - jerf 13y ago
      No, this is different than conquest. Conquest is at least semi-stable, for various rather politically-incorrect reasons. I'm talking about a relatively recent phenomenon, where we arbitrarily jam countries together and expect them to work. Even the juice of democracy can't always hold these countries together. (I think a democracy can only work when you've got shifting alliances that need to continually compete for the voters, as the stable democracies have. Most countries have lots of parties whose fortunes ebb and wane, the US does it slightly differently with its two major coalitions but the effect is the same as the coalitions positions have to shift over time to compete for the middle. When you've got ethnic blocks that vote in solid blocks for their ethnic candidate regardless of anything else, you don't have a functioning Democracy; you've got an Ethnocracy, disguised as a Democracy, and that's not the same thing.)
tim333 13y ago
I guess having free trade and free movement of people within the EU makes this kind of thing practical. I'm not sure Venice will happen but Scotland may.
alex-g 13y ago
This was not a referendum, nor even a proper opinion poll - just a partisan petition. The figure of 89% is completely meaningless. Both the Daily Mail, and this article, prefer to make their own political point (we hate government and taxes) rather than engage in real news reporting or analysis.
- dimitar 13y ago
  "We hate government and taxes" should be the proper Mises institute motto. I'm not convinced that taxing and revenue issues are a major reason countries secede (or choose to unite). Very often seceding states are actually getting more than they pay in taxes. Usually a person supports secession because of perceived oppression. "Part of my taxes on average might go to another area" doesn't seem to be a major reason, unless you believe that territory is somehow making your life worse.
  - kcorbitt 13y ago
    I can't speak for other secession movements, but I lived in Catalonia for two years and some of the loudest arguments for independence there were economic. The province has the highest standard of living in Spain. There was definitely a feeling of resentment, based on their perception that they were carrying a disproportionate percentage of the tax burden of trying to dig Spain out of its economic crisis.
    - dimitar 13y ago
      Please ask your separatist friends if they would support independence from Spain if they carried a disproportionately small part of the tax burden. I'm guessing they still will.
      - kiliancs 13y ago
        I can say that they would. The movement towards independence has existed for a long time, and the national question of Catalonia has always been on the table, with several frustated democratic declarations of independence before the dictatorship and a constant reminder from the Catalan Parliament that the Catalan people won't ever give up their right to self determination. It's only recently, however, that the movement has become so big that most Catalans, including many that don't want independence, think that the only way to solve this is to hold a referendum and find out how many people actually want Catalonia to be independent. While the economy is one of the factors that contributed to the current scenario, the main reason why many Catalans that believed that it was possible for Catalonia to develop adequately within Spain have changed their mind is that recently Spain (the Government, Congress and its Judiciary institutions) have directly attacked all the steps Catalonia was taking to try and feel integrated in Spain. As an example, the attacks to the Catalan educational system (the Spanish Minister of Education said that their purpose was to "spaniardize Catalan children") and to the new 2006 Statute of Autonomy, which brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in Barcelona. At this point Catalans simply don't think that Spain wants to be a place where they can feel confortable, and the idea of being a normal country that can interact directly and in equality with all the other nations just seems right to most. Shouldn't all nations relate to each other in this way?
lelandbatey 13y ago
I'm a little confused by this part of the quote: > 'Although history never repeats itself, we are now experiencing a strong return of little nations...` I've never heard the phrase "history never repeats itself", I've only ever heard "history repeats itself." Is this a saying that comes out of Italy, or am I just grossly uninformed?
- brownbat 13y ago
  Let's see... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=history+never+repeats+itself%2C+history+repeats+itself&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=history+never+... Looks like "history repeats itself" is clearly the more frequent formulation.
- arg01 13y ago
  Some of the common quotes: "History never repeats itself, but it rhymes" -Mark Twain Split enz also has a popular song with "History never repeats. I tell myself before I go to sleep". The other quote you're your probably thinking of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -George Santayana So all in all I'd say you're right on the thrust of the generally popular quotes but not necessarily on their wording.
chrismcb 13y ago
" Italy is a made-up country," uhm, aren't they all just made up? Granted Venice used to be its own country, but still all countries are made up.
- ahallock 13y ago
  Well, they're just conceptual entities, they don't actually exist in reality, like numbers. People make them up, other people confuse them reality, and then you have major problems, like nationalism.
- pliny 13y ago
  Some countries are more made up than others. Most of the countries in Africa and the Middle East were not formed by popular movements for self determination, but rather the result of foreign (mostly West European) political considerations, the people living in many of those countries - in aggregate - have no common ground, they associate with some ethnic group that does not identify with the state and are often seriously opposed to their union with other ethnic groups (Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda are one extreme example of this; Sunnis, Shias and Christians in most Arab states are another). Most European states are less made up than almost all non-European states, but Italy is much less a result of a group of people who chose to unite (or secede) than, say, the Balkan states in their current form.
blaze33 13y ago
The article doesn't mention that it was an Internet vote with no legal value. > It will be interesting to see what Rome does. Will they send an army to take their tax money? They'll still have to pay there taxes, this is either misinformed or following some agenda. This is more factual: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rtl.fr%2Factualites%2Finfo%2Finternational%2Farticle%2Fitalie-les-habitants-de-venise-votent-a-89-pour-leur-independance-7770649879&act=url http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=...
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > The article doesn't mention that it was an Internet vote with no legal value. Even if it were NOT on Internet, it would not have any legal value as long as the Italian State does not recognize its validity. Which they would surely never agree to.
- rspeer 13y ago
  Their agenda is, in fact, written in capital letters at the top of the page. I'm startled to see this article being presented as news instead of opinion.
jkldotio 13y ago
The effect of the EU being on a federal trajectory, albeit increasingly contested, is interesting here. The independence movement in Scotland, and I expect this applies to Catalonia and Venice, paints a picture of independence within the EU. Scottish nationalists regularly talk about moving away from the UK model and towards a Scandinavian model, which is probably not what the average reader of mises.org has in mind when they think about secession. Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK. There are a few legal academics that dispute that legal point but their case doesn't sound very convincing to me and the EU institutions have more or less said they will have to reapply. However Scotland does have the advantage of having a fairly good faith partner in the rest of the UK if they do leave. If the current disputes over the pound and the debt don't turn vicious then a huge stack of treaties being signed all in one day to make it all legal becomes imaginable. I think Barcelona-Madrid and Venice-Rome relations might take a somewhat different path.
- teh_klev 13y ago
  "Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK" Citation please. Please stop recycling UK Mainstream Media "fag packet legal opinion" about whether Scotland would or would not have to leave the EU before being re-admitted via a lengthy application process. And before you cite Barossa, that was one man's incorrect personal opinion. Thus far the EU has not ruled in any sort of legal way as to whether Article 48 (method of treaty amendment) or Article 49 (applications to join the EU) of the Treaty of Union would apply to Scotland. Thus far the Scottish Government would like to use Article 48 rather than Article 49. Because there as never been a precedent of a new state seceding from an existing member state within the EU the whole position is untried. edit: Disclosure, I am campaigning for Scottish Independence.
- mxfh 13y ago
  In the mid 90s∗, right after the fall of the wall and a general loss of interest in the European Union, the idea of a Europe of the Regions was being pushed. The vision was to transform the EU from a organization of European nation states into a heterogeneous federation a autonomous regions. Nationalism being superseded by Regionalism under an European umbrella giving regions with a strong identity of their own independence from their respective nation states. I also has it's weaknesses: the ‘Europe of the Regions’ project has the same dangers of underestimating the continuing economic importance of the state, overestimating the coherence of most regions, and conceding too much ground to the dominant neo-liberal ideology which would weaken the state's intervention and redistributive capabilities. Indeed, in some richer regions (for example, in northern Italy), regionalisms have been partly motivated by opposition to transfers from themselves to despised poorer regions, and nationalism has no monopoly on supremacist racist attitudes. Contrary to the benign vision, some regionalisms can be very parochial, even xenophobic, as well as progressive – they are not inherently either one or the other. [1] In contrast to that the current political climate seems to like to challenge the very idea of a unified Europe; the future is very unclear in every aspect. ∗The Committee of the Regions just turns 20 this year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_the_Regions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_the_Regions Here is is map of western European regions with seperatist movements from the 70s: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/geography/europe-the-regions/content-section-3.2 http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people... [1] http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/geography/europe-the-regions/content-section-5.4 http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people...
ebbv 13y ago
A klaxon goes off in my head whenever I see phrases like "Italy is a made-up country." All countries are made-up. How else would they exist? What's objectionable is when an outside empire comes in and says "You guys are all one country now." But that's not the case with Italy, or Europe in general, who are the ones who generally did that to others.
- logicchains 13y ago
  >What's objectionable is when an outside empire comes in and says "You guys are all one country now." Didn't the Roman Empire do something like this to Europe?
  - bitkrieg 13y ago
    Nations / Nationalism didn't really exist back then.
raldi 13y ago
Why don't more cities secede from their surrounding areas? For example, New York State takes so much more from New York City (in the form of taxes, mostly) than it gives back, and it prevents the city from things that are in its own interest (e.g., congestion pricing or a commuter tax). So why didn't the city break away a long time ago?
- dec0dedab0de 13y ago
  If they tried to break away from the USA they would have the military knocking on their door. If they somehow managed to operate as an independent city like DC, they would lose the right to vote for senators and president.
  - raldi 13y ago
    Actually, I was thinking about why they don't become their own state. It seems to be completely in their own interest, except I think the US constitution forbids them from doing it without their parent state's permission.
rsynnott 13y ago
I assume it will be adopting Dogecoin as its currency.

"Campaigners say that the Rome government receives around 71 billion euros each year in tax from Venice - some 21 billion euros less than it gets back in investment and services." [0] There does appear to be significant economical imbalance, however it would take blood being spilled before powers that be would let any kind of secession stand. [0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes-split-Italy-89-citys-residents-opt-form-new-independent-state.html#ixzz2wvv3Ls20 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2586531/Venice-votes...

quesera 13y ago
There are several US states that would be happy with a 77% return on federal tax revenues collected from their residents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_b... Good thing Minnesota and Florida are so far away from each other. Ya, you betcha!
jmspring 13y ago
Given California gets about $0.80 per $1 of taxes sent to the Federal government back in terms of Federal spending, I can understand the Venetians in this desire.
- jessaustin 13y ago
  I mean this in the most generous possible way: good luck and please go. One of the best possible outcomes for all Americans and humans would be the the breakup of the USA as it currently exists. California could probably get that party started in the best possible way.
  - stefan_kendall3 13y ago
    I think California is more likely to split into multiple states before any of them consider secession. Shaking up the state borders might give a few states pause, though.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      You can't change the California state borders without getting the affected states' legislatures to also ratify the change, as well as Congress. Simply splitting California up would also require action by their legislature in addition to approval by Congress.
  - jmspring 13y ago
    As a native Californian, I'd love to break from the union more than the idiotic "6 Californias" currently scheduled for the next election. Yes there are differences in the state, but as a whole it is way more suited to be self sustaining than a lot of states sucking on the Federal largess.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      "Six Californias" isn't scheduled for any election, its approved to begin gathering signatures for a petition to put it on the ballot -- and it would be on the ballot the election after next if it gets enough signatures.
      - jmspring 13y ago
        Sorry, I meant the ballot initiative. Given the money behind it, I suspect it will qualify and basically figured it is a given to be on the ballot.
ronaldx 13y ago
> it would take blood being spilled before powers that be would let any kind of secession stand. It's difficult to understand what blood would be spilled within the EU. The UN constitutionally stands for the right to self-determination and that needs to be respected. For now, that's difficult within the EU is because several states are in danger of losing their integrity: UK, Spain, Belgium, Italy, perhaps even Germany. No country wants to let the others split up because of the potential consequences for themselves, so they make political statements supporting the others (but not more than statements). In the end, one properly official referendum falling on this side will force some fair rules of secession to be drawn up: I don't see any option but to respect these movements.

ekianjo 13y ago

> Given that Obama recently declared all secession movements illegitimate (except those supported by the US Government, of course) it’s unknown how much support Venice can expect from the international community. What? Obama is clearly off track here. The right to secede is in the American constitution from its very beginning. Any State in the US can decide to become independent if their population really wants to. Whether it makes sense is another story, but it certainly would not regarded as illegitimate.

mixmastamyk 13y ago
The civil war comes to mind. However, I do wish there were a US state separated from the federal government.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  The civil war was unlawful. Lincoln was against the secession and waged war against the States which were in their Right from the beginning. It's not because Lincoln's side won that it made it right.
  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    I'm not passing judgment... the reality is likely that Washington wouldn't allow it.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    The secessions were unlawful. After all, when the Northern states were compelled to return fugitive slaves to the South, that was done on the basis of text in the Constitution that was binding on all of the states (namely, about returning those fleeing from bondage to their masters). In fact the Constitution included many regulations and prohibitions regarding the power of individual states, so it can't be claimed that the Constitution wasn't the ultimate arbiter of power within the federal framework of government. So with that in mind a unilateral decision by a single state to change the Constitutional government for all of the states can hardly have been legal. And even the parts of the Constitution talking about the territorial integrity of a single state all include the clause the Congress must approve the change in addition to the state itself. If a state really wanted to secede it would have to have come up with some legal procedure at the national level from which to even make that change possible. Probably by using the Constitutional Amendment process (which is, after all, the built-in designed mechanism for altering the federal framework of government).

ekianjo 13y ago

By the way, as the article mentions, Italy was almost never unified as a country in History. It's a VERY recent creation (just before WW1) and during more than 1000 years it was actually a jigsaw puzzle of small states. Germany has a longer History of federation, though. EDIT: You can actually see this very clearly in the video showing the evolution of borders in Europe (that was shared last week on HN).

jerf 13y ago
I think one of the lessons we'll take away from the 19th and 20th centuries is that just smashing some things together and calling it a "country" by fiat from people hundreds or thousands of miles away doesn't do anybody any good.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  I agree, yet that's still the model for all the major developed nations around the world. Which is kind of depressing while there could be many more ways to make people participate in how things are run.
- wrongc0ntinent 13y ago
  Indeed. And maybe that straight lines on a map of Africa do not countries make.
- chrismcb 13y ago
  And the 18th century, and the 17th and the 16th and .... Countries have been conquering and absorbing other countries for a long time
  - jerf 13y ago
    No, this is different than conquest. Conquest is at least semi-stable, for various rather politically-incorrect reasons. I'm talking about a relatively recent phenomenon, where we arbitrarily jam countries together and expect them to work. Even the juice of democracy can't always hold these countries together. (I think a democracy can only work when you've got shifting alliances that need to continually compete for the voters, as the stable democracies have. Most countries have lots of parties whose fortunes ebb and wane, the US does it slightly differently with its two major coalitions but the effect is the same as the coalitions positions have to shift over time to compete for the middle. When you've got ethnic blocks that vote in solid blocks for their ethnic candidate regardless of anything else, you don't have a functioning Democracy; you've got an Ethnocracy, disguised as a Democracy, and that's not the same thing.)

tim333 13y ago

I guess having free trade and free movement of people within the EU makes this kind of thing practical. I'm not sure Venice will happen but Scotland may.

alex-g 13y ago

This was not a referendum, nor even a proper opinion poll - just a partisan petition. The figure of 89% is completely meaningless. Both the Daily Mail, and this article, prefer to make their own political point (we hate government and taxes) rather than engage in real news reporting or analysis.

dimitar 13y ago
"We hate government and taxes" should be the proper Mises institute motto. I'm not convinced that taxing and revenue issues are a major reason countries secede (or choose to unite). Very often seceding states are actually getting more than they pay in taxes. Usually a person supports secession because of perceived oppression. "Part of my taxes on average might go to another area" doesn't seem to be a major reason, unless you believe that territory is somehow making your life worse.
- kcorbitt 13y ago
  I can't speak for other secession movements, but I lived in Catalonia for two years and some of the loudest arguments for independence there were economic. The province has the highest standard of living in Spain. There was definitely a feeling of resentment, based on their perception that they were carrying a disproportionate percentage of the tax burden of trying to dig Spain out of its economic crisis.
  - dimitar 13y ago
    Please ask your separatist friends if they would support independence from Spain if they carried a disproportionately small part of the tax burden. I'm guessing they still will.
    - kiliancs 13y ago
      I can say that they would. The movement towards independence has existed for a long time, and the national question of Catalonia has always been on the table, with several frustated democratic declarations of independence before the dictatorship and a constant reminder from the Catalan Parliament that the Catalan people won't ever give up their right to self determination. It's only recently, however, that the movement has become so big that most Catalans, including many that don't want independence, think that the only way to solve this is to hold a referendum and find out how many people actually want Catalonia to be independent. While the economy is one of the factors that contributed to the current scenario, the main reason why many Catalans that believed that it was possible for Catalonia to develop adequately within Spain have changed their mind is that recently Spain (the Government, Congress and its Judiciary institutions) have directly attacked all the steps Catalonia was taking to try and feel integrated in Spain. As an example, the attacks to the Catalan educational system (the Spanish Minister of Education said that their purpose was to "spaniardize Catalan children") and to the new 2006 Statute of Autonomy, which brought hundreds of thousands to the streets in Barcelona. At this point Catalans simply don't think that Spain wants to be a place where they can feel confortable, and the idea of being a normal country that can interact directly and in equality with all the other nations just seems right to most. Shouldn't all nations relate to each other in this way?

lelandbatey 13y ago

I'm a little confused by this part of the quote: > 'Although history never repeats itself, we are now experiencing a strong return of little nations...` I've never heard the phrase "history never repeats itself", I've only ever heard "history repeats itself." Is this a saying that comes out of Italy, or am I just grossly uninformed?

brownbat 13y ago
Let's see... https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=history+never+repeats+itself%2C+history+repeats+itself&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=history+never+... Looks like "history repeats itself" is clearly the more frequent formulation.
arg01 13y ago
Some of the common quotes: "History never repeats itself, but it rhymes" -Mark Twain Split enz also has a popular song with "History never repeats. I tell myself before I go to sleep". The other quote you're your probably thinking of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -George Santayana So all in all I'd say you're right on the thrust of the generally popular quotes but not necessarily on their wording.

chrismcb 13y ago

" Italy is a made-up country," uhm, aren't they all just made up? Granted Venice used to be its own country, but still all countries are made up.

ahallock 13y ago
Well, they're just conceptual entities, they don't actually exist in reality, like numbers. People make them up, other people confuse them reality, and then you have major problems, like nationalism.
pliny 13y ago
Some countries are more made up than others. Most of the countries in Africa and the Middle East were not formed by popular movements for self determination, but rather the result of foreign (mostly West European) political considerations, the people living in many of those countries - in aggregate - have no common ground, they associate with some ethnic group that does not identify with the state and are often seriously opposed to their union with other ethnic groups (Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda are one extreme example of this; Sunnis, Shias and Christians in most Arab states are another). Most European states are less made up than almost all non-European states, but Italy is much less a result of a group of people who chose to unite (or secede) than, say, the Balkan states in their current form.

blaze33 13y ago

The article doesn't mention that it was an Internet vote with no legal value. > It will be interesting to see what Rome does. Will they send an army to take their tax money? They'll still have to pay there taxes, this is either misinformed or following some agenda. This is more factual: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rtl.fr%2Factualites%2Finfo%2Finternational%2Farticle%2Fitalie-les-habitants-de-venise-votent-a-89-pour-leur-independance-7770649879&act=url http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fr&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

ekianjo 13y ago
> The article doesn't mention that it was an Internet vote with no legal value. Even if it were NOT on Internet, it would not have any legal value as long as the Italian State does not recognize its validity. Which they would surely never agree to.
rspeer 13y ago
Their agenda is, in fact, written in capital letters at the top of the page. I'm startled to see this article being presented as news instead of opinion.

jkldotio 13y ago

The effect of the EU being on a federal trajectory, albeit increasingly contested, is interesting here. The independence movement in Scotland, and I expect this applies to Catalonia and Venice, paints a picture of independence within the EU. Scottish nationalists regularly talk about moving away from the UK model and towards a Scandinavian model, which is probably not what the average reader of mises.org has in mind when they think about secession. Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK. There are a few legal academics that dispute that legal point but their case doesn't sound very convincing to me and the EU institutions have more or less said they will have to reapply. However Scotland does have the advantage of having a fairly good faith partner in the rest of the UK if they do leave. If the current disputes over the pound and the debt don't turn vicious then a huge stack of treaties being signed all in one day to make it all legal becomes imaginable. I think Barcelona-Madrid and Venice-Rome relations might take a somewhat different path.

teh_klev 13y ago
"Of course it's very complex as it seems the weight of legal opinion is that Scotland will have to leave the EU if they leave the UK" Citation please. Please stop recycling UK Mainstream Media "fag packet legal opinion" about whether Scotland would or would not have to leave the EU before being re-admitted via a lengthy application process. And before you cite Barossa, that was one man's incorrect personal opinion. Thus far the EU has not ruled in any sort of legal way as to whether Article 48 (method of treaty amendment) or Article 49 (applications to join the EU) of the Treaty of Union would apply to Scotland. Thus far the Scottish Government would like to use Article 48 rather than Article 49. Because there as never been a precedent of a new state seceding from an existing member state within the EU the whole position is untried. edit: Disclosure, I am campaigning for Scottish Independence.
mxfh 13y ago
In the mid 90s∗, right after the fall of the wall and a general loss of interest in the European Union, the idea of a Europe of the Regions was being pushed. The vision was to transform the EU from a organization of European nation states into a heterogeneous federation a autonomous regions. Nationalism being superseded by Regionalism under an European umbrella giving regions with a strong identity of their own independence from their respective nation states. I also has it's weaknesses: the ‘Europe of the Regions’ project has the same dangers of underestimating the continuing economic importance of the state, overestimating the coherence of most regions, and conceding too much ground to the dominant neo-liberal ideology which would weaken the state's intervention and redistributive capabilities. Indeed, in some richer regions (for example, in northern Italy), regionalisms have been partly motivated by opposition to transfers from themselves to despised poorer regions, and nationalism has no monopoly on supremacist racist attitudes. Contrary to the benign vision, some regionalisms can be very parochial, even xenophobic, as well as progressive – they are not inherently either one or the other. [1] In contrast to that the current political climate seems to like to challenge the very idea of a unified Europe; the future is very unclear in every aspect. ∗The Committee of the Regions just turns 20 this year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_the_Regions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_the_Regions Here is is map of western European regions with seperatist movements from the 70s: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/geography/europe-the-regions/content-section-3.2 http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people... [1] http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people/geography/europe-the-regions/content-section-5.4 http://www.open.edu/openlearn/society/politics-policy-people...

ebbv 13y ago

A klaxon goes off in my head whenever I see phrases like "Italy is a made-up country." All countries are made-up. How else would they exist? What's objectionable is when an outside empire comes in and says "You guys are all one country now." But that's not the case with Italy, or Europe in general, who are the ones who generally did that to others.

logicchains 13y ago
>What's objectionable is when an outside empire comes in and says "You guys are all one country now." Didn't the Roman Empire do something like this to Europe?
- bitkrieg 13y ago
  Nations / Nationalism didn't really exist back then.

raldi 13y ago

Why don't more cities secede from their surrounding areas? For example, New York State takes so much more from New York City (in the form of taxes, mostly) than it gives back, and it prevents the city from things that are in its own interest (e.g., congestion pricing or a commuter tax). So why didn't the city break away a long time ago?

dec0dedab0de 13y ago
If they tried to break away from the USA they would have the military knocking on their door. If they somehow managed to operate as an independent city like DC, they would lose the right to vote for senators and president.
- raldi 13y ago
  Actually, I was thinking about why they don't become their own state. It seems to be completely in their own interest, except I think the US constitution forbids them from doing it without their parent state's permission.

rsynnott 13y ago

I assume it will be adopting Dogecoin as its currency.