Let's All Laugh at the Royalist Nats and Greens

[Albus Bulbasaur]

Just now, Antlion said:

The “my character” stuff and “contrary to popular opinion” stuff this troll comes out with - in both aliases - is what’s weird to me. It’s like he’s a P&B celebrity in his own head, when the reality is he’s just someone who has some kind of weird addiction to posting here, to the extent that whenever he’s banned when he pushes his abusiveness too far, he literally cannot help coming back and resuming the time tedious shit. It’s a bizarre phenomenon but there it is - an addiction and a bizarre delusion of self-importance.

The lack of self awareness is off the charts. 

Again, it's batshit insane to believe me and Duries are the same person. 90% of the posters that read here are probably laughing at you. You've shown a lot of delusion before so I suppose it's to be expected, the point where your fantasies actually make you lash out and dislike all my posts and publically post such paranoid ramblings is probably when you should log off though. It can't be healthy to be so consumed by a football forum. 

[carpetmonster]

!

[Big Rider]

2 hours ago, Albus Bulbasaur said:

The lack of self awareness is off the charts. 

Again, it's batshit insane to believe me and Duries are the same person. 90% of the posters that read here are probably laughing at you. You've shown a lot of delusion before so I suppose it's to be expected, the point where your fantasies actually make you lash out and dislike all my posts and publically post such paranoid ramblings is probably when you should log off though. It can't be healthy to be so consumed by a football forum. 

I seriously think it’s time that you and your alter-ego took some time off pal. 

[Albus Bulbasaur]

2 minutes ago, Big Rider said:

I seriously think it’s time that you and your alter-ego took some time off pal. 

Looks like Antlion forgot to switch accounts! 

Just wait til I post the dotting activities correlated with the timestamps of each post. I've got an excel spreadsheet on the go that's going to blow your cover out the water. This is your chance to come clean. 

[Big Rider]

Just now, Albus Bulbasaur said:

Looks like Antlion forgot to switch accounts! 

Just wait til I post the dotting activities correlated with the timestamps of each post. I've got an excel spreadsheet on the go that's going to blow your cover out the water. This is your chance to come clean. 

The game’s up pal.
We all know what you are doing.
Why not make some nice dinner and relax tonight?
You and DAF together.

[Albus Bulbasaur]

3 minutes ago, Big Rider said:

The game’s up pal.
We all know what you are doing.
Why not make some nice dinner and relax tonight?
You and DAF together.

Nice try Day of The Lords, must you guys all post in the same manner, at least try and mix it up a little bit. Each alias just as boring as the last. 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

There was ultra aggressive tactical voting. Libdems and tories and Labour all happily rutting away together, to deny a pro indepence majority and they failed. Because there is a pro independence majority in Holyrood.
I'm going to say this just one more time as it remains the case, there is only one way to accurately gauge support for a binary choice and that is by referendum. Neither multiparty votes nor adding one vote and ignoring another then licking your finger and sticking it in the air achieves this. The support is there, otherwise we'd have Douglas Ross or that Labour guy Ricard Langoustine as FM. 
And you have ignored the list vote because if the opposite was true I'm sure this argument of yours would be turned on its head and suddenly the constituencies wouldn't matter its the proportional list that counts. 
Perhaps your prediction will come to pass, I think not but that will be because the Scottish government have chosen to ignore the repeated and explicit instructions from the electorate, not because of what amounts to little more than frankly desperate numberwang. 

The aggressive tactical voting was on one side only. There's also the assumption that every vote for the unionist parties was a vote for the union (and the same is true for independence parties btw). Until there is a clear single issue vote we genuinely do not know. That bring said we elect representatives on the basis of our flawed system, on the basis of their manifestos - like it or not there is a clear majority for pro-independence parties.

This is a representative democracy and like it or not the electorate voted in a majority of MSPs who were pro-referendum. It's no different from the minority of voters who elected a majority of MPs for the Conservative Party to implement their hard Brexit.

We seem to be at a constitutional impase with the Unionists deliberately moving the goalposts to thwart the different routes to independence. That's extremely dangerous for democracy in the long run.

[Big Rider]

18 minutes ago, Albus Bulbasaur said:

Nice try Day of The Lords, must you guys all post in the same manner, at least try and mix it up a little bit. Each alias just as boring as the last. 

C’mon now Stormzy.

You and DAFty could share one of these after dinner.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

Looks like Antlion forgot to switch accounts! 
Just wait til I post the dotting activities correlated with the timestamps of each post. I've got an excel spreadsheet on the go that's going to blow your cover out the water. This is your chance to come clean. 

It's not like you've anything else in your life. We all look forward to your findings.

[Ad Lib]

10 hours ago, Zern said:

No. You are wrong. The powers that secessionist government can lay claim to are far greater than you appear to recognise. They can, and have included powers outside their competence. It is one of the more defining features of how states secede.

Under international law, there is no right of secession, except in the context of colonies and oppressed peoples.

In the words of Alex Salmond in the 2014 White Paper, "Scotland is not oppressed and we have no need to be liberated".

10 hours ago, Zern said:

You personal dislike of the idea does not make that idea invalid. UDI is an option. That is a power not devolved but seized. That is valid when it comes to secessionary states. Real world examples demonstrate this. That was the point made that you appear determined to miss.

No, it is only valid in the context of what the Quebec Secession Reference correctly described as a "absolute denial" of self-determination for peoples.

A constitutional prohibition on secession is not regarded as an "absolute denial" of self-determination. The very existence of democratic sub-state government in Scotland is evidence to the contrary.

You might, but even then, only might, just have a point if the Westminster Parliament were actually to legislate to abolish the Scottish Parliament.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

Sorry, you are going to have to explain to me your line of reasoning here. I've affirmed that Westminster is not bound by Holyrood. You've agreed. Now you have done a volte face and declared that Westminster would be bound by Holyrood. Which is it? My position is that no matter what route to independence was taken that Westminster would affirm its superiority and not find itself bound, or obligated by anything.

No, you accepted that Westminster is not bound by international law to enable a referendum to happen or to allow or accept Scottish independence.

What I have pointed out to you is that any "rights" that Scotland might have under international law have to come with corresponding "duties", on the part of the UK, to accept, respect and honour those rights. Without those duties there are no rights.

If international law says that I have the right not to be tortured, that comes with corresponding duties on (at least) contracting sovereign states (a) to not torture me and (b) to secure in domestic law and practice arrangements that ensure I am not tortured.

If those corresponding duties do not exist, then I do not have a meaningful right not to be tortured.

Similarly, neither the Scottish Government nor the Scottish people has any rights in international law that do not impose corresponding duties on the UK as an international actor to honour and give effect to those rights.

That's what international law is.

Otherwise you just sound like Sean Clerkin going into his local police station saying "I'd like to report a crime! An international war crime".

10 hours ago, Zern said:

I wasn't comparing them, i providing you with a refutation of your bald-assed assertion that civil disobedience plays no role in constitutional change.

In that respect your issue not with me but with reality. I can provide you with more, real world examples until either acknowledge your are wrong or you disappear up your own backside.

The point is that it plays no meaningful or legitimate role in this constitutional dispute.

Civil disobedience in secession disputes only advances anything if there is clear evidence of oppression of those being absolutely denied self-determination.

Your real-world examples are those where sub-state nations have actually been oppressed.

Scotland is not oppressed and we have no need to be liberated.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

To paraphrase; "those who make legal revolution impossible, make illegal revolution inevitable."

See above.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

They have a clear majority in favour and the constitutional authority to press for their political aims.

They have a clear Scottish Parliamentary majority but they do not have a clear popular majority.

And they have the authority to pursue their political aims, but they have no constitutional right to achieve them.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

I agree that this is legitimate, but that doesn't change the availability of other options in the face of obstruction.

But your "other options" are highly unlikely to succeed as a matter of realpolitik, even if they did would place an independent Scotland in a terrible starting position, and would not be supported by international law, contrary to what you have claimed.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

This is ridiculous. The elections and vote share you are using delivered a clear majority and a plurality of parties in favour a referendum. You are ignoring the results and abusing the data in favour of some personal metric. That is not valid.

Not in the slightest. A "clear majority" of the popular vote for a second independence referendum would require, at least, being able to demonstrate on both the constituency and the regional list ballots that the majority of voters in Scotland voted for political parties with manifesto commitments to hold a second independence referendum (or of such a ballot at a Westminster election). Since one of those ballots points one way and the other points the other, and the margins are within fractions of a percentage point of 50% no such "clear" majority exists.

Go and change the minds of another 20,000 voters.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

You are not using data from a popular vote on single issue here. You are using data from party votes in a general election. If you want such data, you need to hold a referendum on that single issue. That would be valid.

Again, we operate in something vaguely resembling the real world. There is not going to be a referendum on whether Scotland should hold a referendum on Scottish independence. You cannot, on the one hand, dismiss the importance of nation-wide election campaigns fought explicitly and predominantly on the second referendum issue, on the one hand, then claim 50.1% on only one of two ballots in such a "general" election as proof that the majority wants something specific (a second referendum).

In a representative democracy, we acknowledge that some things are decided on the basis of the representatives we elect, and that others are decided on the basis of wider national sentiments (with elections used as a partial proxy for whether those questions should be asked).

10 hours ago, Zern said:

This becomes especially silly when you realise that the ACTUAL results derived from the voting data leads to a 55% majority in parliament of parties in favour of holding a referendum. A clear majority.

But not everything is decided based on whether there is a Scottish Parliamentary majority for it. The Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government are entities with limited competence. Elections do not automatically provide them with mandates to do whatever they want just because an electoral system has given them a majority.

For example, if the Parti Quebecois wins a landslide in the National Assembly elections on a platform to ban all immigration into Quebec, that doesn't mean that the Federal Government of Canada is under any obligation to make concessions to that "clear majority". The matter of immigration is a federal class of subject, and something in respect of which the interests of all of Canada are engaged. Now the other provinces and the Federal Government might consider changing the constitutional law to enable the Quebec administration to fulfil its manifesto promise, but they might not. That's a political dispute for which a sub-state electoral majority, while a potentially relevant consideration, is not a trump card.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

You are not phrasing this as question or querying the results though you are cherrypicking data and using it to reach an invalid conclusion.

No I'm not. I'm saying we should be precise about what our argument is.

There is a respectable argument that clear majority support from Scottish voters is not a necessary condition for an independence referendum. It is rooted quite firmly in, among other things, the British tradition of representative democracy, and the precedent of 2011.

What I am against is unnecessary and unsubstantiated claims about the wishes of the Scottish people (that they as a whole want a second referendum when it's not clear that they do). The lack of a clear majority is indicated by the contradictory ways in which voters voted in the 2021 SP elections and in the narrow but clear way they voted in the 2019 UK elections. They are, in short, our best data, and are supported by other forms of data, including consistent polling evidence.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

I would hesitate to take you advice, mostly because it does not appear to have helped your own political party.

I don't belong to a political party, champ, and haven't done so for almost six years. The sum total amount of time I was a member of a political party is shorter than the unbroken period since when I haven't been.

It is a matter of public record that I voted for Scottish independence in 2014.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

Accept the results and stop trying to twist them into being something they are not. By any reasonable measure there is the political will in Scotland to push for a referendum and more. That is because they are able to secure enough of the vote to for a government. It is both democratic and representative of Scottish attitudes.

*sigh*

For the umpteenth time, I agree with you that there is a political mandate. I was arguing that there was a political mandate back in 2016, when polling support for a second independence referendum was actually higher than it is now and sometimes indicating a majority.

But having a political mandate for something, and there being a political will among the people for something, is not the same thing.

Let me illustrate with another example. At the 2019 UK General Election, about 52% of the ballots cast were for political parties committed to holding a second referendum on leaving the EU, rather than leaving having ratified Boris Johnson's Brexit deal.

However, Boris Johnson won a comfortable 80 or so seat majority in the election.

This gave him a clear political mandate to pursue the ratification of his Brexit deal. And since the UK Parliament is sovereign, there are then no constraints on what it can agree to, save where what it is agreeing to is contingent on future negotiations (for example).

But only a moron would claim, following that General Election, that there was a "clear" political will in the UK for the country to leave the EU, when a majority of voters backed parties explicitly trying to put the question to another referendum, given that campaign was conducted explicitly in the context of, and indeed predominantly concerned debate on, that policy question.

10 hours ago, Zern said:

You appear to be taking polls as representative rather than indicative and using the representative results as indicative. That is plain weird to me

On the contrary, I am taking the inconclusivity of the ballots cast, and the supporting polling evidence, as indicative that you do not have a clear majority of voters with you on this course of action.

Such a reality is fine  if you are content to be stuck in your bubble where we all believe the UK Government is being foolish on its position, and are content to get absolutely nowhere in actually securing a referendum while preening at how right you are.

But it is pretty unhelpful as reality if you want to actually get a second referendum, given that your opposition have no intention of working from your criteria for a mandate.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Ad Lib

[Ad Lib]

3 hours ago, Zern said:

More hoops.

We have majority support of our elected representatives in both Westminster and Holyrood,

How is this not a clear majority?

Do you really need me to explain to you in crayon the difference between representative and direct democracy?

3 hours ago, Zern said:

In the absence of a referendum vote there are only local and national elections available to gauge support.

Under this electoral framework the SNP/Greens have secured all the majorities required to pursue their political aims.

So when i say they have majority support i am pointing to those majorities.

When you say there isn't, you're referring to what exactly?

The popular vote.

This isn't fucking hard.

[Albus Bulbasaur]

6 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

39 minutes ago, Albus Bulbasaur said:

Looks like Antlion forgot to switch accounts! 
Just wait til I post the dotting activities correlated with the timestamps of each post. I've got an excel spreadsheet on the go that's going to blow your cover out the water. This is your chance to come clean. 

It's not like you've anything else in your life. We all look forward to your findings.

Thanks buddy. Unfortunately I was just doing a bit to show how ridiculous some of these accusations are. 

[Antlion]

1 hour ago, Big Rider said:

The game’s up pal.
We all know what you are doing.
Why not make some nice dinner and relax tonight?
You and DAF together.

I’m assuming he’s abandoned the pretence now and has discovered that, in the “fun” before the next ban, he might as well revel in his dual accounts - to play up to it for maximum attention from strangers. I genuinely don’t understand what any adult can find enjoyable, never mind necessary, in this.

[Big Rider]

5 minutes ago, Antlion said:

I’m assuming he’s abandoned the pretence now and has discovered that, in the “fun” before the next ban, he might as well revel in his dual accounts - to play up to it for maximum attention from strangers. I genuinely don’t understand what any adult can find enjoyable, never mind necessary, in this.

I thought his Scott Steiner persona was his nadir. All that wrestling patter was howling. 

The double diddy act is the best (worst) yet.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

[emoji1] I thought his Scott Steiner persona was his nadir. All that wrestling patter was howling. 
The double diddy act is the best (worst) yet.

Can't believe I forgot about that one. What an utterly tragic individual [emoji23]

[Albus Bulbasaur]

You guys are wired to the moon. I've seen some weird things on forums but this is certainly taking the piss on the bizarre scale. You guys should perhaps create a WhatsApp group or something to explore your conspiracies rather than derailing and polluting every single thread with this tedious pish. 

[carpetmonster]

!

[Benjamin_Nevis]

I've seen some weird things on forums

Indeed.

There's some wee loser on here that's created alias after alias, having been banned from one of the most loosely moderated forums around. Mental.

[Albus Bulbasaur]

19 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

 

 

Indeed.

There's some wee loser on here that's created alias after alias, having been banned from one of the most loosely moderated forums around. Mental.

 

So you keep saying with absolutly no reason. 

If this was the case you should just report the person or send DMs to your wee pals about your theories rather than shitposting and cluttering up threads. This is my last post on the subject as I'm aware I'm doing the same. 

I tried to make my case about the subject at hand but couldn't keep up with the pedantic semantic warriors and I'm enjoying seeing them flail around when debating @Ad Lib this other stuff is pretty boring and childish to me.

 

[Antlion]

56 minutes ago, Big Rider said:

I thought his Scott Steiner persona was his nadir. All that wrestling patter was howling. 

The double diddy act is the best (worst) yet.

I forgot about that one - I’m assuming it was the same utterly boring “look at me” drivel as when he posted as Santander. He’ll be delighted someone remembers the account. I’m curious as to whether, when he looks at P&B to find he’s been banned, he’s annoyed at having (yes, having) to make yet another new account, or whether he’s convinced himself each punting is a win and that he really is king of the trolls.