I'm 100% for the Union.

But I live in the States and I'm an American citizen so my opinion doesn't really count.

It will at least slightly impact you more. Slightly.

In case of independence I would like to see the new Scottish government do the right thing and invited those of us in the diaspora descended from Scots removed from Great Britain because of support of one of the various rebellions back. After all, our people never wanted to leave and were kicked out only because there was a union. The "better togethers" of those days are the same as those today. Better together, but you don't count and we will hold the power.

I'd like to see a leveling republic and the end of monarchy. But if Mercian independence ever gets going, I think the descendants of Wiglaf should fight it out for the title.

Its a strange thing that i think the potential break up a sad thing.
Members of my family fought to establish their republic nearly a hundred years ago (and the medals prove it).

Maybe na Sasanaigh have had their day and new unions need to be made.

(url=)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3VLoe6YEBU(url/)

SONG OF THE CELTS

There's a blossom that blows, that scoffs at the snows,
And it faces root-fast the rage of the blast.
It sweetens the sod no slave ever trod
Since the mountains upreared their altars to God.

CHORUS: The flower of the free, the heather, the heather,
The Bretons and Scots and Irish together,
The Manx and the Welsh and Cornish forever,
Six nations are we, Proud Celtic and free.

Our blossom is red as the life's blood we shed
For Liberty's cause against alien laws
When Lochiel and O'Neill and Llewellyn drew steel
For Alba's and Erin's and Cambria's weal.

Chorus

Let the Saxon and Dane bear the rule o'er the plain.
On the hem of God's robe is our scepter and globe,
For the Lord of all light revealed in his height,
For heaven and earth rose up in his sight.

I never got the sense that the Scots hate the English. Maybe some do, but that is far from what is driving Yes and their supporters.

If it were the case that the Scots hate the English in the abstract, I would expect Yes to have led in more polls than just one very recent sampling.

More objectively, and certainly too much of an intellectual argument against the Union, is the history of the Union itself. There is no doubt that the Scots did not want the Union. Of course, they had no vote on the matter, and too simplify the issues on how it came about it was simply a bailout of elites in Scotland by consenting to the Union. I'd bet anything that those of Scottish descent, and maybe other groups living in Scotland that are in the know about the formation of the Union, tend to be Yes supporters. The fact is is that the Union was a national humiliation imposed by a very small minority.

We can argue about what has happened in the centuries since then. We could debate whether the history matters at this point. But one can look around the world and see that historical disputes might go into abeyance for many years, and then resurface. And unions by force are oft endangered and have a shelf life.

This isn't the separation of one consenting nation from another. That may be well understood in the UK, or maybe it isn't, but I know that here in the USA it is not understood at all. And maybe for many years the Union worked for Scotland. And maybe it doesn't now. This was essentially the argument of our rebellious states, except that they had come willingly into the Union with no force compelling them to do so, and such a union was widely popular among the people.

Finally, I admit I just cannot stand Ruth Davidson and all of my feeling for independence is based upon hatred of this annoying cow.

Last edited by formby (2014-09-09 14:51:20)