And only the English need to pay…..
David Davis
As Thursday comes near, the game becomes nastier. The breaking of the UK must have the planet’s less nice scumbags and GFNs chortling into their latte (whatever that might be) and gleefully rubbing their hands over a potential strategic advance. The Global War, for that is what it is, is against English liberalism and no other thing. Only this stands between Man and the Endarkenment. It has been like this for almost 150 years, but this time they’re on the Garden Wall.
Tony Blair, remarkable in this spat for keeping his head well down (wouldn’t you?) and only making one quick guest appearance, is the proximal cause. Wanting to make Scotland one entire Socialist Pocket Borough so that conservatism would never be near government again, he began the bribery auction in the late 90s. What he achieved in fact was a true nationalist-socialist victory instead – and I don’t need to say what those words mean. This was the inevitable result of “devolution”, coupled with vast money transfers North, to provide the appearance of efficacy.
Almost at the deadline, we have numbers of fellows and others wheeled out to say how negative the consequences would be if Scotland votes to go. Here, here, here and here, for example. Oh, and here too.
If I was a ScotzNatz, all these sad hand-wringing negative pleas and gestures would only serve to harden my resolve to say “Yes”. Perhaps the BritishPoliticalEnemyClass is playing a double bluff, and actually _wants Scotland to go_ , but I doubt it. It would mean almost certain oblivion for the LibDems and the improbability of a Labour government in England and Wales ever again. These awful people can’t be that stupid as to not think of this since Socialist-LibDems, Socialists and Socialist-Tories are now part of the monochrome furniture of British political-class-looting and mooching.
In the last 24 hours, the BritishPoliticalEnemyClass has resorted to naked bribery. This one trigger flipped me. That was it.
Up till one minute before I was printing and saying in several places the fact that I’d prefer the Scots to stay, even if this would prolong the time in which we’d have our noses rubbed yet again in the shit of more socialism in England. The silver lining to that particular cloud was that UKIP might gain more power more quickly in England if not elsewhere. But in the event of a “No” victory, I learned that England would be charged even more and get less. So that was that then.
The only tragic – really tragic – result of all this sad business, is that the English People have been made very very angry, and for what? Socialists that broke up our nation, on purpose, for their own ends. It’s also brought home to us how put-upon and abused we are, and how silent we have been. Please go now, Scotland, please go. I am personally sorry, for my eldest son studies brilliantly at one of your ancient Universities, loves Scotland and is doing well, and we now love Scotland because he showed it to us, which we never before knew. It is a family tragedy for us as well as a grand political one, but really, Scotland, you must go now, and “Dree The Weird” that “ye have sought”.
And then, too, as it says on the side of Strathacro Services, 37 miles south of Aberdeen on the good old A90…YE MAY GANG FAUR AND FARE WAUR”. … Go on, Scotland, please now, and GANG FAUR….Please leave us, if that’s what you want. We’ve had enough of being made to look like bad-guys.
Aye, David.
I think I’ve mentioned here before that I’m 1/4 Scottish (if blood means anything). My mother was proud of her Scots father’s heritage and she must be spinning in her grave. But I think in Libertarian terms the Scots are lost, with a few notable exceptions (such as Counting Cats’s Sam Duncan) and in national political terms our leaders have driven things into such a total mess that it is hard to see anything recognisable as a “union” surviving. The intolerable treatment of the rest of the citizens of the union by politicians trying to bribe the Scots to vote No is repulsive. So in that sense, I hope they vote Yes, even though it will feel mighty, mighty weird if they do.
I appreciate that many strands of Libertarian theory reject the nation state, and will say “so what?”, but I’m a nationalist libertarian, so for me it is a major issue and I cannot die that at an emotional level- the Humean sentiments or passions that my reason is enslaved to- it will feel very sad.
Mentioning Hume, it’s worth looking at what went wrong with Scotland. The Scotland of Hume’s era was a major intellectual power in the grip of “The Scottish Enlightenment”. This seems to have been an accidental consequence of the Union of 1707. Their government was abolished (the Privvy Council that spent its time witch-hunting etc) and the Westminster Parliament- considering Scotland to be a backwater full of barbarians- paid them little attention. The result was that Scots suffered a beneficial neglect that meant that vigorous men were free to seek both fortune in commerce and intellectual pursuits. Adjoined now to England, there was a great flowering of the intellectual, of which Hume perhaps is the brightest star, even if the comparatively rather dull mind of Adam Smith gets more attention.
Two things seem to have brought this to an end. The first was a disastrous fashion in philosophy for something called Common Sense Realism- effectively an anti-philosophy that rejected every advance made since Descartes in the understanding of both reality and humankind, claiming that that which is true is simply that which is obviously true. The other was a revival of the closed-minded Calvinist religiosity of the Scots kirk. By the end of the 19th century (and really, much earlier), the Scottish mind had closed down again. The land of merchants and philosophers satisfied itself with producing a parade of calvinist socialists from Keir Hardie to Gordon Brown. And that was that.
Erratum- “and I cannot die that at an emotional level” should be “and I cannot DENY that…”
I seem to have developed a hobbit of typing worms that sound a bit bike each other for some raisin. I must tie to slow drown.
Tee-hee! That’s foamy Ian!
[…] Even the mainstream media have now noticed. In trying to set permanent socialist Rotten Boroughs up, what a shambles the BritishPoliticalEnemyClass has made. In trying to sort things out, I wouldn’t be starting from here. I refer to my post of yesterday. […]
I’ve just read The Daily Mail article linked to, and I agree with David that this is the last straw. The proper response would have been to tell the Scotch to vote for independence or to accept the same place in the Union as they had before 1997 – perhaps with general devolution of powers from Westminster to all the counties of the UK. Instead, not only do they keep their Parliament as a centre of separatist agitation, but they get still more privileges, and these are to be cemented into the Constitution. It seems the party leaders looked over the edge of the cliff and saw an England in which too few will bother voting for any of them.
The only response is now to hope that the Scotch vote yes tomorrow. No doubt, this will bring on an overpowering constitutional crisis. But this will be preferable to letting the party leaders bribe the Scotch with English money to keep voting for parties that oppress the English. Bearing in mind, moreover, that any no vote is likely to be by a small margin, a yes vote only brings forward the inevitable and allows some kind of amicable relationship to return between the nations.
I remain a Unionist – for reasons of sentiment (I do not regard sentiment as a crime) all those brave Scots regiments over the centuries (and right now).
As for David Hume – as I thought Ian knew…..
David Hume was a critic of the main stream Scottish Enlightenment (and of English thinkers also – both Whig such as Richard Price and Tory such as Dr Johnson).
David Hume as a sceptic – and not “just” in philosophy or ethics (even the Tory Dr Johnson and the radical Whig Richard Prince had more in common with each other, in terms of understanding right and wrong, than either of them had in common with David Hume), but it politics also.
If Mr Hume had any political principles (i.e. anything he was willing to die for) I am not aware of them. That that does NOT mean he was some sort of intellectual monster (which Mr Hobbes certainly was) – but it does put him outside (a critic of) the Scottish Enlightenment. Indeed of political (and philosophical) principles in general (Tory as well as Whig).
What would Mr Hume have done when Mr Wilson’s house was attacked (by a mob in favour of price controls) in Philadelphia during the American War of Independence (had he been in the city) – nothing. Just as he would have done nothing had he been in London during the Gordon Riots (no rushing to defend the houses of friends – as Burke did), or in Athens Tennessee ih the 1940s (when the local elections were rigged – so the local people took up arms to capture the court house, defeating the local police force in pitched battle, with bullets and explosives) – nothing again.
The role of the sceptic may indeed be very important (for example to prevent the Scottish Enlightment thinkers becomming too arrogant) – but the sceptic should not be confused with the very thing he was sceptical of.
David Hume (a civilised and friendly man) would have been more at home in the Court of Louis XV (not the Court of Louis XIV, who was too intolerent, or the Court of Louis XVI who was too stupid and weak) chatting away with a gentleman King of unlimited power – than he ever was in Scotland (or England) wjhere his lack of committment to human freedom (neither philosophical or political) meant that he was alien figure – although a kindly, polite alien.
Indeed it might have been a good thing for France had David Hume continued to live there – as he might have convinced Louis XV to get rid of the statist economic system of Louis XIV (one thing that Hume did know about was economics – and Louis XV had no good economic advisers).
As for Scots culture – I suspect that the key break was 1712 not 1707.
The decision (in the time of Queen Anne) to put the Church of Scotland under the State – with most ministers being chosen centrally.
In the long term the decision to end the local election of ministers (which continued in among the Scots-Irish in Ireland) led to many Scots (such as Witherspoon the famous President of Princeton at the time of the American War of Indepenence) leaving Scotland altogether.
It was not normal in the Chuch of England for the local vicer or rector to be chosen nationally – althought they were not elected either (a local patron would, de facto, decide – as was the case in a small minority of Scottish cases).
It is not really an 18th century thing – but in the 19th century the Church of Scotland became more statist in its outlook (seemingly happy to hand over such things as poor relief and education to the national state)..
There were break away factions from the Church of Scotland – but they were so extreme in their theology that they never really became a viable alternative.
Those who complain about the Church of England (and they often have good reason to complain) should remember that it is not nearly as bad as the Church of Scotland – which really does act as if wants to be a Government Department.
And. yes, I do believe that this has hit Scots culture over the long term.
The modern Church of Scotland has helped produce a culture where “community” is seen as something the GOVERNMENT creates.
Which is just as bad as the “cosmopolitian” view point of the false “liberal” elite (the Economist magazine and so on) that community should not exist at all. That it does not matter if one knows one’s neigbours and that everyone should be atomised (looking to themselves, or to a distant state ruled by “enlightened experts”, for every aspect of life).
By the way – I notice that the text is not going red when I misstype words.
Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
I take up on the point about “community”. Apparently the English for hundreds of years never had “community” perhaps simply because it was organic. Thanks to multiculturalism we have been enlightened, and there has never been so many rapes, murders,sexual scandals since this -ism has been visited upon us. It would be lovely if someone had the time to create a balance sheet since we are constantly told that immigrants are good for the “economy” but who has totted up the negatives (prior to the General election?) and the cultural effect on the English way of life?
Martin