
Catalan referendum: Voting begins amid police crackdown - tomp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41457238
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patrickaljord
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.

~~~
chki
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 over a part of its own territory.

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

~~~
Lazare
> 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.

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s_kilk
It's frankly disgraceful that the Spanish state has turned to violence to
suppress the democratic process.

~~~
lz400
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.

~~~
DCKing
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 the law is
undemocratic.

I agree the Spanish central government seemingly had no choice but escalation.
But that escalation is tragic and will only make Catalonia's independence
inevitable, whereas it was not at all clear cut before this.

~~~
lz400
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.

~~~
fiblye
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.

~~~
lz400
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.

~~~
fiblye
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.

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Findeton
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/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac1...](https://elpais.com/Comentario/1506857481-5be7eb5d11476b5cac18b48068d1e87d)

But I also have to say that there is certain hypocrisy in all this. Pro-
independence people already have the pictures and excuses they wanted:
Catalans voting and the Spanish police exercising violence. But, if Catalonia
became independent, they would also have a police, a repressive force. So you
can see how the excuse for creating a new State, violence of the State, is
hypocritical for an economic liberal like me.

~~~
_hgt1
The Catalan police is here too, and they're not cracking skulls.

~~~
Findeton
Of course, but they will use violence when something that the Catalan gov
doesn't like happens. And it's not an hypothesis, it has already happened in
the near past.

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mto
That's how you convince people to stay with you

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adnam
Rajoy has made a simple calculation: jackboots in the faces of peaceful
Catalans trying to vote equals more votes for the Partido Popular in the rest
of Spain.

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nickpp
Classic "Atlas Shrugged" moment: the hard-working, tax-paying people of
Catalonia are tired of supporting the wealth-redistribution, equalitarianist
Spaniards.

A warning for other countries where the tirany of majority is becoming
unbearable? That would be pretty much the whole Socialist West at this point,
although I am not aware of similar geographical concentrations.

It brings back memories of the old communist regimes of Eastern Europe: you
did't like it? Tough luck! Leaving the country was ILLEGAL.

~~~
patrickaljord
Spain and the EU (who's turning a blind eye) can't let this happen. If every
productive region who's fed up of paying for the regions who don't produce
much and spend irresponsibly declare independence, this would be the end of
the EU and of most of its countries. Can't let that happen. Let's hope at
least this will put pressure on non-productive regions to start spending more
responsibly other regions money and make their economy more competitive and
productive by liberalizing the economy a bit more.

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klatuveranictu
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.

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ryanlol
337 injured
[https://twitter.com/324cat/status/914465929207193600](https://twitter.com/324cat/status/914465929207193600)

