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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

#71

Post by Findeton »

ryanlol wrote: post #48
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…

>But you can see the "high degree" census control here in this video: https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1... . This video tells you nothing, those ballot boxes don't seem to be in a polling station. Why assume they'll ever be counted?

Because the Catalan gov has said that if polling stations are closed by the Spanish police, they will vote in the street.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#72

Post by fiblye »

lz400 wrote: post #60
fiblye wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inhabita…

It's easy to construct a Venn diagram of fairness for all and democracy.

O O

Very few independence movements are "fair". There are regions of every country in the world that generate a disproportionate amount of wealth relative to the others. There are regions with unique local identities that feel they're unfairly being squished out by others. There's no way to please everybody, and so countries essentially never respect independence votes and prefer conflict.

There are few countries today where people would say, "you know, let's undo our independence." There are a lot of people who say "we can't let them become independent because it's bad for the people in the other regions." People thought America's independence was an ass-backwards and illegal decision because those fools were trying to get a free ride off of England while keeping all the resources to themselves. They, just like nearly every country that opposes secession, decided war would be a good idea to end it.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#73

Post by ghaff »

fiblye wrote: post #35
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.

What? A group of people getting together to vote to make a decision in no way violates democracy. It's the very essence of democracy. Telling people "you aren't allowed to vote because this decision belongs to us, and so your actions are illegal" is anti-democratic. A government saying that voting in a specific circumstance is illegal doesn't make the voting anti-democratic. That simply makes it illegal. Another exam…

The 17 year olds aren't even doing anything illegal so long as they're not misrepresenting their age. They're simply taking a vote that has no force of law behind it.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#74

Post by sorokod »

lz400 wrote: post #3
s_kilk wrote: post #2

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.

By same reasoning, American War of Independence was illegal. I don't have a problem with this, do you?

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#75

Post by kiliancs »

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…

In addition to what many sibling commenters already said, the law of the referendum as well as its organization have been cautiously suspended, which is done automatically whenever Spain brings anything to the Constitutional Tribunal. There's no ruling as to its legality.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#76

Post by kiliancs »

lz400 wrote: post #3
s_kilk wrote: post #2

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.

The organization of the referendum and its law have been automatically suspended, there's no ruling as wether they are constitutional or not.

There's nothing in that suspension that implies beating people who want to participate. Spain brought police and paramilitary police in the thousands in preparation for this.

There's clearly a lot more going on that just a government trying to follow the law. The 9N 2014 voting was similarly suspended and this didn't happen. Also check out how the population in several Spanish cities sent their police and paramilitary police to Catalonia with chants of "a por ellos" (roughly, "go get them") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA1Sw-szU6w

How do you morally justify that a people who according to all recent polls has a 80+% support for an independence referendum is governed by those who are happy using violence against them, their children and their elders to suppress a peaceful attempt to decide about their own future? In my opinion they have lost all legitimacy to govern or tax these citizens.

Spain has pushed this to a situation in which the only way for Catalans to have a representative government and have their rights (including that of self-determination) respected is independence. I wonder how many more Catalans have embraced the independence movement today.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#77

Post by ghaff »

barry-cotter wrote: post #58
DCKing wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't see it as at all a given that just because 51% of the voting population in some geographic region wants to form their own country that they should always be allowed to do so. In general, I favor self-determination but, especially when a large portion of the population in the region supports the status quo, it's by no means an automatic process.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#78

Post by Grustaf »

lz400 wrote: post #64
Grustaf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The judiciary ordered the dismantling. It had to be done. We can argue about the execution, I won't disagree it's being poor but in a country with separation of powers, the executive needs to obey the law. Anyway, the referendum specifically doesn't have any anti-fraud guarantees and people who don't want independence aren't going to vote so the "yes" is going to win 9X% most likely.

What I mean is, why can't Madrid just let Catalonia vote to their hearts' content and simply ignore the outcome?

It's not like they would be forced to act on the result, right, or would international law compel them to respect it?

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#79

Post by lz400 »

Grustaf wrote: post #78
lz400 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The judiciary ordered the dismantling. It had to be done. We can argue about the execution, I won't disagree it's being poor but in a country with separation of powers, the executive needs to obey the law. Anyway, the referendum specifically doesn't have any anti-fraud guarantees and people who don't want independence aren't going to vote so the "yes" is going to win 9X% most likely.

What I mean is, why can't Madrid just let Catalonia vote to their hearts' content and simply ignore the outcome? It's not like they would be forced to act on the result, right, or would international law compel them to respect it?

They could have responded with a lighter touch but if the referendum is suspended, conducting it is illegal. If a judge orders seizing voting booths, they need to attempt to do that. For example, the local police did exactly what you said, paid lip service to the judge and left people to vote. Guess what there are already 6 judges investigating them for negligence. Personally I expected an smarter police action plan.

Re: Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown

#80

Post by Grustaf »

lz400 wrote: post #79
Grustaf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean is, why can't Madrid just let Catalonia vote to their hearts' content and simply ignore the outcome? It's not like they would be forced to act on the result, right, or would international law compel them to respect it?

They could have responded with a lighter touch but if the referendum is suspended, conducting it is illegal. If a judge orders seizing voting booths, they need to attempt to do that. For example, the local police did exactly what you said, paid lip service to the judge and left people to vote. Guess what there are already 6 judges investigating them for negligence. Personally I expected an smarter police action plan.

It's not hard to understand why police and others choose to implement the decisions made by the national government, that is not what I am asking about.

I simply wonder why the national government decided to try to stop it in the first place, instead of letting it go ahead and then ignore the outcome.

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