Spain suppressing Catalan Indyref
- Thread starter Craig B
- Start date
No I meant it was never part of the UK. Are you arguing it was? I would agree it was not part of the England either. UK was formed in 1707, US independence in 1776 so the reference to the UK was appropriate.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
No, it was not, if we're being pedantic. It was called GB in 1707. It was only called UK in 1801 after the union with Ireland.
ddt
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Strawberry
Master Poster
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ddt
Mafia Penguin
No, just "Kingdom of Great Britain", without the "United" in front.
Yep, and colloquially just "United Kingdom" or UK.
And after 1922, "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Craig4
Penultimate Amazing
I especially enjoyed watching the Spanish Police with riot shields advancing on pensioners singing songs of solidarity. Nothing makes you look weaker than trying too hard to look strong.
Rolfe
Adult human female
The Spanish police attacking the Catalan firefighters standing in their firefighting protective gear, but unarmed, in front of the civilians trying to vote, was another low point. And the Catalan police lined up in front of the civilians trying to protect them from the Spanish police.
And the civilian woman who was trying to protect a group of elderly voters who was thrown to the ground, thrown down a flight of steps, and had her fingers deliberately and systematically broken one by one by the Spanish police was another. That was filmed live, as well as the woman herself giving a somewhat stressed account of it once she got back from hospital with her hands in splints.
I saw on Twitter there had been a fatality.
You know, I don't understand these people who say, I'm not in favour of the break-up of big states, we should stay united, I want the minimum number of states on the planet, and so on. Which states are behaving in the most egregious manner on the globe? By and large, the big ones. Look at any of the rankings of prosperity and happiness and you'll see the top spots dominated by countries with less than 10 million of a population.
States of that size are far less likely to be throwing their weight around, "punching above" that weight and generally making a damn nuisance of themselves. Why would anyone doubt the ability of Catalonia to thrive as an independent country? Or Scotland either for that matter. Just look at the most comparable existing states and see how they're getting on. Just fine, is the answer.
A few more Catalonias and Scotlands and yes Kurdistans, and fewer Spains and UKs and Iraqs, and the world would be a better place.
And the civilian woman who was trying to protect a group of elderly voters who was thrown to the ground, thrown down a flight of steps, and had her fingers deliberately and systematically broken one by one by the Spanish police was another. That was filmed live, as well as the woman herself giving a somewhat stressed account of it once she got back from hospital with her hands in splints.
I saw on Twitter there had been a fatality.
You know, I don't understand these people who say, I'm not in favour of the break-up of big states, we should stay united, I want the minimum number of states on the planet, and so on. Which states are behaving in the most egregious manner on the globe? By and large, the big ones. Look at any of the rankings of prosperity and happiness and you'll see the top spots dominated by countries with less than 10 million of a population.
States of that size are far less likely to be throwing their weight around, "punching above" that weight and generally making a damn nuisance of themselves. Why would anyone doubt the ability of Catalonia to thrive as an independent country? Or Scotland either for that matter. Just look at the most comparable existing states and see how they're getting on. Just fine, is the answer.
A few more Catalonias and Scotlands and yes Kurdistans, and fewer Spains and UKs and Iraqs, and the world would be a better place.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
That case was filed after Rosa Parks and after two months of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It was filed on basis of an earlier incident of a black person fined for not sitting in the back of the bus. The NAACP had long been thinking about creating an incident with a black person, who had to be spotless in order not to be smeared in court for whatever "immoral" thing they'd done else in their life, when the Rosa Parks incident spontaneously came.
That's the thing with overturning unconstitutional criminal laws. You first have to break the law, then you have to get prosecuted, in order to get judicial review of the contentious law. There is no abstract judicial review - in the USA, in nearly all countries that have it - only for concrete cases. So, if you think that law X is unconstitutional, you first have to break it in order to test your theory. This is in direct contravention to your "principle" that you should try to change the law within the law. There is, for criminal law at least, no other way to get it overruled than to break it. And OTOH, that also means there are still scores of US states with anti-sodomy laws on the books, because no DA ever tries to prosecute sodomy cases because they know it doesn't stand a chance.
Furthermore, it would be an interesting "what if" what would have happened if the NAACP had filed a case before their bus boycott. Would it if had the same outcome? After all, the rights enshrined in the American Constitution read like a horoscope and are very malleable in their interpretation. And would it have had the same speed? Now, the District Court ruled within 4 months and then it got bumped directly to SCOTUS who delivered their verdict within the same calendar year.
Said Napoleon.
Declarations of independence fall into a different category from simple law breaking, as US citizens may well agree. It depends on the character of the new state that emerges.
Back in 1916 some Irish subjects of the UK broke the law by declaring independence - probably against the wishes of the majority of Irish people. But the cruel and asinine behaviour of the UK government in response changed the popular inclination in the direction of independence. Has Castile's violent supporession of the referendum had the same effect as the execution of the signatories of the Irish 1916 proclamation (who, after all, had demonstrated The will to break the law, and were criminals)? Perhaps it has. At any event it was very ill advised.
Yeah, that's true. While the actions of Madrid are abhorrent, the Catalan populist government are criminals too. The polls show they can expect a split electorate at best:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independence_referendum,_2017#On_the_independence_issue
A statistical tie if I ever saw one. Even if Madrid would consent to holding a poll and they managed to win a slim majority, this is hardly a mandate for an independent Catalonia. For changes like these you need a bit more than 50% plus one vote to have a meaningful mandate.
Numbers like these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_independence_referendum,_1991
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenian_independence_referendum,_1990
Give you mandate for all sorts of one-sided actions. The numbers like the ones Catalonian authorities can hope for (51-49 in favor or so) do not.
McHrozni
South Sudan? Ex-Yugoslavia?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/l...pendence-referendum-spain-catalonia-vote-live
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41463719
What if the result is 90% for independence?
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With 42% participation? None. Check participation in those two referendums, both had participation of well over 90%, with over 90% of votes being in favor. 90% of 42% is barely over 1/3 of the electorate, those two both had almost 90% of the entire electorate in favor.
The results in Catalonia are in line with polls. Most of those who want an independent Catalonia voted, most of those who don't stayed at home, since it was an illegal venture. Madrid would be well advised to agree to a referendum and defeat the separatists at the polls. That may be the best course of action if Catalonia was their only issue.
The only problem is that would likely result in more demands for more referendums, for example in Basque country. They would probably already do so if it was just Catalonia. The picture is a tad more complex than most analysis imagine.
McHrozni
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Perhaps. But if that happened, based on the polls, you would also expect a drastically less one-sided result of the referendum. Did you take that into account?
Perhaps more people would vote in US elections if US had a different electoral system that would make Republican votes in New York and California and Democrat votes in Kentucky and Alabama relevant?
What of it?
McHrozni
Whilst I think the response of the Spanish authorities were poor. I think it would be wrong to argue the present referendum gave a democratic legitimacy to Catalan independence. This was not a free and fair vote. (It matters little whose fault this was).
The best outcome is if this could be used to move to a proper referendum.