Yeah, I get the feeling a vote for independence would be possible, but Russia isn't particularly keen on rolling the dice.
That is pretty much what is happening. In the best case that is, provided they don't have any goals beyond Crimea.
A vote would have been possible, but it would have been more complicated and it would have taken time, probably more than a year. By then things could have changed too much for it to happen. Also I'm not sure how the international community would have reacted to Crimea wanting to join Russia (which was more likely than independence anyway).
An obstacle to a regular, legitimate vote on independence would be that it is unconstitutional in Ukraine, there would have to be a referendum in all of Ukraine, not just in Crimea. Of course there was no time to change that, but I don't know if that would have been an acceptable change for Ukraine.
Also AFAIK the Russian constitution had to be changed to allow Crimea to join. Some argue that it is still unconstitutional, as Russia is violating it's international treaties, but their point of view is that the treaties with Ukraine are invalid because the government of Ukraine is illegitimate.
Of course they feel there is a precedent, since the West too has been bending and breaking international law a few times.
Generally secession is a complicated thing and the international community tends to discourage it more often than not. If you look at it from that angle, Scotland has it very easy.
I don't know man... you want to persecute and/or demonize people for not giving enough of a rat's arse to not take part in the political system? Sure it might also mean that they are content enough with the way things are 'now' to not even care either.
The whole political system can spew out a heck of a lot of information, that is not even including the various angles to the info coming out. That is a lot to take in...
Next we will have people complaining about uninformed voters...
Everybody has a right to be apolitical. Of course democracy will have problems if there are too many apolitical people, but that is their free choice, which is the whole point of democracy.
Also on a minor side-note, outrage about gays getting persecuted is historically speaking a relatively recent development in the West. Only 30,40 years ago not many people would have cared much, so it's a lot to ask from somebody to become active against that in a cultural environment that is like that.