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Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

bbc.co.uk

491–500 of 785 posts

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#491
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the "half" is a way of simplifying. Next elections will show an updated numbers. The reason I say half is that it's nonsense to pretend that approximately half of a population should be enough to bully the other half into a revolution that could cause a blood bath and creating millions of extrangers in their own country.

It's funny because it seems "half" of Spain is bullying the other "half" of Spain to stay part of... Spain. *Half here is an approximation

And by bully you mean enforce the law that applies to the whole country?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the Catalan side, the Nationalist movement is used by dubious politicians which belong to the richer statements of Catalan society to grab power and "make history". In this case, though, these politicians do so at great personal risk. Many are already imprisoned. Even if Cataluña gains sovereignty, chances are that they will be held for high treason by the Spanish authorities. The Spanish authorities are taking…

is High Treason punishable by death in modern Spain?

There is no death penalty in Spain.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#493
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s always the risk that you don’t get what you want, like the UK’s referendum on membership of the EU.

Who didn’t get what they wanted?

David Cameron? It's perhaps fair to say he called the referendum expecting to win, continue his political career and quell the infighting within the Tory party and achieved none of those.

While Madrid's handling of the more recent Catalan independence campaign has been pretty inept the Brexit vote sets a pretty strong counterexample to "just call a referendum, you'll win, it'll be over for 20 years". Scottish independence is a good example too, that's hardly gone quiet...

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#494
post #464
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to be independent you go and vote. If you do not care you stay home. Such low turnout seems like a win for "no" camp, because people of Catalonia apparently do not care about independence from Spain.

Only if you think "not caring" means being against independence. I think it means not caring either way, i.e. they're neither in favour of it nor against it.

I think it is reckless to change borders just because few people want to. This is not your standard political issue, it's freaking tearing the country apart.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#495

It's very hard to see a discussion on this topic that does not miss the true point: This "conflict" is the fight between nationalist movements (Spanish and Catalan) which re-enforce each other in every turn for the worse of the majority and of the European Union. On the Catalan side, the Nationalist movement is used by dubious politicians which belong to the richer statements of Catalan society to grab power and "mak…

> On the Catalan side, the Nationalist movement is used by dubious politicians which belong to the richer statements of Catalan society to grab power and "make history". In this case, though, these politicians do so at great personal risk. Many are already imprisoned. Even if Cataluña gains sovereignty, chances are that they will be held for high treason by the Spanish authorities. The Spanish authorities are taking…

> Many are already imprisioned

That's inaccurate, there are 2 civil society leaders (not politicians) imprisoned, and the alleged reason is not their support of the independence. That said, they should not be in jail (imho).

Note that greater risk is accompanied with greater personal, social gains (as a nationalist, I guess it is nice to have the chance to be a father of the nation). That doesn't give (or take from) them any legitimacy though, they just become sexier in the story that they are selling.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will just leave this here: https://spanishpolice.github.io/

It's interesting to see how quickly people will downplay and deny the actions of the Guardia Incivil. If the referendum is illegitimate, why suppress it? ;- )

Because they were planning to spend millions of euro in an illegal thing. Money directly stolen from people like you and me.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#497

It's very hard to see a discussion on this topic that does not miss the true point: This "conflict" is the fight between nationalist movements (Spanish and Catalan) which re-enforce each other in every turn for the worse of the majority and of the European Union. On the Catalan side, the Nationalist movement is used by dubious politicians which belong to the richer statements of Catalan society to grab power and "mak…

This mischaracterization is very common. The phallacy is framing the people against nationalism as nationalists. It's the same dirty trick as saying that atheism is just another kind of religion. Of course you add the "extreme-right" insult for good measure.

Most people in Spain are not nationalists of any kind. That's just a lie. Nationalist votes are, being most generous under 10% of national grand total. People opposing to nationalism are just refusing the tribal bs.

Whoever the winner of this fight is, it will be a sad day for Europe, because nationalism and national borders will have prevailed and this goes against everything we need to build a stronger and better EU.

This nonsense we've been hearing for years: let them do whatever they want to do or else they win. WHAT?

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to solve voter turnout? free donuts?

Mandatory voting, with real but minor punishments for not filing a ballot (but no requirement to actually vote for a candidate, to allow for cases where none of the above appeal). Of course, this will never happen with the current political structure of the US, as the Republican Party works to aggressively reduce total voter turnout everywhere it can.

If they make voting day a national holiday, and they make the ID free and easy to get, then maybe. I believe it's mandatory in Australia, would be interesting to learn how they've felt about it.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#499
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the only reason the US government lets Americans think the second amendment would enable the population to forcibly remove an undesirable government, is because the weapons and strategic/tactical/leadership skills of the population are vastly out-classed by the armed forces. What good is a semi-automatic against a supersonic jet that just fired an air-to-ground missile in your direction? Plenty of AK-47s in…

In other asymmetric warfare situations, supersonic jets have done very little to end a conflict. No sane person would ever want to start a war with a civil militia containing nearly all able-bodied men in a region; it's bad enough when just a couple per cent are against you, all with small arms. Imagine how bad it would be with 20%, 30%, 40% of the able-bodied against you.

But most of those small arms suck.

In Vietnam and Afghanistan they had weapons being sent to them including stuff like artillery and mortars.

A bunch of militia with store bought guns(many pistols or hunting rifles) doesn't really compare to guys supplied with full automatics and RPGs.

Re: Catalan parliament declares independence from Spain

#500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the Catalan side, the Nationalist movement is used by dubious politicians which belong to the richer statements of Catalan society to grab power and "make history". In this case, though, these politicians do so at great personal risk. Many are already imprisoned. Even if Cataluña gains sovereignty, chances are that they will be held for high treason by the Spanish authorities. The Spanish authorities are taking…

is High Treason punishable by death in modern Spain?

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Spain

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