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I told you how you could make your own opinion based on sources from the independentist movement because I think that would be fairer than me trying to convince

by yiyus 7y ago

I told you how you could make your own opinion based on sources from the independentist movement because I think that would be fairer than me trying to convince you, but I perfectly understand that you don't want to spend your whole day making a difficult research based on some vague indications so that you can agree with my comment. Some of the evidence you ask for include the mishandling of public funds, use of personal data for their own benefit, or breaking the laws of their own regional government such that they could pass new laws without the required number of votes (because they only had a very tight majority). Plus disobeying court orders, which is something that I insist can only be accepted in very special circumstances and this is not one of them. I know these are not the most serious crimes in history by any means, that's why they will be on the street early next year. But what I really hate about this is the image they spread of my country. I do not mind if you sympathize with their movement, or even actively support it, but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country just for not letting them to do whatever they want ignoring their own laws and a large portion of Catalan people. I do not mind if they want to fight for independence, even if I find it terribly stupid, but I do not like feeling insulted. And I constantly feel insulted by these people.

oska 7y ago
> but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country There's a very ugly side to Spain, just as there is a very ugly side to Japan, France, the USA, Russia, Australia (my own country) and, I'm sure, the Catalan independence movement too. There is an ugly side to any entity when it feels its power is threatened and when it tries to suppress people's freedoms in response. Viewing this story from abroad and following it fairly well I have been disgusted and sickened by certain actions taken by the Spanish government, the corrupt Spanish judiciary, and the support shown by a percentage of the Spanish people for those acts. So yes, my view of Spain as an authoritarian country has strengthened based on real acts that have taken place. If you don't want people to form that view then you should be doing what is necessary in your country to call out that bad behaviour from your own side (presuming you are for the Spanish state remaining in its present form). That is the stance I take when I see my own country behaving badly. (It should also be the stance that Catalan independence supporters should take against any bad behaviour by their own movement too).
- yiyus 7y ago
  Yes. You are totally right. The ugly side of Spain is quite big and very ugly. We have to fight that. I have already written in other comments that I absolutely reject the violence of the police during the referendum, for example, and that all Spanish governments have made big mistakes with this topic. We need reforms in our justice and electoral systems. We have horrible politicians (Catalonia is not exception here). But Spain is not, by any definition I know, an authoritarian country. Moreover, I think we have to condemn the governments, the institutions, the citizens with bad behavior (there are indeed many of them in both sides, and therefore obviously many more in the non-indpendentist side). But when they constantly talk about "Spain" as if it was something external to them and refer to it as some banana republic, I feel insulted. I quite often see the same thing happening with the USA. Sometimes people do not criticize their administration, but they criticize the US, or "the Americans". I would understand if the US people complained about that. I would specially understand it if this criticism came from inside the US.

by yiyus 7y ago

oska 7y ago

> but I mind if you agree with their view of Spain as an authoritarian country There's a very ugly side to Spain, just as there is a very ugly side to Japan, France, the USA, Russia, Australia (my own country) and, I'm sure, the Catalan independence movement too. There is an ugly side to any entity when it feels its power is threatened and when it tries to suppress people's freedoms in response. Viewing this story from abroad and following it fairly well I have been disgusted and sickened by certain actions taken by the Spanish government, the corrupt Spanish judiciary, and the support shown by a percentage of the Spanish people for those acts. So yes, my view of Spain as an authoritarian country has strengthened based on real acts that have taken place. If you don't want people to form that view then you should be doing what is necessary in your country to call out that bad behaviour from your own side (presuming you are for the Spanish state remaining in its present form). That is the stance I take when I see my own country behaving badly. (It should also be the stance that Catalan independence supporters should take against any bad behaviour by their own movement too).

yiyus 7y ago
Yes. You are totally right. The ugly side of Spain is quite big and very ugly. We have to fight that. I have already written in other comments that I absolutely reject the violence of the police during the referendum, for example, and that all Spanish governments have made big mistakes with this topic. We need reforms in our justice and electoral systems. We have horrible politicians (Catalonia is not exception here). But Spain is not, by any definition I know, an authoritarian country. Moreover, I think we have to condemn the governments, the institutions, the citizens with bad behavior (there are indeed many of them in both sides, and therefore obviously many more in the non-indpendentist side). But when they constantly talk about "Spain" as if it was something external to them and refer to it as some banana republic, I feel insulted. I quite often see the same thing happening with the USA. Sometimes people do not criticize their administration, but they criticize the US, or "the Americans". I would understand if the US people complained about that. I would specially understand it if this criticism came from inside the US.