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Originally Posted by milo
It holds a relevance if you want scotland 'absolved' or 'condemned' by what happened in the last 300 years, if scotland's empire building had suceeded its history would be as tainted as that of britain. The scots, and the english formed an empire and did all those things of which you are not proud through britain. Since they all actively took part in what occured it seems fairly pointless to hold up an 'ideal' of those nations and say somehow the nations weren't to blame.
To put it another way, if scotland leaves the union and becomes 'fully integated' in the EU (whatever that means) and in doing so influences the EU to 'commit wrongs' it would be fairly nonsensical for scottish nationalists to then turn around and say it wasn't scotlands fault. Be independant if you wish, but the history of britain is scotlands history, with scotlands participation. I don't turn away from that history but rather accept it and learn from it, trying to absolve scotland by distancing it from what it helped do is shallow patriotism.
Defining what you mean by small is quite important mang, if open border policies of an integrated scotland in the EU allowed, say 30 million immigrants into scotland the 'relative distance' from your political system (however you're measuring that) would be increased.
You aren't implementing any new ideas for making politics more accountable.
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My third post i said ' i dont absolve scotland of any of the above '. And then i went to suggest that all nation states would act horrendously. But you didnt read either, so i suppose thats alright. To focus on the future, rather than the past, we can expect Britain to enter into many more neo-imperial wars at the behest of the Americans, whereas i cant see Scotland having the desire in international terms, nor the capability to be obligated to do so.
I wont be accused of shallow patriotism when what you are basically advocating is 'take the good with the bad and like it or lump it'. Looking forward rather than back, what international benefits does Scotland get from being associated with Britain?
When did i say open border politics? And what bizarre world are you living in where Scotland would seek to increase its population by 600%?
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Originally Posted by JonnyBGood
If 110% of all people in the UK wanted the government to focus, to the detriment of anything else, on researching faster than light travel I still don't think they should do it.
Smaller nation states aren't necessarily benign. Smaller nation states are also easier to coerce.
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ridiculous examples dont excuse a government of being representative, unless you are advocating pragmatic fascism.
I didnt say they all were benign, but short of a full scale war with Norway happening over fishery disputes, i hardly see Scotland as a Serbia.