Actually I had a thought experiment the other day. Why not let the Catalan people decide on who gets to decide? Polls show that ~30% of the Catalan people actually do think other Spanish people should have a say in their independence. ~50% don't (the rest is no answer/invalid).

Hold a referendum that asks two questions in Catalonia: whether the rest of Spain should get a say, and whether Catalonia should be independent. Hold a referendum everywhere else that asks whether Catalonia should be independent. Scale the answers to the first question to 100% - if it's 50/30 (20% blank/invalid), that's about 62% vs 38%. Now weigh the results based on that: Catalan people's vote accounts for 62% of the outcome, while all of Spain's (this includes Catalonia as well) accounts for 38% of the outcome. So if, say, 70% of the Catalan people but 20% of all of Spain want independence, the outcome is 70% * 62% + 20% * 38% = 51%, a win for independence. If only 60% of the Catalan people voted yes, then that's an overall no.

This way, the rest of the country gets to vote too, but only as much as Catalan people think they should.

Because they're not random unweighted Internet polls, I'm referencing an official poll conducted by the very government that is pushing the referendum. An official poll that they themselves, of course, never bring up.

The difference in outcomes we're talking about here is much, much larger than the error in the US polls. This isn't a "the polls are wrong" situation. This would be as if US polls predicted a 55% win for Hillary and then Trump won 80% of the vote. That's not polling error, that's a much bigger effect, and it can be readily explained by more detailed polls that ask people both what they think and whether they'd vote at all, which show a very large bias in participation towards "yes" voters.

You contradict yourself, the legitimacy has everything to do with what the Spanish government thinks.

Indirectly, not directly. What the Spanish government thinks doesn't matter per se. What matters is that a good third or so of Catalans think it does, and won't vote in the referendum for that reason.

then it's impossible to have a legitimate vote that's unsupported by the Spanish government.

That may very well be the case (unless the vote is so far towards the "yes" side that low "no" participation becomes immaterial). That's the thing here: the Catalan government is trying to pass the referendum as legitimate when, under the current framework, it just isn't. They're passing this attempt as true democracy when it isn't. Now, that may very well be because the central government is opposed to it, but that doesn't change the outcome: that the vote, as it is intended to be conducted, won't be representative of the actual desires of the Catalan people.

I'm not saying this is a pretty situation. I'm not saying I have a magical solution. I'm just saying that a "yes" outcome won't actually mean the majority of Catalans want independence. And the Catalan government knows this but is pretending not to.

If it was a case of the union side boycotting the vote out of petulance - like the right wing in Venezuela that deliberately sat out the elections for the constituent assembly and is now whining about its make up - then maybe they should have gotten their asses to the polls.

Again, the issue here is that that time it wasn't a real referendum (it was thinly veiled as a "popular poll" to skirt around the laws that are now being used to charge those running the current for-reals-except-not referendum). If a real referendum with a solid legal footing happened and the "no" voters still didn't bother to show up, then you can blame them. But do you really expect the overwhelming majority of the population of a region to show up to an event that is by some rather fair accounts an illegal act? Of course with the shenanigans surrounding this vote a large fraction of people either won't bother or actively won't want to have anything to do with it.

Think about it. If the Governor of California said "screw the US, we're seceding" and called for a vote without any support from the rest of the US and a good chunk of the state itself, while the feds were calling it an illegal act of unilateral secession, and a bunch of shenanigans involved (including things like strong-arming polling locations and cities into collaborating even if they disagree with the premise) do you really expect the majority of Cailfornians would vote in a fair manner that is representative and would make the result valid?

If you think it's a bullshit argument, why was the "yes" side blatantly overrepresented in the 2014 attempt? Nobody seriously believes 80% of Catalonians are pro-independence. That's wildly out of whack with even the polls that have been most favorable towards that side. In fact, polls that ask both questions (would you vote at all and what would you vote for) and thus provide the proper breakdown universally represent this fact: the outcome hovers around an even split among all Catalonians, but is overwhelmingly "yes" among those who actually intend to vote in the referendum if it is held.

You're confusing being opposed to the issue with being opposed to the referendum itself. The problem with this referendum is that it is being held against Spanish law (as judged by the Constitutional Court anyway), pushed unilaterally, and it has limited support or recognition from the "no" side. Going to vote means recognizing the referendum itself as legitimate, which a lot of people voting "no" do not agree with. For a referendum to be valid there has to be consensus that it is a legitimate referendum. You may think the issue is silly, you may think a referendum is not needed, but if you (and a large fraction of the population) don't even believe the referendum is valid at all and therefore refuse to vote, then that makes it de facto invalid and unrepresentative of the will of the people.

The referendum wasn't overtly rigged; the simple problem is that when a "referendum" (what happened in 2014 wasn't really one) is unilaterally pushed by the supporters of one outcome participation winds up severely skewed towards that outcome. Because if I think you're running an illegal pro-independence referendum and I don't think independence is a good idea anyway, why would I show up to vote? While if I think independence is a great idea and I believe I'm being oppressed by the central government of course I'll vote.

The ~40% figure is, in fact, from a recent official poll conducted by the local government, where the current party in power are the promoters of the referendum itself (of course, they never bring up said poll in their talking points). The difference is that a poll picks people at random, while a referendum requires people to voluntarily go to vote. To have the result be meaningful, there needs to be wide consensus that the referendum is legitimate to begin with, that asking the question is a good idea, and there needs to be significant campaigning by both sides of the debate. None of that happened in 2014 and none of that is happening this time either. Without that, the result is meaningless, and the vote just amounts to a political weapon to attempt legitimize an undemocratic unilateral secession plan.

I sure hope that won't happen. If the Catalan independentists get credit for anything it's going about their business peacefully (at least in the physical sense; lots of political mudslinging going on, of course).

No, this isn't about what the Spanish government thinks. The referendum as it is being currently attempted is fundamentally illegitimate because it all but guarantees a "yes" outcome by severely biasing participation towards "yes" proponents. That makes it invalid in to every rational pair of eyes. To have a legitimate referendum, you need to have high participation that is balanced between supporters of all sides, which, in a functional democracy, means both sides have to agree to hold the referendum (or at least agree to let it happen and then campaign for their side), which isn't the case here at all.

See, the thing is the current Catalonian independentist government has said they will declare independence 48 hours after a "yes" victory.

Basically, the referendum is a political tool to illegitimately declare independence unilaterally (illegitimately, not only for legal reasons, but especially because the referendum will be obviously biased, the way it is being pushed by one side only). And that's why the central government doesn't want to let it happen.

Except, you know, the independentist regional government's own poll that puts the split at 49.4% against/41.1% for independence.

Seriously, you guys (as in the vehemently pro-independence crowd) just delegitimize yourselves by going down to Trump's "biggest inauguration crowd" level. This is obviously a contentious issue and the population is pretty much evenly split. An independent Catalonia would screw over half of Catalonia's population as much or even moreso than the status quo screws over the other half. Yes, this is a difficult problem, and yes, you have every right to campaign for independence, and yes, a solution that magically pleases everyone would be great, but it certainly isn't an open-and-shut-case.

The referendum that is to be held in 1-O is about much more than language, cultural identity or economics: it is currently about defending the civil rights of the country and the ability of catalans to be able to freely decide their own future, exactly as it happened in other more democratic countries such as Canada or the UK.

But it isn't. It would be, if it were done legally, with general support, completely in the open, with fair campaigning for both sides, and with central support (which is what happened in the UK). But 1-O isn't a fair expression of the Catalan people's right to self-determination. That's just a thin veil based on a fair, but right now unattainable, ideal. What is really going on under the hood is basically an illegitimate power-grab by the pro-independence parties. Running a "democratic" process that is single-handedly controlled and promoted by those with an interest in a single outcome isn't democracy, it's the hallmark of authoritarian regimes, because the outcome will inevitably be what they want (as those who disagree will have a much lower participation in the poll than those who agree).

Yes, this is tough for the Catalan people, because they have not been given a fair chance to express their will yet, but this isn't it by any stretch of the imagination. 1-O isn't about self-determination, it's a bullshit political move that rises up to the political bullshit standard of the central government (which is legendarily full of it too).

The proof is that the outcome wildly differed from random polls.

It's a pretty obvious conclusion that if a referendum is unilaterally pushed by the party with one outcome as their agenda, that there will be a large bias for that outcome. Yes, it's difficult to make these kinds of polls perfectly fair (just look at Brexit or the US election for examples where things *probably* went the opposite way of what the population truly wanted by a small margin), but to even have a chance at approximating fairness the whole process has to be significantly backed by both sides. Otherwise there's no chance and it just becomes, at best, a publicity stunt, and at worst, an authoritarian attempt to force an outcome on the populace under a thin veil of "democracy". Democracy only works if we all at least agree on the *process*; without such agreement there can be no democracy.

The vote was already illegitimate; this is just going to slant it further. They already tried a non-binding "referendum" in 2014 with predictable results: 80% pro-independence (even though fair polls show more like 40%). The only way to have a fair referendum is to do it in a way that is approved and legal; the moment it becomes dodgy in any way, it severely biases the results because of course participation is going to be severely skewed towards people who want to vote yes.

This is why the central government only really has two choices: they can either support a completely legitimate referendum (whether this can actually be done legally or not based on the Constitution is unclear), or they can wholly suppress attempts. They can't allow an illegitimate referendum to go through because the result is going to be obvious and not representative of the citizens' will. The pro-independence regional government has stated they intend to declare independence within 48 hours after a "yes" victory; this would be ridiculous in this case given that result would in no way be accurate with the current circumstances surrounding the referendum.

(Note: I don't approve of the censorship part, just trying to explain what is going on.)

That is not a very useful definition of addiction.

By that definition you're addicted to masturbation. You should get some help for that.