system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: I don't see anything "illegal" about Crimeans voting to become a part of Russia.

I think that what we're seeing here is democracy when it's convenient.  Ukraine decided to break apart from the Soviet Union, and that's fine; but if the Crimea doesn't want to be a part of the Ukraine and they win a referendum (2/3 majority) to become a part of Russia, I don't see anything wrong with that.  

To do otherwise, is extremely shortsighted in my view, because Ukraine is going to have a restive province on their hands with a powerful backer making a military crackdown/ occupation inevitable.  Further down the road we may see something akin to an IRA develop.  This blood will not only be on the hands of Ukrainians but the UN as well since they seek to deny them their democratic voice in the recent referendum.  

However, I do have one caveat in this case:  I think that a simple majority would not be sufficient to give Crimea to Russia.  It would have to be a 2/3 supermajority.
gpt
The problem is that most countries don't work that way.  California can't secede from the United States even with 100% of the vote, no more than San Francisco could secede from California.

But that sounds very undemocratic, doesn't it?  However, when running a country (as opposed to say a loose confederation) you need to know that there is stability.  It's hard to build an airbase, or an oil reserve, or a research lab in an area if that area might decide to leave.  Or if a massive earthquake hits the Eastern part of the country and the West wants to leave to avoid paying for the cleanup.

Then you have things like who makes up the military.  Do you need to make sure that you have only segmented regiments, so if one state leaves, you can just split off their share?

That doesn't even get in to things like currency, trade agreements, pipelines, and borders.

Finally, what happens to the people who grew up in one area and moved to another for work?  Where do they belong?  What is their citizenship?

It's not as simple as you make it out to be.