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Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#51

Post by patrickaljord »

Findeton wrote: post #31

I'm from Spain (Madrid) and I support the referendum, because I'm an economic libertarian and I support the freedom of association and smaller States. BTW, this is not a real referendum, as there are no guarantees. Of course, the reason why there are no democratic guarantees is because of the actions of the Spanish government. But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Com…

As a libertarian you should support smaller government though and a Catalan government would most likely be much smaller.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#52

Post by crdoconnor »

lz400 wrote: post #24
bitL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

That's a very obvious fallacy. Women's suffrage used to be legal, therefore all laws are wrong? or, the law I don't like is wrong?

The fallacy is your presumption that because something is illegal, it cannot be democratic.

It's illegal to hold a vote like this in North Korea too and the judicial process would be similarly "forced" to follow the law. Still democratic.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#53

Post by ghaff »

protomyth wrote: post #25
bjourne wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. But what if the inhabitants of the Navajo Nation ( http://www.nec.navajo-nsn.gov/portals/0/TEC%20US%20Map.png ) demanded sovereignty? The US would likely suppress its self-determination in exactly the same way.

Nah, these days the US government would just ignore them. It’s not like they take much of an interest in any of the tribal governments, unless it can get some politician some votes. A better example would be California or Texas. I’m pretty sure we would not see the preemptive harsh measures Spain has engaged in.

Fully agree. If California put a secession question on as a ballot referendum, think what you will of the current state of the federal government but I have a lot of trouble believing we'd see federal troops preventing people from voting.

Obviously the situations are somewhat different. While I can actually imagine something wacky like that getting on the California ballot, it's not something very many people in California or elsewhere would take seriously.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#55

Post by Lazare »

chki wrote: post #36
patrickaljord wrote: post #20

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.

I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control ove…

> By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control over a part of its own territory.

I couldn't disagree more.

If the referendum is not part of the legal process, then it's not binding, but participating in it should not be illegal, and absolutely should not be suppressed with force.

There's a vast chasm between "we do not recognise this referendum because it was not held in accordance with the constitution" and "we will use violence to stop you doing this thing".

> I'm also quite sure that their international reputation is not really that important to them when the state itself is endangered.

Again, all it takes is to say "no, actually, no referendum was held, as the laws do not permit it. All you did was hold a symbolic protest", and boom, the state isn't threatened. Unless, of course, a majority of the broader state is sympathetic to the symbolic protest. Which, if so, would explain the seeming desperation to prevent it, but at the same time further undermines any moral justification for doing so.

In short, either there was no need to suppress the voting, or there was no moral reason to suppress the voting. The more the Spanish state is threatened by a symbolic, non-binding, unconstitutional referendum, the less the Spanish state is deserving of defence.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#56

Post by barry-cotter »

chki wrote: post #36
patrickaljord wrote: post #20

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.

I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control ove…

> The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities.

This isn’t true. The speed limit in the US comes with the proviso +2 or 3 miles per hour, unless the police officer feels like pulling you over, in Ireland the drink driving laws started being enforced with any degree of vigour in the 90’s despite being much older than that, and the Netherlands’ drug laws as written aren’t much different from its neighbours but it’s enforcement is. Law and legislation are not the same. Prosecutorial discretion is totally a thing. When’s 16 year old gets prosecuted for sexting as a producer of child porn that’s monstrous whether the law as written calls for it or not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law,_Legislation_and_Liberty

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#57

Post by patrickaljord »

chki wrote: post #36
patrickaljord wrote: post #20

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.

I'm not sure wether that would have actually been a possibility. The referendum ist illegal according to the ruling of the highest constitutional court. The absolute minimum of what a functioning state needs to do is pushing back on all illegal activities. By not doing anything against an illegal referendum the Spanish state would have made the first step towards accepting that it does no longer have full control ove…

Not sure if you're being naive or ignorant of how governments work but in case you don't know, when it's convenient to do so, governments chose to not apply laws all the time. So I'm not buying the "but this was illegal, they had no choice" argument. Sounds like complete BS.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#58

Post by barry-cotter »

DCKing wrote: post #23
thesumofall wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The world is not a libertarian tax fantasy of that degree, no. But it should be possible for groups that have a significant cultural claim to vote on these matters. And it should be possible that if a significant amount of this cultural group agrees on the subject that a mutual understanding can be obtained between the main state and the group they govern over. It seems to me this constitution article was put in plac…

> But it should be possible for groups that have a significant cultural claim to vote on these matters. And it should be possible that if a significant amount of this cultural group agrees on the subject that a mutual understanding can be obtained between the main state and the group they govern over.

Why? I agree that people who want to secede should be able to but I see no reason to restrict it to “groups that have a significant cultural claim”. That’s just leaving it up to those in power.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#59

Post by Grustaf »

DCKing wrote: post #6
lz400 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Of course it would look bad if 95% of Catalonian voted for independence but I wonder if there are legal reasons stopping the Spanish government from just letting the vote go through and then simply ignore the outcome. It seems to me Catalonian independence can only really happen with support from Madrid anyway.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#60

Post by lz400 »

fiblye wrote: post #37
lz400 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Brexit was a democratic decision. People may hate the results and call it bullshit, say the vote shouldn't matter, etc. But it's still democratic. A non-democratic option would be the government breaking off without consulting the residents. Or a government saying people who live in a region aren't allowed to have a vote to decide their fate because politicians from other regions forbid it.

Yes, it was agreed and allowed under local law. Catalonian's referendum was not. It's not legal. Needs to be agreed upon.

Additionally, to see why a group of people wanting to secede might also be unethical, think about this case. A country finds unobtanium in its land. Decides to build an unobtanium factory there, which costs 20% of GDP but it pays off with awesome employment growth and tax revenue. Now the inhabitants of that region don't like that their tax gets used mainly in poorer areas of their country and want independence. Fair? I don't think so. So voting to leave is not always a natural right. Only under agreed conditions with all the national territory is ok. Barring ethnic cleanses, war and stuff like that but nothing like that has happened in Catalonia's case.

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