To me, self-determination, in the abstract, is absolutely moral.

I also believe in freedom of expression. But I think it is moral and necessary to place constraints on that freedom. Your megaphone can’t disturb my rest. The ideas you express can’t include specific calls to violence. Your freedom of expression doesn’t entitle you to lie on a contract, or in a court of law.

I also believe in private property. However, the right to own things and use or sell them in any way you want has limits. I think it would be immoral for a tycoon who rightfully owned a lot of land and entire forests to burn them to the ground on a whim. A nation whose development were seriously hampered because a person or group of people owned something that posed a threat (nuclear weapons, biological weapons), or happened to possess vital assets (the entire coastline, all the oil fields, the only river), would be right in destroying or reclaiming that property from their rightful owners. If at some point in the future the survival of human being depends to a large degree on certain natural resources (uranium, phosphorus, some other rare-earth elements, genome), it will be perfectly moral to confiscate that property from greedy oligarchs.

I think that the implementation of abstract rights, and the reasonable constraints we impose on them, matter too.

Let me summarise again a few facts about what’s happening in Catalonia, before I make my final point:

Catalonia is not under colonial domination. It is not under foreign occupation either. There is no “militar intervention” there. Catalonia has been part of Spain for centuries. In the democratic referendum in 1978, 95% of voters in Catalonia said yes to the current Constitution (the same one they’re now violating). Catalan citizens are not “oppressed” in any meaningful way. Catalonia enjoys a special fiscal status within Spain. The region is “rich”, by Spanish standards. Catalans are free to use their language and express their culture. The “referendum” is illegal. It contradicts the Constitution and other laws. It was approved by a single majority, and without discussion, in the regional parliament. It lacks support within Spain. It lacks international support. The terms of independence are unknown. The “referendum” is biased, and lacks transparency and any legal guarantees. The electoral register was compiled secretly and by parties with vested interests. Nobody knows for sure who was theoretically allowed to vote. The Catalan government hasn’t stayed neutral during the “campaign”. There has been a climate of intimidation and silencing of dissenters prior to the referendum, from both sides. After the farce was over, we saw footage and testimonies demonstrating all kinds of irregularities, multiple-voting and meddling in the recount. There was no campaign against independence, because every relevant party or institution, within Catalonia or elsewhere, that is not for Catalan independence, agreed that this “referendum” was wrong on so many levels.

If we saw just a few of these alarming signs, I could agree to a unilateral referendum to gain independence, even an imperfect one.

As I said at the beginning of my article, I am not opposed to Catalan independence. I am criticising the methods employed in the last few years, and this particular farce of a referendum.