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Why I am happy that Scotland has voted NOSeptember 19th, 2014 |
 11 comments to Why I am happy that Scotland has voted NO |
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Whatever ‘The Guardian’ wanted, the opposite is probably the preferred choice!
Both sides had some good arguments- I wonder how long before Salmond tries again?
My first thought is that now Scots will get more power to live out their socialist fantasies, but at our expense.
Sadly Nick both sides produced very bad arguments.
The “Yes” side was about Class War (attacking “the landlords” and “big business” and claiming that some of the oldest families in Scotland were nor “really” Scottish) and creating more “Social Justice”, and the “No” side was all about (half baked) “economic” arguments.
Who would have benefitted from a “Yes” vote?
People’s Republic types in Scotland – and knuckle dragging “ethnic nationalists” in England (for their time would truly have come).
So, although the General Election in May is most likely lost now, I am glad the vote is NO.
Ed Miliband will be the man who goes down in history as the person who discredited socialism on this island – he is already a joke figure (there is no chance at all he will set up a totalitarian police state – and he will be out at the following election).
The young (sadly not me) can look forward to a better future in the United Kingdom – starting in about 2019 or 2020. The bankruptcy of big government (economic and cultural) will have come – and gone.
Not convinced the ethnic nationalists would be the winners in a Scots-free UK. But I am hopeful that this whole process has nevertheless made a solution to the West Lothian Question now unavoidable, so maybe we can have the best of all worlds: Scotland effectively walled off politically in terms of their and England’s internal affairs, whilst avoiding the turmoil of a full breakup.
I am inclined to agree with Ockham’s Spoon and Jamess on the other thread that there is little appetite for giving Scotland anything other than the political ability to fuck up their own affairs (only) more completely. And if it works out that way, it would indeed be the best of both worlds.
It’s easy to romanticize the past, but there has been a real decline in character, individual responsibility, and liberty since 1945. The men who fought that war were shoved aside and called irrelevant and outdated by following generations who only cared for ease and pleasure. Now we’re stuck with the results.
My grandfather fought in the Pacific. He died twenty years ago. Now my grandmother is dying. The further we get from that generation and its principles, the worse off we are.
rfichoke,
I largely agree. For those who don’t already know, that clip from The Longest Day depicts events that really happened. The piper was called Bill Millin.
That said, one also has to remember that the move towards socialism and welfarism that has caused the decline was often passionately desired by the men who fought that war, and the women of the same generation. In Britain, the Beveridge Report. In the US, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, two of which were not freedoms at all. Be careful what you wish for.
But the welfare state is moral, is it not?
It is altruistic, is it not?
Selfishness is evil, is it not?
I know it may not be the most popular meme here at Samizdata, but welfarism and warfarism are connected at the hip. By the time the Greatest Generation was fighting WWII, the welfare state(s) had so grown in size that created the fertile ground for the world wars of the 20th century. Every era has endeavored for pleasure and ease, and free market capitalism is largely responsible for its growth. Unfortunately, mobsters ascended into positions of power and screwed everything up.
Edith Pargeter wrote – roughly during the war – a number of linked books of which the only title I can remember is “She Goes to War.” The characters are very obviously ‘Labourites’, but I suspect they would be properly appalled at modern Britain. As you say, be careful what you wish for.
Four freedoms — and one honkin’ big equivocation!
Bitter Together. The English are a dull, mono-glottal, and unimaginative people with boring tastes with no real soul and no modern identity, while the Scots are an intensely aggressive, foul-mouthed and uneven tempered bunch.
An artificial “unity” which is a means to enslave and chain the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts by dividing and ruling them.
Spare me the sentimental twaddle of unity.