Podcast: The 7 Days Show Episode 16
36 minutes ago
14 January 2009
Natbashing par excellence at A Leaky Chanter (with the great strapline: “taking the wind oot the pipes”) and a dissection of ScotNat orthodoxy at sm753’s long-awaited Nationalist Mythbusting.
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Do you mean sm753's blog is 'long-awaited', or just him getting it going? :0)
Erm, yeah... one of those! :-)
His problem is that pretty much every nation's cultural and political Weltanschauung is based on myth.
Do you think the average mid-western Anerican's Weltanschauung is particularly based on reality, for example? But that's not really an argument that the USA should not be an independent country is it?
You still come back to the argument that flaws which Scotland certainly has - and shares with the rest of the world - somehow means that independence is a bonkers idea.
An even more pointless and futile exercise than your own obsessive analysis of deranged Scotsman posters.
I'll let sm753 speak for himself, but I have never said that either that independence is a "bonkers idea" or that existing "flaws" are much of an arguent for or against.
As for the "deranged Scotsman posters", they are interesting only insofar as they provide an insight into how the mindsets and viewpoints of those on the fringes of the nationalist movement overlap with many of those seemingly in the mainstream.
Re: the the USA remaining as a country, are you unaware of the Alaskan Independence Party? I would have thought that the SNP's supposed commitment to what it thinks of as the "right of self-determination" would have meant that they wanted to see the USA fragment, just as their European partners and associated others are working to break up France, Germany, Spain, Italy and others.
It is of course illegal for any state to secede from the USA just as it is against the Spanish constitution for any part of Spain to break away. Oddly enough it is the British state - so detested by the Nats - that is the most enlightened in this respect, merely requiring the consent of the people to be the determining factor.
Certainly nationalists in other countries are quite envious of the political arrangements in the UK.
Scotleag
"It is of course illegal for any state to secede from the USA "
I think secession is only possible with the consent of all the other states, if you look at Texas v. White. The reasoning is a bit Cartesian and circular, but the Septics do seem to take it seriously.
Now as for our arrangements:
(cough)
You may have noticed that some on the "nutty historicist" fringe of Nationalism get very exercised about alleged breaches of bits of the Acts of Union which are supposedly "entrenched".
Which is an odd attitude, since Article I says the Union is "hereof and forever after", and it doesn't get much more "entrenched" than that.
But when you put that alongside the reasoning in Texas v. White, you tend to conclude that if the US Supreme Court was ruling on secession from the UK, it would also require consent from both sides.
Interesting (if not entirely serious...)
'Re: the the USA remaining as a country, are you unaware of the Alaskan Independence Party?'
It always amazes me when a unionist cites a state in a federal country as an argument for this union.
I would not support Alaskan independence because Alaska is in a relationship of equals whereby there is a diffuse sovereignty across a large number of states and a central administration. Federalism is a secure way to manage interdpendence which is rather close to the concept of 'independence in Europe', except Europe is something closer to a confederation. It's my belief that 'independence in europe' is about 'ever closer union' with all our neighbours. Quite why unionists want to limit people in Scotland's political interaction is very strange.
Alaska is in a relationship of equals, you say. I agree.
Alaska: 3 electoral college votes
California: 55 electoral college votes
Scotland: 59 MPs
England: 529 MPs
That's fair: broadly equal representation per head of population.
What about Quebec? It's interesting to note that Alex Salmond has called Parti Québécois the SNP's "parti frère" ("brother party"). He seems to support any and all secessionist movements. I wonder why.
As for "limiting political interaction", we don't! Try again.
Try Again? I'm afraid I have no idea what point you think you've just made. I presume you're suggesting Scotland sending some MPs to Westminster is the same thing as Alaska's participation and position in the USA's federal structure? It's a rather strange idea of federalism, ignoring of course, representation in the Senate (Council of Minsters?), a representation of Congressmen (EP?), and, as you say, 3 votes in the electoral college (QMV?). But, then again, perhaps sending some MPs to Westminster, some of whom may or may not form part of the government, is the ideal way to form broad and deep relations and interactions with all our neighbours and recognise modern sovereignty as interdependence? Try again? What would be the point? I've drawn as unsubtle a comparison as possible. All the Best.