And...It's Spain.. will it kick off ?
Discussion
Stickyfinger said:
Wills2 said:
If the democratically elected government and the courts say that the referendum cannot be held then it can't be held, they have every right to uphold the law.
Without it there will be insurrection, this is always the way. It is the duty of the democratic to allow free choice and provide it under fair and safe rules, it strikes me that significant demand exists to test their democratic principles as happened within the United Kingdom and those two "protectorates". An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
Wills2 said:
They have every right to peacefully demonstrate and lobby and attempt all lawful means to meet their ends, they can change the government through winning national elections as an example should the people of Spain want this referendum to happen. .
An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
First, errr, Insurrections are by definition always illegal....An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
"they can change the government through winning national elections"......another eeer, just..........How ?
Stickyfinger said:
"they can change the government through winning national elections"......another eeer, just..........How ?
Given that Catalonia only has 16% of the Spanish population, once assumes they'd start with a large fee to Robert Mugabe Electoral Services Ltd and go from there?Stickyfinger said:
Wills2 said:
They have every right to peacefully demonstrate and lobby and attempt all lawful means to meet their ends, they can change the government through winning national elections as an example should the people of Spain want this referendum to happen. .
An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
First, errr, Insurrections are by definition always illegal....An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
"they can change the government through winning national elections"......another eeer, just..........How ?
Stickyfinger said:
TooMany2cvs said:
The clue was in "should the people of Spain want"...
What bet would you put on the SNP wining a national election ?Does that mean nobody else in the rest of the country could be persuaded to vote for Scottish referendum?
Stickyfinger said:
No, that is a "Human Rights" issue......and as such the minority is protected by law and should also be protected by the morals of the elected representatives and the society.
Nevertheless, it serves to highlight the fact that democracy starts to lose its credibility when people refuse to listen to the wishes of a minority purely because they are a minority with no chance of winning a majority.TooMany2cvs said:
Given that they only choose to stand in less than 10% of seats, nationally, roughly zero.
Does that mean nobody else in the rest of the country could be persuaded to vote for Scottish referendum?
I'm sure many, but not the majority at the moment, English voters would happily vote for Scottish independence.Does that mean nobody else in the rest of the country could be persuaded to vote for Scottish referendum?
Kermit power said:
Nevertheless, it serves to highlight the fact that democracy starts to lose its credibility when people refuse to listen to the wishes of a minority purely because they are a minority with no chance of winning a majority.
Perhaps they're listening, but simply not agreeing - because they don't agree with the minority that the minority's view is what's best for the country?Kermit power said:
Stickyfinger said:
No, that is a "Human Rights" issue......and as such the minority is protected by law and should also be protected by the morals of the elected representatives and the society.
Nevertheless, it serves to highlight the fact that democracy starts to lose its credibility when people refuse to listen to the wishes of a minority purely because they are a minority with no chance of winning a majority.A bit further back in the thread someone said that it all boils down to money, and I think that's probably right. I know a fair number of Catalans, and I think that the end game for a lot of them would be an amended deal on finance for the regional assembly that would allow Catalunya to keep more of it's wealth - a bit like the system in place in the Basque region.
ou sont les biscuits said:
A bit further back in the thread someone said that it all boils down to money, and I think that's probably right. I know a fair number of Catalans, and I think that the end game for a lot of them would be an amended deal on finance for the regional assembly that would allow Catalunya to keep more of it's wealth - a bit like the system in place in the Basque region.
Hmm, maybe in the end. Actually, I predict that there will be direct rule and show trials next whatever the outcome.If this plays out as expected, and the Spanish government rejects the outcome (and I don't dispute that it has every legal right to do so), can we not expect an extended tax strike and other civil disobedience in Catalonia?
Driving web activity underground and overseas also seems to be a spectacular own goal for Madrid as well as the separatists will now already be geared up to resist with better security and more robust systems.
I'd guess that the more violent and repressive the behaviour of the Guardia Civil and the other authorities, the more the Catalans will unite. I do not see this ending well for Madrid at least in the short term, even if the separatists do not get the result they are after.
Peter
TooMany2cvs said:
Kermit power said:
Nevertheless, it serves to highlight the fact that democracy starts to lose its credibility when people refuse to listen to the wishes of a minority purely because they are a minority with no chance of winning a majority.
Perhaps they're listening, but simply not agreeing - because they don't agree with the minority that the minority's view is what's best for the country?If you look at Scotland, I could very easily envisage the day where Scottish independence is agreed in a UK national referendum, simply because a case can be made both to the minority (Yay! We'll get to determine our own future) and the majority (Yay! We don't have to spend our tax money subsidising Scotland any more).
The Catalans, on the other hand, have absolutely no chance of every achieving this position, as it would require a majority in the rest of Spain to vote themselves higher taxes and lower benefits, and that's never going to happen.
How far do you think this can go and still be democracy? If Catalonia held a legal, non-binding advisory referendum and every single citizen voted for secession, would you accept then that they had a point which had to be listened to, or would you go with "sorry, we're a democracy, the rest of Spain disagrees with you, and there's more of them than you, so you're going to have to carry on subsidising them forever unless you have a lot more babies"?
Wills2 said:
They have every right to peacefully demonstrate and lobby and attempt all lawful means to meet their ends, they can change the government through winning national elections as an example should the people of Spain want this referendum to happen. .
An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
What do u mean by put down? An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
Say the election is held. Say crowds mass to protect the polling stations.
Now say the National Spanish Police, thousands of whom are currently shacked up in cruise ships in Barcalona's port (as Madrid cant trust the Catalan police) are let loose with instruction to stop the elections at all costs. Say said police find themselves viewing polling in the middle distance and are blocked from pushing through to the ballot boxes by a huge arm linked crowd of men, women, children and pensioners. You can hardly have the Spanish Police steam in and start cracking skulls.
Tannedbaldhead said:
You can hardly have the Spanish Police steam in and start cracking skulls.
i don't think you know how the spanish police work . any indication their authority is not being respected by ordinary spanish citizens quite often results in violence.the potential for armed police conflict in the current situation is real and i believe the army have been drafted in as well according to aforementioned friends .
not a good situation at all with much potential for escalation. i have to admit when this all kicked off i thought it would quieten down fairly quickly, i was obviously wrong.
wc98 said:
i don't think you know how the spanish police work . any indication their authority is not being respected by ordinary spanish citizens quite often results in violence.
the potential for armed police conflict in the current situation is real and i believe the army have been drafted in as well according to aforementioned friends .
not a good situation at all with much potential for escalation. i have to admit when this all kicked off i thought it would quieten down fairly quickly, i was obviously wrong.
Rather off topic, but still one of the funniest things I've seen was the Policia Local in Alicante having great fun taking down the details of a Guardia Civil who's managed to crash his marked car into a Policia Nacional marked car on a junction by the bullring! the potential for armed police conflict in the current situation is real and i believe the army have been drafted in as well according to aforementioned friends .
not a good situation at all with much potential for escalation. i have to admit when this all kicked off i thought it would quieten down fairly quickly, i was obviously wrong.
wc98 said:
Tannedbaldhead said:
You can hardly have the Spanish Police steam in and start cracking skulls.
i don't think you know how the spanish police work . any indication their authority is not being respected by ordinary spanish citizens quite often results in violence.the potential for armed police conflict in the current situation is real and i believe the army have been drafted in as well according to aforementioned friends .
not a good situation at all with much potential for escalation. i have to admit when this all kicked off i thought it would quieten down fairly quickly, i was obviously wrong.
Security forces who attack, injure and kill unarmed civilians tend to start dying thereafter and quite rightly so.
TooMany2cvs said:
Stickyfinger said:
Wills2 said:
They have every right to peacefully demonstrate and lobby and attempt all lawful means to meet their ends, they can change the government through winning national elections as an example should the people of Spain want this referendum to happen. .
An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
First, errr, Insurrections are by definition always illegal....An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
"they can change the government through winning national elections"......another eeer, just..........How ?
Tannedbaldhead said:
Wills2 said:
They have every right to peacefully demonstrate and lobby and attempt all lawful means to meet their ends, they can change the government through winning national elections as an example should the people of Spain want this referendum to happen. .
An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
What do u mean by put down? An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
Wills2 said:
TooMany2cvs said:
Stickyfinger said:
Wills2 said:
They have every right to peacefully demonstrate and lobby and attempt all lawful means to meet their ends, they can change the government through winning national elections as an example should the people of Spain want this referendum to happen. .
An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
First, errr, Insurrections are by definition always illegal....An Insurrection would be illegal and quite rightly put down.
"they can change the government through winning national elections"......another eeer, just..........How ?
..............I know how the word "democracy" can be used to oppress the free will of a minority. Democracy in part is about the wish of a group to be part of the whole and the equal right to wish to not be part of said whole.
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