At the end of the day the right to choose comes down to how big your gun is.

I'm on record explaining clearly in these pages many times just how big government really works.  Behind the fancy words and fake smiles of politicians are tyrants and killers.  As long as they are generally getting their way it is in their best interest to be tolerant of a few transgressions by the slaves that they own.  But any altercation with government is always a potential path to being shot dead by said government, and oftentimes outside of any physical threat to the government.  Simply not doing what they say to do when they say to do it is enough reason.  I've described the phases of personal grievance of an average private citizen of limited financial means with government:
- gov't sets forth a generalized edict.
- individual fails to comply.
- government makes note of noncompliance and notifies individual of it in a firm but polite way.
- individual either ignores notice or responds directly of no intention to comply.
- government notes noncompliance and sends second notice which includes the direct threat of legal action.
- individual still fails to comply.
- government sends in whatever physical force it takes to force compliance.  It could be 1 sheriff knocking at your door at 1PM in the afternoon or it could be 6 SWAT commandos that kick in your door at 3am and light the place up with flash bangs and round everyone up on the couch tied up in zip ties.  Heck, it could even be military action if your organization is big enough to pose a threat to the status quo.



In other words, there is no real democracy.  There are no real human rights.  These are just marketing terms sold to weak minded people who, for some reason, allow these things to happen over and over again without calling them what they are: a form of soft slavery.  Any time you don't do what massa says it ALWAYS devolves to force.  And of course the individual citizen is always the bad guy.  No matter that he didn't vote for any of what he is being told to do.  No matter if it is against his principles.  Nope, when your owner says to do something you better damned well do it else there will be real physical consequences, potentially even your death. The ONLY thing that stops this kind of bully is physical force.  If you have enough firepower to stop someone from abusing you, they will stop.  Until then, you are their slave.




We are seeing this unfold like a chess match in Catalonia vs. Spain right now.  The Catalonian people are tired of Spanish bureaucrats pissing away all their earnings on crap that Catalonians don't want.  When government is winning, they bandy about "the will of the people" as if they give a shit about that.  They use it to convince everyone that the system is fair and just.  The implication is that if the will of the people wants to change direction then of course, the slave may just walk off the plantation unchallenged.




Of course when running this kind of con game the risk is always that someone will take you up on it.  I'm not talking about individuals here.  They can be quietly jailed, killed or otherwise silenced very easily.  But when a whole section of your territory self-organizes against the big government, that is when we see any care for "will of the people" go flying out the window.  It is at that point that the big government tips its hand.  Instead of saying "sure you are free to leave at any time" the message changes to that of the abusive partner: "I fucking own you.  What do you mean you want to leave?  If you try to leave I will stop you.  If you try to stop me from stopping you then you will end up hurt".




Spain sent in several cruise ships to be used as quarters for an invasion force into Catalonia whose stated mission was to stop a popular, democratic vote from taking place.  Of course nobody wants to just jump straight to the fighting so the first push back was for dock workers to choose not to support any troop ships that might show up.  With logistics thus becoming more difficult, the leaders of Spain sent orders to the Catalonia police to put themselves under direct control of Spain, thus giving them instant forces on the ground to invoke their corrupt will upon the people.  But in a move that shows that things are likely to get a lot worse soon, the Catalonia police would not be placed under remote control like that.  This means that they can no longer be counted upon as a tool of repression from central government.  But worse yet, they now have to be viewed as a potential threat to any invading force from Spain.




A civil war is brewing there.  Without the Catalonians paying monthly tribute to the a-holes in Spanish government, many of the wealth transfer promises made by Spain to its other people will not happen.  If those promises fail then the leaders of Spain will be thrown out on their useless asses.  So those leaders now have a choice: go invade Catalonia with overwhelming force or back down and have their political careers completely ruined.  If they back down then they have no chance to win.  If they send force then they at least have a chance to regain control even if it tramples the so called will of the people and results in many deaths.




My guess is that Spain's corrupt central leaders don't give a shit about people's will or deaths and so they will send force.  Normally I would say that would be the end of it.  Spain would use troops to take out all of the 700+ Catalonian mayors who are siding with the will of their people and to replace them with puppets that can be remote controlled by the Spanish government.  But in this case I'm not so sure.  The Basque ETA officially disarmed itself because its members were getting old.  But their actions have shown those in the north of Spain how effective guerilla tactics can be at pushing "the man" back.  This is important because conservatives do not like to be ruled as if they are livestock. They want to live lives of self determination.  If central Spain had any brains it would figure out how to give the Catalonians that while keeping at least some of their tax revenue flowing.  In other words, they would make a deal.  But if people begin to die then a deal becomes much harder to negotiate so the next few weeks in Catalonia will be the foundation of the next few years or even decades there.