[wbillingsley]

This is not impossible to organise. Scotland and the UK were in a very similar situation, and determined answers to those issues perfectly well, and held a referendum in which it was closer than expected but Scotland opted to remain part of the UK.

Spain has instead opted to prevent a vote of any kind taking place. Perhaps Spain is different, but I'd imagine that rarely goes well -- it seems to me that the fastest way to get someone to want independence is to tell them they can't have it.

And Spain was a dictatorship until 1978 (still well within living memory). Rushing in to arrest people for printing ballots seems like a way to stir memories of governments Madrid would probably prefer not to be associated with.

[floatingatoll]

If one or more regions of the United States tried to do this, they would likely be arrested at gunpoint by SWAT teams and jailed indefinitely under terrorism laws for treason against the state. Spain is being relatively kind, comparatively.