It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.
You're making a fundamental mistake in conflating legality with democratic will.
Surely part of the democracy is the rule of the law, isn't it? I'm sure you can point to laws in the past that made a farce of democracy, but most of them aren't in modern democracies. You can think this one is particular is anti-democratic but most countries actually have similar laws against unilateral secession of a single region.
I'm not disagreeing, but just a semantic argument here. The referendum is absolutely democratic. But it is also illegal under the Spanish constitution. The problem is that the Spanish constitution and the judge's interpretation (which is straightforward but unfortunate) patently would disallow self determination through a referendum, which to me is democracy in its purest form. The only reason it's illegal is because…
There will be people here with more knowledge about international constitutional law but I’m pretty sure almost every state has rules in place to prevent it from disintegrating. Otherwise, what would stop oneself to declare one’s own little piece of land as independent (with yourself voting for it) and stop paying taxes?
Two problems with that:
1) I'm not sure that would be bad
2) Some areas are already relatively independent. Wouldn't harm to make them a bit more so.
It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.
To say that a region trying to forge independence is illegal is true by definition because wherever you are the law will enshrine the status quo, but it's not a meaningful statement. And to say that there's no choice but to apply the law isn't true, when it comes to questions this big the system of: make law=> judicial system interprets=> police enforce breaks down, because it's a political question not a legal quest…
We can surely discuss the implementation of a very clear judicial order but at the end of the day those things are difficult and doesn't change that in principle that referendum wasn't democratic and needed to be stopped and the forces of the state employed in that.
It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.
I'm not disagreeing, but just a semantic argument here. The referendum is absolutely democratic. But it is also illegal under the Spanish constitution. The problem is that the Spanish constitution and the judge's interpretation (which is straightforward but unfortunate) patently would disallow self determination through a referendum, which to me is democracy in its purest form. The only reason it's illegal is because…
Why is the referendum democratic? is it your opinion that unilateral secession of any region, under any circumstances is democratic by definition? I find that very strange. I don't agree.
It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.
The violence part is a disgrace and likely extremely counterproductive. But there is not much democracy in the catalan referendum. It's unconstitutional, and there is little guarantee it's fair to the castellano half of the catalan population which is also much more likely to refrain from voting. The referendum will probably not reflect the will of the catalan population.
It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.
We could set up a poll in HN and call it a referendum, it would still be bullshit. The way the spanish govt acts is indeed wrong and stupid , but this is not democratic process. They could let the vote go through; its illegal anyway and its highly unlikely the international community will consider it valid.
From the shitshow Spain put out on the BBC in their interview the other day this outcome seemed inevitable. The guy basically said "they shouldn't have an election because they'll lose and that's why they shouldn't even bother having this illegal vote at all". People need to remember how shitty Spain's economy is/was after the 2008 collapse. People talked about them in the same breath as Greece, Italy, and Ireland.
It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to suppress the democratic process.
It's not democratic, it's illegal and the justice system has ordered its dismantling. Think what you will, disagree with the law if you want but at this point the government is forced to apply the law. They don't have a choice.
Women's suffrage used to be illegal. Black movements in the US used to be illegal. Fight against apartheid used to be illegal. Now we have Spanish police beating ordinary people in the age of Internet. This is beyond Streisand-effect stupid. They should have done British style referendum, almost surely "Independencia" would have lost, and then could stick the result to the faces of local population for the next two decades. Now they basically made people there realize their opinion doesn't matter and convinced undecided people they're better on their own. At best they end up with a velvet-divorce in Czechoslovakian style, at worst... Well, a can of worms. It's a complete BS to also mention Catalonia would be out of EU; as the 2nd most advanced region of Spain EU would be more than happy to quickly accept them than to risk Russia/China making a foothold there. Oligarchs there should have played it the same way as in EEU, where they kept control of local economy and gave people meaningless concessions to keep them happy, and continued medial control of population. I am wondering if they really became so stupid or if they did actually plan Catalonian independence. Both alternatives are sadly likely.
The fact that many politicians still don't know about the Streisand effect never ceases to amaze me. They should have let this slide and no one would have cared, heck most people can't spot Catalunya on a map and now it's all over international news with voters in blood including women and elderly people.
