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Niall
Nationalist
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 170
Location: Cairnbulg
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 Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:51 pm Post subject: |
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A Charaid.
Its probably best left where it is. People know where to find it.
'S mise
Niall.
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Cha deanar duine glic ach air a chosd fheinn. |
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VLK
Nationalist
Joined: 03 Apr 2007
Posts: 112
Location: Abroad
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| Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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| The opening poster said it all. Haven`t bothered to read many replies. However, in the case of Scotland becoming independent, Scotland and England will never be to each other completely foreign countries. The very fact that the two nations share the relatively small island makes sure that the two countries will always have close relations. Actually, after the break-up of the UK some sort of Scandinavian model should be applied. I mean even though there are different countries, they act as one towards the outside world. |
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Tearlach MacPolk
Finding Ma' Way
Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 10
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:31 am Post subject: |
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By the way ... I'm Scots born and bred. I have English, Irish, Canadian, American, New Zealand and Australian relatives ... I'm sure many of you do too ... so how can you be so racist with that extent of a family??? It smacks of the KKK ... which involved many Southern confederate gentlemen of Scots extraction!
[/quote]
*clap* *clap* *clap*
You are very colourful and eloquent in your speech, and if I had not have had first hand experience withthe Klu Klu Klan in Mississippi in the 1950's and 1960's I might be incline to believe you. Yes, I was in Philadelphia, Mississippi when they buried those three civil rights workers twenty feet below a clay dam, and yes, I was in Memphis one April morning in 1968 when I heard people running through the streets shouting "Martin Luther King has been shot!" And, yes, I was in downtown Los Angeles when the three main police officers where declared "Not Guilty!" for the beating of Rodney King, and the whole county broke out in four days of non-stop shooting, beating, vandalising, burning, and race riots.
And for your information, the Klu Klux Klan has chapters in every state in the Union, and is more likely to march in Chicago, than Dallas.
No, what is being talked about here cannot even begin to be classified as racism. A very famous American newspaperman once said, "If you can put a name on an issue, you can control it." Sorry, but the name "racism" doesn't even begin to fit this issue. |
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Holebender
I need ma own bl**dy forum!
Joined: 04 Apr 2007
Posts: 1270
Location: Here or There
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:55 am Post subject: |
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Just to be pedantic, the organisation in question is called the Ku Kluk Klan. There's no L in the first part.
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"My instinct is to agree with your opinion of his verse, but I've never so much as glanced at it." - agentmancuso |
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Tearlach MacPolk
Finding Ma' Way
Joined: 25 Apr 2007
Posts: 10
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Holebender wrote: | | Just to be pedantic, the organisation in question is called the Ku Kluk Klan. There's no L in the first part. |
Fair enough. Thank you. It has been years since I have used the name.  |
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Shuggy
Finding Ma' Way
Joined: 23 Jan 2006
Posts: 4
Location: Glasgow
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 4:28 pm Post subject: |
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These are not good reasons for independence at all but rather bad reasons for the Union.
It does not follow that, just because bad arguments are made for the Union, we should embrace independence. That would like rejecting our commitment to liberty and democracy simply because its proponents made incompetent arguments for supporting it. Which would be an absurd position to find oneself in.
I doubt independence would be the catastrophe that is presently being painted by the Labour hierarchy in London and Edinburgh. Nevertheless, I take the view that to be independent would be a lesser fate and that both nations would be diminished by separation.
The problem with nationalism is that it takes the argument for the boundaries of the nation to be the same as the state and then proceeds to push the burden of evidence on those of us who take the contrary view. It should be the other way around because the 'nation-state' is an ideological construct, rather than a historical reality - real 'nations' having been, of course, more heterogeneous than misty-eyed nationalists would have us believe. It's not so much, "Why should the boundaries of the state also be those of the nation but, "Why are we being invited to pretend it is even possible for the boundaries of the nation to also be that of the state?"
Until I receive a satisfactory answer to this question - and I've been waiting a few years now - I see no reason to surrender a commitment to a polity that has historically been based on civility rather than ethnicity.
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"We are afraid to put men to trade each on their own private stock of reason, because we suspect that in each man this stock is small" |
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Shuggy
Finding Ma' Way
Joined: 23 Jan 2006
Posts: 4
Location: Glasgow
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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The problem with nationalism is that it takes the argument for the boundaries of the nation to be the same as the state
Sorry, that should say, "The problem with nationalism is that it takes the argument for the boundaries of the nation to be the same as the state as given..."
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"We are afraid to put men to trade each on their own private stock of reason, because we suspect that in each man this stock is small" |
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SLG
Born Again..........and still Scottish!
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 5515
Location: Dłn Eideann
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| Posted: Wed May 02, 2007 7:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Shuggy wrote: | | These are not good reasons for independence at all but rather bad reasons for the Union. |
I fail to see the difference. The status quo is failing and independence is being offered as a solution to some of those failures - surely that is a good reason for independence.
| Shuggy wrote: | | It does not follow that, just because bad arguments are made for the Union, we should embrace independence. That would like rejecting our commitment to liberty and democracy simply because its proponents made incompetent arguments for supporting it. Which would be an absurd position to find oneself in. |
Are you saying that the Union as a concept is on a par with liberty and democracy. The Union just provides us with a different framework for government. It's failing. We have to try and sort that out. What is the best way to go about that? Some would argue that the Union can be saved while I would argue that at the moment, independence offers a more realistic solution. By holding up the Union as some mythical force for good in the world that is untouchable is to corrupt the whole debate on whether it is fit for purpose and worth fighting for.
| Shuggy wrote: | | I doubt independence would be the catastrophe that is presently being painted by the Labour hierarchy in London and Edinburgh. Nevertheless, I take the view that to be independent would be a lesser fate and that both nations would be diminished by separation. |
Why? What does the UK achieve that independent nations would not? You also choose to use the word separation a la Labour. We have a separate parliament now and the world hasn't collapsed around us. We will continue to share a land-mass with England and Wales after independence. We will most likely continue in the EU together after independence. There will be new institutions at a British level and most likely at a British Isles level similar to the Nordic Council after independence. Separation doesn't fit with the kind of Scotland that I hear about from anyone involved in the independence movement.
"Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on" as Winnie Ewing once said.
| Shuggy wrote: | | The problem with nationalism is that it takes the argument for the boundaries of the nation to be the same as the state and then proceeds to push the burden of evidence on those of us who take the contrary view. |
The problem with Unionism is that it takes the argument for the boundaries of the Union nations to be the same as the state. Or am I wrong? Is the UK recruiting new member nations? Is it open minded to referenda for nations that want to leave the Union? No, of course not. The UK has tried to build a British nation out of the ashes of the original members of the Union. It has failed.
| Shuggy wrote: | | It should be the other way around because the 'nation-state' is an ideological construct, rather than a historical reality - real 'nations' having been, of course, more heterogeneous than misty-eyed nationalists would have us believe. It's not so much, "Why should the boundaries of the state also be those of the nation but, "Why are we being invited to pretend it is even possible for the boundaries of the nation to also be that of the state?" |
Ok, I don't quite get what you're arguing here. The historical borders of Scotland were traditionally more fluid that they are now... The sense of Scottish nationalism in Scotland at different periods pre-1707 is very different from what is common now... So because of that you think it is not possible for the boundaries of the nation to be that of the state and that we should not even pretend that it is?
Sorry, but I really don't follow that.
| Shuggy wrote: | | Until I receive a satisfactory answer to this question - and I've been waiting a few years now - I see no reason to surrender a commitment to a polity that has historically been based on civility rather than ethnicity. |
The Scottish independence movement is based on civility rather than ethnicity. |
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BonnieBlueFlag
No Longer a Wean
Joined: 28 May 2006
Posts: 60
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 1:21 am Post subject: |
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I find it somewhat odd when people argue that the nation-state and nations themselves are nothing but myth and figments of our imagination. So what has been happening all this time since the 1700's? We've all just been living figments of our imagination?
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agentmancuso
Getting on a bit!
Joined: 06 Sep 2006
Posts: 1812
Location: Darkest Lanarkshire
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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| BonnieBlueFlag wrote: | | I find it somewhat odd when people argue that the nation-state and nations themselves are nothing but myth and figments of our imagination. So what has been happening all this time since the 1700's? We've all just been living figments of our imagination? |
Some of you certainly give that impression.
The nation-state is a myth, because at no point in history anywhere on the planet has the ideal been realised. Nor shall it be. Every attempt to make the state the embodiment of the nation has, without exception, led to an increase in civil unrest, ethnic strife and racist intolerance.
Nations are 'real' in a sense. But only in a taxonomical sense i.e. they are a useful administrative category. They are a figment of your imagination insofar as you perceive them as having fixed, permanent, or essential being in their own right.
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Liberty does not mean all good things, or the absence of all evils
Hayek |
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SLG
Born Again..........and still Scottish!
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 5515
Location: Dłn Eideann
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject: |
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| How about the nation-inspired or nation-influenced state? |
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agentmancuso
Getting on a bit!
Joined: 06 Sep 2006
Posts: 1812
Location: Darkest Lanarkshire
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| SLG wrote: | | How about the nation-inspired or nation-influenced state? |
I don't like the sound of that one bit. The state should be neutral, and should certainly not identify itself with any particular nationality, tribe, class, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or any other sectarian concern.
If the state should be 'inspired' at all it should be by a slightly gloomy determination to do its duty i.e. to maintain order, to ensure equality before the law, and to protect the weak.
Liberty, equality, fraternity, if you like. Not tribalism.
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Liberty does not mean all good things, or the absence of all evils
Hayek |
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Hazel
Nationalist
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Posts: 153
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| Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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Whenever you all start "explaining" what is a "nation", a "state", "a tribe", " a race", etc., I want to go hide my head in the sand. Anyone else? Or, is it just me? 
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Hazel
Chan ann air chall a tha gach neach air allaban. |
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Aventinian
'Our Scotland' Fossil
Joined: 10 Dec 2005
Posts: 4276
Location: Broadcasting From An Anonymous Location Within the United Kingdom.
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 2:48 am Post subject: |
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| Hazel wrote: | | Whenever you all start "explaining" what is a "nation", a "state", "a tribe", " a race", etc., I want to go hide my head in the sand. Anyone else? Or, is it just me? |
I'd imagine that's because you're a nationalist.
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The resident pantomime villain.
'Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really meanpower over people, power to the State.' |
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Hazel
Nationalist
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Posts: 153
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| Posted: Tue May 08, 2007 9:59 am Post subject: |
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Nationalist? That's another that puts my head in the sand. Or, maybe it is just sand in my head. Used to be that a word meant the same wherever you were.** Now it has a totally different meaning for each person who is speaking.
**Well, not all words. There is still "cookie" vs "biscuit". Good morning. 
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Hazel
Chan ann air chall a tha gach neach air allaban. |
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SLG
Born Again..........and still Scottish!
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 5515
Location: Dłn Eideann
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| Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| agentmancuso wrote: | | I don't like the sound of that one bit. The state should be neutral, and should certainly not identify itself with any particular nationality, tribe, class, religion, sexuality, ethnicity or any other sectarian concern. |
If the people who live in the particular geographic region we are trying to govern, is it not right that the classes, religions, sexualities, ethnicities and all other human characteristics are taken into account in that? After all, we are talking about a group of humans with all their human characteristics interacting with and governing a wider group of humans who also have all their own human characteristics. To try and govern without taking such issues into account is doomed to failure IMO.
| agentmancuso wrote: | If the state should be 'inspired' at all it should be by a slightly gloomy determination to do its duty i.e. to maintain order, to ensure equality before the law, and to protect the weak.
Liberty, equality, fraternity, if you like. Not tribalism. |
But tribes exist! To try and govern in a way that doesn't take them into account is to try and govern with one hand tied behind your back. For a government to pretend that tribes don't exist will not make them go away, nor should we want it. Tribes don't have to be a bad thing and are just a reflection on human diversity. |
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Hazel
Nationalist
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Posts: 153
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| Posted: Sun May 13, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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Two magnetic poles, with one pointed the wrong direction cannot meet. I am sorry. Your immediate response is "what's she talking about". What I mean is that you two seem to be saying the same thing but not recognizing it in each other's posts.
The state should be neutral. The state should take into consideration the needs of every tribe, class, religion, etc. The state cannot do the second unless it does the first. Not to judge anyone's lifestyle but to arrange, to the best possibility for all to live free, safe, comfortable, etc.
You are both right and they go together so smoothly if the state does those two things. Turn one of those magnets around, please.
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Hazel
Chan ann air chall a tha gach neach air allaban. |
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agentmancuso
Getting on a bit!
Joined: 06 Sep 2006
Posts: 1812
Location: Darkest Lanarkshire
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| Posted: Mon May 14, 2007 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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| SLG wrote: | | If the people who live in the particular geographic region we are trying to govern, is it not right that the classes, religions, sexualities, ethnicities and all other human characteristics are taken into account in that? After all, we are talking about a group of humans with all their human characteristics interacting with and governing a wider group of humans who also have all their own human characteristics. To try and govern without taking such issues into account is doomed to failure IMO. |
There is a difference between taking identities into consideration, and basing your appeal, or basing the state, on a particular identity.
| Quote: | | But tribes exist! To try and govern in a way that doesn't take them into account is to try and govern with one hand tied behind your back. For a government to pretend that tribes don't exist will not make them go away, nor should we want it. Tribes don't have to be a bad thing and are just a reflection on human diversity. |
Yes. absolutely. But attempts to identify the state with one particular tribe cause trouble.
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Liberty does not mean all good things, or the absence of all evils
Hayek |
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SLG
Born Again..........and still Scottish!
Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 5515
Location: Dłn Eideann
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| Posted: Sat May 19, 2007 11:40 am Post subject: |
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| agentmancuso wrote: | | There is a difference between taking identities into consideration, and basing your appeal, or basing the state, on a particular identity. |
Do you think an independent Scotland will become some sort of mono-culture? Or that the SNP would wish that?
| agentmancuso wrote: | | Yes. absolutely. But attempts to identify the state with one particular tribe cause trouble. |
Again, do you think that Scots are one-tribe? Or at least any more than exists within any other unit of government? I think not. So I fail to see how an independent Scotland would be any more associated with one particular tribe than anywhere else. Do you think the British state is wrong to identify with the British tribe? Do you think the City of Edinburgh Council state is wrong to identify with the Edinburgher tribe? What is different about the Scots that makes them so much more dangerous? |
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agentmancuso
Getting on a bit!
Joined: 06 Sep 2006
Posts: 1812
Location: Darkest Lanarkshire
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| Posted: Sun May 20, 2007 6:56 pm Post subject: |
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| SLG wrote: | | Do you think an independent Scotland will become some sort of mono-culture? |
The creation of a state on the dubious basis of national identity leads to confusion between the good of the state and the good of the identity group.
At times of unpopularity, the state emphasises the solidarity of the group through identity, as a way of deflecting criticism, and eventually equates criticism of the state with disloyalty to the group.
Already, the more strident posters on this forum refer to anyone who questions their blind allegiance to a nationality that is no more than an accident of birth as 'traitors'.
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Liberty does not mean all good things, or the absence of all evils
Hayek |
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