GERS Day 2022

[AsimButtHitsASix]

9 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

Whether we benefited from the Union can only be determined on improvement of pre-Union Scotland, and not opinions of how Scotland may have ended up otherwise.

All in my humble opinion.

That only makes sense if you believe pre-Union Scotland wouldn't have improved under independence. Which begs the question how, I dunno, Estonia or Portugal managed to improve despite not being part of the UK.

Edited August 24, 2022 by AsimButtHitsASix

[Duries Air Freshener]

1 minute ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

That only makes sense if you believe pre-Union Scotland wouldn't have improved under independence. Which begs the question how, I dunno, Estonia or Portugal managed to improve despite not being part of the UK.

Honestly mate, my head’s fried after all this!  

Perhaps I’m not the man I used to be, but I can’t carry on.

[williemillersmoustache]

If we hadn't joined the union Scotland would have remained frozen like a Jacobean Jurassic Park, where we all get about on oxen drawn carts, get married by tying our hands together with dirty strips of tartan, life expectancy is 38 and the main occupation is reiving. Just like Airdrie. 

[AsimButtHitsASix]

3 minutes ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

Honestly mate, my head’s fried after all this!  

Perhaps I’m not the man I used to be, but I can’t carry on.

We'll simplify it for you.

Do you believe, if Scotland had not joined the Union, today's Scotland would be exactly the same as the Scotland of 1707?

[D Angelo Barksdale]

If we hadn't joined the union in 1707, some parts of the country would still be stuck in 1690.

[Darren]

22 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

Well... no.

For instance one could argue a benefit of incarceration is free bed and board but few would argue 10 years in the pokey benefitted the Birmingham Six.

So, yes, whilst being part of the UK in the days of empire helped make a lot of Scottish people very rich and this, in turn, led (directly or indirectly) to benefits to Scottish society we don't know that those benefits would not have arrived via different sources. The Norwegians, for instance, had similar progressions to Scotland on a vaguely similar timeline without the use of Jamaican slave plantations. So being part of the Empire was a benefit but we can't claim that that benefit outweighed potential downsides (clearances, wars, centralisation of power away from Scotland, etc).

To use Norway as another example their oil fund has sustained, and will sustain, their social democratic policies for decades and decades to come. If we were an independent nation thr oil revenue per capita for Scotland would have been massive. We could make the argument that that income being diluted across the UK populace and (some would argue) being frittered away is a downside of the union. This equally ignores the possibility an independent Scotland would have ballsed up this windfall.

So, no, we can point to things and argue that they are positives or negatives of the Union. Both exist. We can't say that overall the Union has been a benefit or hindrance.

It's semantics, really. But overall Scotland has benefited from being part of the union... because there have been benefits. As you've clearly outlined. Free bed and board in jail is a benefit. But it would be better to not be there in the first place.

Whether Scotland would have been better not being in a union with England? That's what's impossible to tell.

[Mark Connolly]

[AsimButtHitsASix]

7 minutes ago, Darren said:

It's semantics, really. But overall Scotland has benefited from being part of the union... because there have been benefits. As you've clearly outlined. Free bed and board in jail is a benefit. But it would be better to not be there in the first place.

I think it's your commiting the fallacy here. Yes there have been benefits but if the hindrances outweigh those benefits we can't say Scotland has benefited.

Is someone benefited from being incarcerated? (almost certainly) No. Are there benefits? Yes

Has Scotland benefited from being part of the Union? Maybe. Are there benefits? Yes.

Just because there are benefits doesn't mean the overall act is benefical

[Fletcher23]

Hopefully I will not find out in my lifetime what Scotland would be like not being part of the Union. 

The thought actually gives me the fear. 

 

[Antlion]

7 minutes ago, Fletcher23 said:

Hopefully I will not find out in my lifetime what Scotland would be like not being part of the Union. 

The thought actually gives me the fear. 

 

Well it’s not high on the list, but I suppose “giving the latest tiresome P&B pop-up alias the fear” is another decent reason to support independence.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

3 minutes ago, Antlion said:

Well it’s not high on the list, but I suppose “giving the latest tiresome P&B pop-up alias the fear” is another decent reason to support independence.

[Duries Air Freshener]

43 minutes ago, Fletcher23 said:

Hopefully I will not find out in my lifetime what Scotland would be like not being part of the Union. 

The thought actually gives me the fear. 

 

Same here, Fletch.

The idea of separating us from our kith and kin in England, Wales and NI is horrific.  It sends a chill up my spine.

[Dan Steele]

In the name of Jesus, Scotland could not survive on its own. We need the broad shoulders to keep subsidising us. The Union might slash foreign aid, but for whatever reason, they keep shovelling money to us. And thank Jesus for it.  

 

[GTG_03]

1 hour ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

Same here, Fletch.

The idea of separating us from our kith and kin in England, Wales and NI is horrific.  It sends a chill up my spine.

Ah the old blood and soil argument. I have kith and kin in countries outside the UK, do they not count?

And anyway, we won't be 'separated', decisions will be made in Edinburgh rather than London.

[TONTROOPER]

1 hour ago, The Skelpit Lug said:

In the name of Jesus, Scotland could not survive on its own. We need the broad shoulders to keep subsidising us. The Union might slash foreign aid, but for whatever reason, they keep shovelling money to us. And thank Jesus for it.  

 

As far as "frothing yoons" go........they dont come much frothier than this chap!.................. (taken from Indyref hustings 2014 in Inverness if my memory serves me well).

[dirty dingus]

1 hour ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

Same here, Fletch.

The idea of separating us from our kith and kin in England, Wales and NI is horrific.  It sends a chill up my spine.

Do you think wee nippy© is going to get her junior hacksaw out saw along the border and cast us out into the North Atlantic?  What about brexit when it stopped us all going to live with our kith and kin on the continent was that acceptable? It will be the rump UK right wing isolationists that would have caused you this concern, f**k aw to do with Indy supporters.

[coprolite]

1 hour ago, Snafu said:

 

Duries Air Fletcher? 

[D Angelo Barksdale]

A couple of the classic 2014 concern trolling hits getting wheeled out I see.

[sophia]

1 hour ago, TONTROOPER said:

As far as "frothing yoons" go........they dont come much frothier than this chap!.................. (taken from Indyref hustings 2014 in Inverness if my memory serves me well).

I'm afraid it doesn't, not for this pedant, it was actually an episode of Question Time.

How he slipped through the vetting process, we'll never know.

[Big Rider]

3 hours ago, Duries Air Freshener said:

Same here, Fletch.

The idea of separating us from our kith and kin in England, Wales and NI is horrific.  It sends a chill up my spine.

I feel your chilly pain. I have kith and kin in Australia and Canada which, im sad to say, are foreign now. God save their souls.