Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I expect we'll see in December, when the general election for the next parliament is held, whether the 60% decide to express their opinion.

Except it\s not vote for independence so not conclusive for independence support anyway.

 Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What is legal is not always moral.

Is it moral to declare unilateral independence against the wishes of +60% of your citizens?

If the choice is between legal and immoral & illegal and immoral I'll take the former.

If you don't vote, you don't get an opinion. So the 60% who didn't turn up get no opinion on the matter.

And since I just voted for Uruguay to annex Spain that's the moral thing to do. After all, if you don't vote you don't get a say.

Your argument only works if the election was fairly handled. An illegally organised election organised entirely by one side in the election is a pathetic joke of a "referendum". Certain procedural steps need to be taken for there to be any point in voting at all, not all of these steps were fulfilled.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
An illegally organized election organized entirely by one side in the election is a pathetic joke of a "referendum".

The US started with 13 men voting illegally in a room. I wouldn't call what came out of that illicit vote 'a pathetic joke' in the hearing of any Americans.

BaronIveagh wrote:

jouso wrote:

Is it moral to declare unilateral independence against the wishes of +60% of your citizens?

If I have to provide proof, than so do you. Just because only 40% voted does not translate that the remaining 60% are currently in favor of Unity.

http://subefotos.com/ver/?afde2d69012557b9557a1240d5738f4do.png (can't hotlink images)

61% of Catalans do not think the results of the referendum to be binding and valid.

In a bit more detail, here's this op-ed.

http://www.elperiodico.com/es/opinion/20171006/dui-30-puigdemont-rajoy-felipe-vi-independencia-6336015

Translating the relevant part:

According to the CEO survey (which is the Catalan govt polling institution, btw), 24% of those who had the intention to vote "yes" on 1-O did it to pressure the government for a future negotiation. This would leave straight independence supporters in 1,5 million, or 30% or the census.

You can't extrapolate data from what essentially was a demonstration. Even if the results were trustworthy (they aren't) people know the difference between a legal, binding vote and party shenanigans.

Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What is legal is not always moral.

Is it moral to declare unilateral independence against the wishes of +60% of your citizens?

If the choice is between legal and immoral & illegal and immoral I'll take the former.

If you don't vote, you don't get an opinion. So the 60% who didn't turn up get no opinion on the matter.

Again: Illegal. You can't expect the results of an illegal vote as binding. Do Democrats participate in Republican party conventions? Same here.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
An illegally organized election organized entirely by one side in the election is a pathetic joke of a "referendum".

The US started with 13 men voting illegally in a room. I wouldn't call what came out of that illicit vote 'a pathetic joke' in the hearing of any Americans.

Those men had an army behind them. And their heirs raised an army to stop other guys voting illegally in a room from seceding less than a hundred years later.

jouso wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What is legal is not always moral.

Is it moral to declare unilateral independence against the wishes of +60% of your citizens?

If the choice is between legal and immoral & illegal and immoral I'll take the former.

If you don't vote, you don't get an opinion. So the 60% who didn't turn up get no opinion on the matter.

Again: Illegal. You can't expect the results of an illegal vote as binding. Do Democrats participate in Republican party conventions? Same here.

Again, when Declaring Independence is involved, the legality of any actions are irrelevant. You're already doing an illegal thing, the fact that you did your illegal thing illegally is really irrelevant.

Democrats participating in the Republican part convention isn't really an equivalent action. Neither party's rules are any sort of national law, so legally nothing would prevent someone from being a member of both parties.

 Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What is legal is not always moral.

Is it moral to declare unilateral independence against the wishes of +60% of your citizens?

If the choice is between legal and immoral & illegal and immoral I'll take the former.

If you don't vote, you don't get an opinion. So the 60% who didn't turn up get no opinion on the matter.

Again: Illegal. You can't expect the results of an illegal vote as binding. Do Democrats participate in Republican party conventions? Same here.

Again, when Declaring Independence is involved, the legality of any actions are irrelevant. You're already doing an illegal thing, the fact that you did your illegal thing illegally is really irrelevant.

Democrats participating in the Republican part convention isn't really an equivalent action. Neither party's rules are any sort of national law, so legally nothing would prevent someone from being a member of both parties.

And when you do illegal things you get jailed. Why the outrage then?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
An illegally organized election organized entirely by one side in the election is a pathetic joke of a "referendum".

The US started with 13 men voting illegally in a room. I wouldn't call what came out of that illicit vote 'a pathetic joke' in the hearing of any Americans.

Why not? From a democratic point of view the American Revolution WAS a joke at the time. The fact that it turned out for the better doesn't change the fact that it was a bunch of people forcing their way on the majority while waxing about how noble and great the struggle for liberty is.

I also don't think Americans go into berserk mode just because I call the American revolution a pathetic joke in a certain context.

jouso wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


What is legal is not always moral.

Is it moral to declare unilateral independence against the wishes of +60% of your citizens?

If the choice is between legal and immoral & illegal and immoral I'll take the former.

If you don't vote, you don't get an opinion. So the 60% who didn't turn up get no opinion on the matter.

Again: Illegal. You can't expect the results of an illegal vote as binding. Do Democrats participate in Republican party conventions? Same here.

Again, when Declaring Independence is involved, the legality of any actions are irrelevant. You're already doing an illegal thing, the fact that you did your illegal thing illegally is really irrelevant.

Democrats participating in the Republican part convention isn't really an equivalent action. Neither party's rules are any sort of national law, so legally nothing would prevent someone from being a member of both parties.

And when you do illegal things you get jailed. Why the outrage then?

The outrage isn't over Spain retaliating due to these illegal actions. The outrage is over HOW they retaliated. Sending their police off with Nazi salutes to go beat people bloody in the streets is why there is outrage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
An illegally organized election organized entirely by one side in the election is a pathetic joke of a "referendum".

The US started with 13 men voting illegally in a room. I wouldn't call what came out of that illicit vote 'a pathetic joke' in the hearing of any Americans.

Why not? From a democratic point of view the American Revolution WAS a joke at the time. The fact that it turned out for the better doesn't change the fact that it was a bunch of people forcing their way on the majority while waxing about how noble and great the struggle for liberty is.

I also don't think Americans go into berserk mode just because I call the American revolution a pathetic joke in a certain context.

You missed the point. The point is that an Independence referendum doesn't need to be legal to be valid. One can't just ignore a declaration of independence because "it was illegal at the time".

It has to be organised in a fair and impartial manner, however. When it is carried out more or less exclusively by the supporters of one side of the argument without independent oversight it's blatantly not valid.

Why is it oppression for Spain to want to retain Catalonia (leaving aside the police brutality which is obviously not warranted) but not for a minority in Catalonia to force the region out of Spain?

jouso wrote:

Do Democrats participate in Republican party conventions?

Um, the actual answer to that may surprise you.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Those men had an army behind them.

You would prefer that the Catalonians did, rather than attempt a more peaceful departure from Spain? So that we could hear of the terrible atrocities that they miraculously inflicted on themselves somehow and that Spanish forces were not to blame (as we did with Iron Captain before with Russia and the Ukraine)?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It has to be organised in a fair and impartial manner, however. When it is carried out more or less exclusively by the supporters of one side of the argument without independent oversight it's blatantly not valid.

Why is it oppression for Spain to want to retain Catalonia (leaving aside the police brutality which is obviously not warranted) but not for a minority in Catalonia to force the region out of Spain?

The fact that there wasn't a organized "No Independence" movement doesn't mean a vote wasn't valid. And I haven't heard anything saying that the Yes side was actively trying to keep anybody who wanted to vote No away from the polls.

It just seems like anybody who didn't support Independence decided to stay home, thus invalidating any opinion they might have held.

tneva82 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I expect we'll see in December, when the general election for the next parliament is held, whether the 60% decide to express their opinion.

Except it\s not vote for independence so not conclusive for independence support anyway.

Even so, that is the start of the process. If a strongly unionist government is elected, there won't be a referendum. If a strongly iendependist government is elected, they will have a mandate to run a referendum. It needs to be run properly, under the auspices of international observers to ensure fairness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It has to be organised in a fair and impartial manner, however. When it is carried out more or less exclusively by the supporters of one side of the argument without independent oversight it's blatantly not valid.

Why is it oppression for Spain to want to retain Catalonia (leaving aside the police brutality which is obviously not warranted) but not for a minority in Catalonia to force the region out of Spain?

The fact that there wasn't a organized "No Independence" movement doesn't mean a vote wasn't valid. And I haven't heard anything saying that the Yes side was actively trying to keep anybody who wanted to vote No away from the polls.

It just seems like anybody who didn't support Independence decided to stay home, thus invalidating any opinion they might have held.

It doesn't matter whether the vote was valid or not.

Madrid has dissolved the Catalan parliament and installed direct rule officials. The parliamentary leaders of the independence movement are liable to be prosecuted. The bulk of the population, and regional state organs such as the civil service, police and so on, are going along with things, in anticipation of the elections in December. Puigdemont has no support from foreign governments.

Why do you read this situation as a binding authority for the 45% to overrule the wishes of the 55%?

 Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

And when you do illegal things you get jailed. Why the outrage then?

The outrage isn't over Spain retaliating due to these illegal actions. The outrage is over HOW they retaliated. Sending their police off with Nazi salutes to go beat people bloody in the streets is why there is outrage.

Yeah, I don't think anyone is surprised or upset over Puigdemont & co. being charged for crimes they did actually commit. It is the really poor way that the Spanish government has handled all of this that is making people upset.

jouso wrote:
[
And when you do illegal things you get jailed. Why the outrage then?

For the same reason I hate Americans. They won't stop trying to rule us. They sign treaties with us, and then ignore them. They ask us to die for them, and then after we're no longer needed, betray us. They claim to be the lawful rulers of many of our neighbors, using the same excuses that Spain uses to rule over the Catalans. 'Well, we conquered them, murdered them, forced them to speak our language, so now we own them. We own their land, their asses and their souls, and if they protest, we go rolling in with police to beat the living feth out of them for daring to presume to protest anything we demand of them."




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Why do you read this situation as a binding authority for the 45% to overrule the wishes of the 55%?

Because that's any election. Whatever percent votes binds that which does not.

Remember that even nations with Mandatory voting rarely top 84% turnout. And that's in places where the police can round you up and force you to vote.

US turnout is about 55% in a Presidential Election, and lower on other years. Switzerland only has a 38% turn out last election. Does that mean that under 40% of the population rules over the 60% that didn't? Yes.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

You would prefer that the Catalonians did, rather than attempt a more peaceful departure from Spain? So that we could hear of the terrible atrocities that they miraculously inflicted on themselves somehow and that Spanish forces were not to blame (as we did with Iron Captain before with Russia and the Ukraine)?

Hey! I never said anything like that.
But now that we are on the topic of the legality of independence declarations... I do see a whole bunch of Russian republics that made an illegal declaration for independence. Convenient... Now that there are so many people here and institutions like the EU and countries like the US all supporting Spanish unity, what about supporting Russian unity? The Baltic republics, Ukraine, Belarus and all of Central Asia are all parts of Russia after all. Only Finland and Poland ever got independence in a more or less legal way. Or what about Serbia? The EU seemed awfully fond about the idea of parts of Serbia becoming independent. Why not Spain too? What happened to all those nice self-determination principles? Such delightful hypocrisy.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I expect we'll see in December, when the general election for the next parliament is held, whether the 60% decide to express their opinion.

Except it\s not vote for independence so not conclusive for independence support anyway.

Even so, that is the start of the process. If a strongly unionist government is elected, there won't be a referendum. If a strongly iendependist government is elected, they will have a mandate to run a referendum. It needs to be run properly, under the auspices of international observers to ensure fairness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
It has to be organised in a fair and impartial manner, however. When it is carried out more or less exclusively by the supporters of one side of the argument without independent oversight it's blatantly not valid.

Why is it oppression for Spain to want to retain Catalonia (leaving aside the police brutality which is obviously not warranted) but not for a minority in Catalonia to force the region out of Spain?

The fact that there wasn't a organized "No Independence" movement doesn't mean a vote wasn't valid. And I haven't heard anything saying that the Yes side was actively trying to keep anybody who wanted to vote No away from the polls.

It just seems like anybody who didn't support Independence decided to stay home, thus invalidating any opinion they might have held.

It doesn't matter whether the vote was valid or not.

Madrid has dissolved the Catalan parliament and installed direct rule officials. The parliamentary leaders of the independence movement are liable to be prosecuted. The bulk of the population, and regional state organs such as the civil service, police and so on, are going along with things, in anticipation of the elections in December. Puigdemont has no support from foreign governments.

Why do you read this situation as a binding authority for the 45% to overrule the wishes of the 55%?

I don't read it as any binding authority. Its a rebellion. Whoever wins the struggle gets to claim victory.

But in terms of getting 45% to overrule the wishes of 55%. The US is lucky to get 55% of eligible voters to actually show up. So really, a huge chunk of the population always gets marginalized if you want to be technical.

The 55%(or whatever % it actually is) who didn't vote in the referendum really don't have any right to complain about its results. Hypothetically if the succession was successful, the 45% of the population who support independence(and voted) have the right to rule over the 55% who didn't support independence(and didn't vote).

Remember, the American Revolution was only supported by a minority of the total population of the colonies at the time. Having support from only a minority of the population is far from a problem for an independence movement. And in this case, Catelonian independence has more support than the American Revolution did.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Hey! I never said anything like that.

Sorry, was thinking of Yamaton or whatever his name was and wrote your name instead.

Again, that's assuming the referendum itself was legitimate, which it blatantly wasn't.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Again, that's assuming the referendum itself was legitimate, which it blatantly wasn't.

Due to the international nature of dakka, that's debatable, because everyone here has a slightly different idea of what constitutes a 'legitimate' vote. Remember, in my country the politicians paying voters for their votes is an accepted practice. Most places would be horrified by that, but it's still secret ballot. I can take their money and vote whatever the feth I want. As I see it it's just a nice change on which way the bribe money flows in the politician/proletariat dynamic.

Having one party in the vote organise the referendum and count the ballots is blatantly unsound, and no amount of deflection is going to change that. There's no point to trying to legitimise the entire thing through democracy if you're going to go full Stalin* on the process. It makes a mockery of the entire point of democracy.

Instead of trying to weasel away through talking about different traditions, address my argument: how can there be legitimacy in a referendum where one of the sides in the issue being voted on has exclusive control of the entire process? As a "remain" voter, what reason would you have to believe that a government that ignores it's own laws when it's convenient wouldn't just tweak the result to something more desirable if they lost?

*As in "he who votes controls nothing, he who counts the votes controls everything", not "Gulag for you!".

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Remember, in my country the politicians paying voters for their votes is an accepted practice.

In the Seneca Nations that's a thing?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Hey! I never said anything like that.

Sorry, was thinking of Yamaton or whatever his name was and wrote your name instead.

Ah, Yaraton. A true patriot

Grey Templar wrote:

jouso wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Again, when Declaring Independence is involved, the legality of any actions are irrelevant. You're already doing an illegal thing, the fact that you did your illegal thing illegally is really irrelevant.

Democrats participating in the Republican part convention isn't really an equivalent action. Neither party's rules are any sort of national law, so legally nothing would prevent someone from being a member of both parties.

And when you do illegal things you get jailed. Why the outrage then?

The outrage isn't over Spain retaliating due to these illegal actions. The outrage is over HOW they retaliated. Sending their police off with Nazi salutes to go beat people bloody in the streets is why there is outrage.

I've seen plenty of outrage in this thread about political prisoners and whatnot.

BaronIveagh wrote:

jouso wrote:

Do Democrats participate in Republican party conventions?

Um, the actual answer to that may surprise you.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Those men had an army behind them.

You would prefer that the Catalonians did, rather than attempt a more peaceful departure from Spain?

jouso wrote:

When the independentist prove in real, verifiable elections (not a sham vote with pound shop ballots and votes counted by the owner) that they really are a majority then they can force a referendum on everyone else.

No, they can't, as that's still illegal. You know, illegal, that thing you guys keep falling back on. See, the problem with the whole argument here is even if 100% of the population of Catalonia came out in favor of independence, there's still no legal way for them to pursue that.

kronk wrote:
In the Seneca Nations that's a thing?

In SNI it is a thing. And legal. (As a whole, we lean more in the direction of socialism, to the degree that at one point former President Moe Johns was jokingly referred to as 'Chairman Moe'.)

AlmightyWalrus wrote:Having one party in the vote organise the referendum and count the ballots is blatantly unsound, and no amount of deflection is going to change that. There's no point to trying to legitimise the entire thing through democracy if you're going to go full Stalin* on the process. It makes a mockery of the entire point of democracy.

Instead of trying to weasel away through talking about different traditions, address my argument: how can there be legitimacy in a referendum where one of the sides in the issue being voted on has exclusive control of the entire process? As a "remain" voter, what reason would you have to believe that a government that ignores it's own laws when it's convenient wouldn't just tweak the result to something more desirable if they lost?.

One would imagine that, where such a vote even legal, that you might have a point about third parties observing. But when a vote is already being disrupted with jack booted thugs, your concerns about it's legitimacy are hilariously misplaced. We don't even know how many votes were seized rather than counted. 'Can we trust the counters?' falls way behind that issue.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

jouso wrote:
They don't have enough political support to take the democratic avenues available to them but they aren't willing to fight either.

One, you're making a very large assumption, and have been

Two, again, you keep talking like there ARE democratic avenues available, but Spain has made it very clear that there are not. There have been several legitimate (non binding) referendums on this, where each time the Independence side won. I've heard a lot of excuses that 'They really didn't mean independence' 'the voting system is rigged and everyone is secretly against it', but don't vote. And that's where it comes down to, that Democracy is the tyranny of those who bother to vote over those who do not.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

One, you're making a very large assumption, and have been

Two, again, you keep talking like there ARE democratic avenues available, but Spain has made it very clear that there are not. There have been several legitimate (non binding) referendums on this, where each time the Independence side won. I've heard a lot of excuses that 'They really didn't mean independence' 'the voting system is rigged and everyone is secretly against it', but don't vote. And that's where it comes down to, that Democracy is the tyranny of those who bother to vote over those who do not.

Do you really, really think those +80% referendums reflect the will of the Catalan people? Non-indy voters don't go because they aren't legitimate, period. If there really was such a tremendous support for the indy cause there wouldn't be a single unionist MP in the Catalan parliament, and that's where the will of the people is reflected: in real elections, with a verifiable census, etc. etc.

Once indy parties get a vote majority (not just seats) then and only then they will be able to ask about a referendum.

If we're talking the legal way the tyranny of those who bothered to vote in 78 (Constitution), and in the subsequent Estatut votes requires Estatut changes to have a 2/3 majority. When we get there we'll talk. Yes, the Constitutional court can shut those changes down, but those changes don't have the same weight when backed by 48% of voters than +%60 (which would be the approximate threshold for a 2/3 seat majority). Constitutional changes all over the world require reinforced majorities for a reason.

Unless they want to do it the hard way, as some in this thread are so fond of reminding everyone.

The vote was illegitimate before the jackboots ever hit the ground. Nice deflection, again, though; you didn't actually answer my question. It is entirely immaterial if the police ruined the vote or not (although the fact that they did also renders the vote illegitimate) if the vote was already ruined.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
The vote was illegitimate before the jackboots ever hit the ground. Nice deflection, again, though; you didn't actually answer my question. It is entirely immaterial if the police ruined the vote or not (although the fact that they did also renders the vote illegitimate) if the vote was already ruined.

As others have pointed out on numerous occasions, and perhaps even yourself has pointed this out?

The Spanish government had a ready made template to follow with the British government and the Scottish independence referendum.

There was no need for people to be getting whacked over the head.

If Catalonia is dead against independence as a lot of people have claimed it is, then the referendum would have settled this for decades, as the pro-Spain side would have won, and Rajoy would be standing atop the moral and political high ground.

Catalonia isn't dead set against independence. I don't think anyone has claimed that. The bulk of polls and so on indicate roughly a 55/45 split on the issue, with the unionists in the majority.

Obviously this percentage can and will change, as circumstances change, and it is the duty of the "hard core" on both sides to try to persuade people in the middle towards their side of the issue.

While considering independence, it's worth noting that the southern "provinces" (or counties or whatever is the correct term) of Catalonia already have a movement for independence from Catalonia. That will be interesting if Catalonia ever does get independence from Spain.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


If Catalonia is dead against independence as a lot of people have claimed it is, then the referendum would have settled this for decades, as the pro-Spain side would have won, and Rajoy would be standing atop the moral and political high ground.

Assuming, of course, that it wasn't manipulated, and if it was how would the remain side ever know? That's the crux of the entire problem.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

kronk wrote:
In the Seneca Nations that's a thing?

In SNI it is a thing. And legal. (As a whole, we lean more in the direction of socialism, to the degree that at one point former President Moe Johns was jokingly referred to as 'Chairman Moe'.)

That's as disgusting as it is sad...