The Scottish Independence thread - Yay or Nay?

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

With that way of thinking the whole of Europe would still be at war with each other for all eternity....
Maybe we should start a war with Italy...after all the Romans did to us 2.000 years ago...

Well, it's been the longest period of time that Europe hasn't been at war with each other since the Roman era.

[MGR1]

Good grief, that's a bit of thread resurrection! I haven't been keeping an eye on SubSim lately.

Anyway, for those who think it's all about "Braveheart" style English hating, I found this article on the BBC news website, which should open yer eyes a bit :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/20...699/index.html

This bit sums things up quite well:

I asked one, an old friend I hadn’t seen for at least 10 years, why he’d be voting yes. “I changed my mind quite a while ago. For me it’s about the way Britain has gone - the extremes of wealth and poverty that people down south seem comfortable with, the dominance of the privately educated people in all walks of life, the rise of UKIP, the talk of leaving the EU and a Labour Party that I don’t really recognise any more”.

He is not alone. Social attitudes surveys reveal that Scottish public opinion, on any given question, is not very different to opinion elsewhere in the UK. The Scots do not seem to be more left-wing, issue-by-issue, than anyone else - at least not by very much.

Why, then, do the Scots vote so differently? Why is it that the central Edinburgh constituency that I live in returns a Labour MP dependably at every general election? When I moved here in the 1970s and 80s, it was a Tory seat and Edinburgh was mostly a Tory city.

The yes-supporting journalist and writer George Kerevan has himself moved from the British left to the independence camp.

The need for independence as he sees it is “based on the need to put into practice traditional Scottish views on morality inherited from the Reformation and codified by the Scottish Enlightenment… This is a moral philosophy that definitely encourages private endeavour rather than state paternalism, but it also anchors private morality in a social context".

In other words, private endeavour and reward should be connected in some way to the greater public good.

For nationalist intellectuals who have, in the course of their lifetimes moved to the independence camp, what is happening in Scotland is, in part, a Presbyterian revolt against what they perceive as the growing inequality of British society - the apparent retreat from the ideals of social mobility, from the social justice agenda that characterised post-war Britain from the 40s to the 80s.

Blame Westminster - the institution and the way it runs things is the problem.

Devolution for all, and that includes England's Cities and Counties as well.
Mike.

[donna52522]

I say yay, those people suffered enough.

[Oberon]

It's clear what we need now is a resurrection of the old borders.



But that would just result in Norway declaring war on us...

[Catfish]

^ You could build a shore battery, in Lindisfarne

[August]

Mercia? That pronounced 'murika?

[ExFishermanBob]

Well, that map's a bit modern - where's Strath Clwyd? And Cumbria?

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Well, it's been the longest period of time that Europe hasn't been at war with each other since the Roman era.

Thank you, America

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Thank you, America

And the Soviets, if we hadn't been all in a Mexican stand-off with nukes then things probably wouldn't have been quite so rosy.

[Dread Knot]

Originally Posted by Oberon

And the Soviets, if we hadn't been all in a Mexican stand-off with nukes then things probably wouldn't have been quite so rosy.

As galling as it is to some, I do wonder if we don't have nuclear weapons in general to thank. No Great Power dust-ups since 1945. The only weapon system ever devised that put the glittering bigwigs at the top in the same position of risk as the little guys in the trenches.

Of course, that only works if you value your existence on this planet. Some of these fundamentalist types we have now days sort of stand that dynamic on it's head.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dread Knot

As galling as it is to some, I do wonder if we don't have nuclear weapons in general to thank. No Great Power dust-ups since 1945. The only weapon system ever devised that put the glittering bigwigs at the top in the same position of risk as the little guys in the trenches.

Of course, that only works if you value your existence on this planet. Some of these fundamentalist types we have now days sort of stand that dynamic on it's head.

Aye, I can't disagree there, we've had small scale dust-ups, proxy wars and the like but no great confrontations because both sides are concerned about the threat of escalation.

I wouldn't be quite so sure about the glittering bigwigs, they have nice cosy bunkers full of supplies to hide in, the average Joe just grows a new head. However they would be the leader of a broken nation when the fallout settled, and I think no-one is willing to go through the headache of repairing that.