Boots & Sabers

The blogging will continue until morale improves...

Tag: Spain

War of Identity

When we have set up an entire infrastructure that favors people based on things like race and gender, there is an incumbent constituency that will defend the status quo. Perhaps if we just do away with all of that and treat people equally, we would reduce strife.

A new law proposed by the far-left party in Spain’s coalition government would make it easier for residents to change genders for official purposes. A bill sponsored by Equality Minister Irene Montero aims to make gender self-determination — no diagnosis, medical treatment or judge required — the norm, with eligibility starting at age 16. Nearly 20 countries, eight of them in the European Union, already have similar laws.

 

Factions of the Catholic Church and the far-right have focused their opposition to the bill on the fact that it also would allow children under 16 to bypass parental objections and seek a judge’s assistance in accessing treatment for gender dysphoria, the medical term for the psychological distress that results from a conflict between an individual’s identity and birth-assigned sex.

 

Less expected has been the fierce resistance from some feminists and from within Spain’s Socialist-led government.

 

“I’m fundamentally worried by the idea that if gender can be chosen with no more than one’s will or desire, that could put at risk the identity criteria for 47 million Spaniards,” Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo, a veteran Socialist and women’s rights advocate, said last week.

 

Opponents argue that allowing people to choose their gender eventually would lead to “erasing” women from the public sphere: if more Spaniards registered male at birth switch to female, they say, it would skew national statistics and create more competition among women for everything from jobs to sports trophies.

Spain is Making Lists of Noncompliant Citizens

Always be wary when the government starts making lists.

Spain is to set up a registry of people who refuse to be vaccinated against coronavirus and share it with other European Union nations, the health minister has said.

Salvador Illa said the list would not be made accessible to the public or to employers.

He said the way to defeat the virus was “to vaccinate all of us – the more the better”.

[…]

“It is not a document which will be made public and it will be done with the utmost respect for data protection.”

Uh huh. If you believe that the list won’t find its way into the hands of anyone who wants it, I have a bridge to sell you.

Spain Moves to Prevent Catalonia from Leaving

I think that the Spanish authorities don’t fully understand what “declaring independence” means.

Spain is to start suspending Catalonia’s autonomy from Saturday, as the region’s leader threatens to declare independence.

The government said ministers would meet to activate Article 155 of the constitution, allowing it to take over running of the region.

Catalonia’s leader said the region’s parliament would vote on independence if Spain continued “repression”.

Catalans voted to secede in a referendum deemed illegal by Spain.

Catalonia Moves Even Closer to Declaring Independence

Yep.

Catalonia will declare independence from Spain in a matter of days, the leader of the autonomous region has told the BBC.

In his first interview since a disputed vote on Sunday, Carles Puigdemont said his government would “act at the end of this week or the beginning of next”.

Meanwhile, Spain’s King Felipe VI said the vote’s organisers had put themselves “outside the law”.

He said the situation in Spain was “extremely serious”, calling for unity.

Tensions between Spain and the north-eastern Catalonia region continue to mount, days after the vote was marred by violence involving national police.

The Spanish High Court said it had begun an investigation into key Catalan figures on Wednesday on suspicion of sedition – inciting rebellion against the state – including the head of Catalonia’s regional police.

Well, by definition an independence movement is seditious against the current government.

Catalan Move Toward Independence

It’s fascinating to watch national self-determination in action.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says the region has won the right to statehood following Sunday’s contentious referendum which was marred by violence.

He said the door had been opened to a unilateral declaration of independence.

Hundreds of people were injured as Spanish police used force to try to block voting.

The Spanish government had pledged to stop a poll that was declared illegal by the country’s constitutional court.

Police officers prevented some people from voting, and seized ballot papers and boxes at polling stations.

“With this day of hope and suffering, the citizens of Catalonia have won the right to an independent state in the form a republic,” Mr Puigdemont said in a televised address flanked by other senior Catalan leaders.

“My government, in the next few days will send the results of today’s vote to the Catalan parliament, where the sovereignty of our people lies, so that it can act in accordance with the law of the referendum.”

Spanish Government Cracks Down in Catalan

Wow. Talk about crushing democracy

Catalonia’s independence referendum has descended into chaos, with clashes occurring as police attempt to prevent the vote from taking place.

The Spanish government has pledged to stop a poll that was declared illegal by the country’s constitutional court.

Police officers are preventing people from voting, and seizing ballot papers and boxes at polling stations.

In the regional capital Barcelona, police used batons and fired rubber bullets during pro-referendum protests.

Catalan emergency services said they had treated 38 people who were injured when police pushed back crowds of voters and forced their way into polling stations.

Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont condemned the action of the national police, who were sent into Catalonia in large numbers to prevent the vote from taking place.

“The unjustified use of violence… by the Spanish state will not stop the will of the Catalan people,” he told reporters.

As Americans learned (twice), secession is never easy when the parent nation doesn’t want to let it happen.

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