Letters: Lone question
IT SEEMS to me silly that so many people want so many facts, so many assurances, before they decide whether or not Scotland should be an independent nation again. You can never have any such certainties.
Put two economists in a room at breakfast time and you will have three economic models by elevenses, five by lunch and a headache at teatime. Or to quote George Bernard Shaw: “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.”
Making a decision on whether or not Scotland should be independent has nothing to do with anything other than whether or not you want Scotland to stand alone (apart from sharing the monarchy, having the Bank of England as lender of last resort, sharing defence, foreign affairs, being in the European Union, Nato and all that sort of stuff).
Would you want Scotland to be an independent nation, warts and all, for example, if in the fullness of time Scotland were to drop into the bottom 10 per cent of countries in the world by any form of economic measurement? Independence is not for Christmas. Go for it, and there is no going back.
Which brings me to my final point. I have never understood the logic of the argument made by our present leader that only Scotland should have a say in whether or not the United Kingdom should be broken up.
Surely England, Northern Ireland and Wales should have a say. Scots have contributed to making the Union, so surely our partners in it should have their say on its possible break-up?
I do hope that thought is not misconstrued as anti-Scottish, though it might be. Nationalism has such a tunnel vision at times.
Alex J Good
Kekewich Avenue
Edinburgh
I DON’T know how many more lectures I can take from Unionist columnists like Brian Wilson from the Left (?) and Alan Massie from the Right, complaining about SNP politicians’ allegedly “nasty” rhetorical flourishes, which we are invited to contrast unfavourably with the supposedly more rational approach of their Unionist opponents (Perspective, 8 February).
But when Alan Massie declares in the context of the referendum debate that “almost all the inflammatory language is coming from the nationalist side,” he is blissfully ignoring the enormous provocation to which Scotland’s democratically elected First Minister has been subjected in the British media in recent weeks in the wake of the launch of his independence referendum white paper.
Being casusally abused by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight as Scotland’s Mugabe and compared in Private Eye, as Brian Wilson reminded us, to Kim Jong-un. Excuse me – Mr Salmond and his party fairly and squarely won a multi-party democratic election conducted on a partial PR system, though of course in the eyes of Mr Wilson and his party that is his real crime for which absolution will remain for ever unattainable.
Ian O Bayne
Clarence Drive
Glasgow
GEORGE Shering (Letters, 8 February) certainly fired some telling shots across the bows of Lord “Nato” Robertson, comparing a separate international Scotland’s potential to that of the Swiss confederation!
I lived but briefly in that country in the 1960s, and saw how a multinational state can function like clockwork when all the levers co-ordinate democratically at the grass-roots.
Mr Shering neglected to mention the Swiss Romansch people’s absolute equality. Compare that to our Gaelic-speaking brethren here.
Douglas Bain
Oxgangs Drive
Edinburgh
Email to a friend
Print this page- Family mourn death of Glasgow ‘fight’ schoolboy
- Rangers takeover: Duff & Phelps threaten legal action against BBC
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
- Rangers administration: Fans fear Duff & Phelps claims could scare off Green
- Rangers takeover: triple penalty punishment enough, says Johnston
- Alistair Darling leads ‘No to independence’ fight over tea and biscuits
- Scottish independence: SNP flip-flops over Nato
- Scottish Independence: SNP ‘won’t be Yes campaign’s only voice’
- Scottish independence: Alex Salmond’s pledge to sign up 1m voters
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Comments
There are 26 comments to this article
Page 1 of 2
Hugh V McLachlan Elderslie
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:32 PM#24 mordor 'One suspects Hugh V McLachlan is a Lukaszian deconstructionist.' If anyone seriously does harbour such a delusion, he or she should read chapter 2 ('Postmodernism and Social Policy) of: Social Justice, Human Rights and Public Policy.It is available from Amazon.
Hugh V McLachlan Elderslie
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:06 PM#24 mordor'One suspects Hugh V McLachlan is a Lukaszian deconstructionist.' I think you are getting your Monty Python episodes mixed up.
mordor
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 08:27 PMOne suspects Hugh V McLachlan is a Lukaszian deconstructionist. Perhaps the most tawdry and superficial form of philosophy based upon the premise that "My philosophy is right because all other philosophies are wrong so cannot be discussed". Now George Orwell dealt with that piffle in Nineteen Eighty Four_______________________________________________________ The tyrants of Medieval times got you with "Thou shalt not" and they set fire upon those who did not obey but that created martyrs and for every martyr they created a million martyrs and the tyrants fell while the tyrants of the early twentieth century got you with "Thou shalt" and they thought they had it right compared to their forebears as they had showtrials were the tortured and emaciated would admit to their sins to the populace before execution but still these people became martyrs to their fellow souls and for every martyr there was a million martyrs who rose up and tore down the tyrants. The party allows no such human agency as agency allows martyrdom and the party cannot accept that as we may lose our power. We do not say "Thou shalt not" or "Thou shalt" we decide what "Thou art"____________________________________________________________ One expect that Mr McLachlan will retort "but human nature is malleable"........If so he can feel free to change human nature by climbing to the top of a high building, jumping off and changing his nature to the point where he can avoid the ground by flying...........I suspect though that Mr McLachlan will not conduct this particular experiment in deconstructionist theory.... to sum up, in theory theory always works in practice but in practice it rarely does-this is the reason why Lukaszian deconstructionism is pernicious mince. Empiricism always defeats the piffle that is Cartesian rationalism Mr McLachlan.
Hugh V McLachlan Elderslie
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:43 PM#19 jerrygreg 'I don't know if you've considered this Alex J Good, but your argument about Scots not deserving a right to decide on our future is similar to the one put by China in refusing any consideration of independence for Tibet and for the refusal to recognise Taiwan.' China are right, are they not? Among the problems with the majority principle is that we cannot use it to decide what particular majority should be considered.
mogatrons
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:03 PMKobi; "By "people" you mean their supporters and sycophants, their ministers and MSPs, and all the others with their snouts in the trough, who want power and couldn't care less about Scots ................................................sounds like a very accurate definition of career unionists to me.......*laughing at the irony..*
Kobi
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 03:41 PM#20 "I mean a government wantin' the best material welfare for their people" By "people" you mean their supporters and sycophants, their ministers and MSPs, and all the other nats with their snouts in the trough, who want power and couldn't care less about Scots.
Pilrig.
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 03:26 PM2 - driven by greed ? surely not, I mean a government wantin' the best material welfare for their people ? We cannae have that - that's bein' greedy !
jerrygreg
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 03:13 PMI don't know if you've considered this Alex J Good, but your argument about Scots not deserving a right to decide on our future is similar to the one put by China in refusing any consideration of independence for Tibet and for the refusal to recognise Taiwan.
Kobi
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 02:56 PM#13 "in the USA when the confederate states said, reasonably enough, it might seem, that they had voluntarily joined the union and now voluntarily wanted to secede" Texas v White (US Supreme Court 1869) - "following its admission to the United States in 1845, Texas had become part of "an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states". Texas would have needed the consent of the other states to secede (bit simplistic, but never mind).
Hugh V McLachlan Elderslie
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 02:46 PM#14 Gordon Hay' Are the residents of Main Road, Elderslie an historically distinct nation now wishing to regain their political independence from a much larger (and suffocating) neighbour?'. I resent being called a larger and suffocating neighbour! I might be suffocating but I am not over-weight.
Ron Greer
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 02:33 PMMr Good, Should the whole of the Russian Federation had a vote on the independence of the 3 Baltic States?
Ron Greer
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 02:29 PM2 Are the 5 million narrow-minded separatist Norwegians greedy because they control their own resource base and don't want to have a Union with the 5 million narrow-minded separatists of Denmark, who gave no oil or coal, but don't want to become a German Lander?
Gordon Hay
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 02:07 PM#13 - Are the residents of Main Road, Elderslie an historically distinct nation now wishing to regain their political independence from a much larger (and suffocating) neighbour? If so, then yes, they should go for it.
Hugh V McLachlan Elderslie
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 01:48 PM#9 Otto Bàn We might recall what happend in the USA when the confederate states said, reasonably enough, it might seem, that they had voluntarily joined the union and now voluntarily wanted to secede. The union said that they could not do so. The rest, as they say, is history. If, for instance, California or one of the other states nowadays said that it wanted to secede, it would, I suggest, be told that it could not do so. There is typically more than one way of looking at such matters. Fairness and reasonableness does not always lie on one side of the debate (despite what the crazy pronouncement of the United Nations and its affiliated organisations claim). Can the residents of Main Road Elderslie secede from Renfrewshire, Scotland, the EU and the UK if they want?
Hugh V McLachlan Elderslie
Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 01:41 PM#9 Otto Bàn'Of course it would. Has there ever been any widespread suggestion to the contrary?' We do not know what would happen in the unlikely event that such a think happened. I suspect that Holyrood would object if, say, Shetland seceded. It would be quite entitled to do so - object, I mean.
Page 1 of 2
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.