Democracy......in name only

[kscarbel2]

Democracy (Greek: δημοκρατία, dēmokratía literally "rule of the people"), in modern usage, is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or elect representatives from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. Democracy is sometimes referred to as "rule of the majority".

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy)

In Spain, allegedly a democracy, the people of the Catalonia region in northeastern Spain have overwhelmingly voted for independence (the will of “the people”). And what happens? The government ignores the rules of democracy, attacks “the people” and calls their voting illegal.

The results of the referendum on Sunday showed landslide support for independence. According to the Catalan government, 90 percent of the ballots cast were for independence — with 2,020,144 voting yes and 176,566 no.

Spain is in effect saying, “We do call ourselves a democracy, however, the people don’t actually rule the country”.

The Spanish government says the vote in Catalonia was a mass act of civil disobedience, rather than an exercise of democracy in play.

By late afternoon, the Catalan health ministry said 844 people had suffered injuries in brawls with police, who could be seen punching and kicking voters. Police also fired scores of rubber bullets at crowds in Barcelona and other cities.

Observe the police beating and kicking common people at an independence referendum voting station. This isn’t Russia or one of the other so-called evil countries. This is U.S. ally Spain. Has the U.S. government condemned these shocking attacks. Not.

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[Outbehindthebarn]

I may go fight on the side of the Catalans.. seems there's a good novel to be written.

[RowdyRebel]

The South attempted the same maneuver here in the 1860's, calling the federal government out for the gross breech of contract that was occurring under the Constitution at the time.  Lincoln, instead of allowing the South to depart in the same peaceful manner in which they came to form their own government for their own newly formed country, declared war to "save the union" and many lives were lost as a result of that aggression by Lincoln in his effort to retain power.  Those in power tend to abuse that power, and don't take kindly to folks saying "you've crossed the line, so we'll just part ways peacefully".  It doesn't matter which part of the world you're talking about or even which century...some things never change.  The powerful don't care how many lives are lost or destroyed, so long as they keep their power.