Go Big or Go Home

Steyn On-line ^ | October 4, 2017 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

As a general proposition, I would prefer to maintain the territorial integrity of the Dominion of Canada. But, if Quebec - or parts of Quebec - wished to secede, I would recognize their right to do so. Likewise, I would have preferred to maintain the 1801 borders of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but parts of Ireland felt otherwise - as was their right.

Though the fiercer nationalists might feel otherwise, the Irish benefited from a particular historical moment: 1922 was the era of the nation state, but not yet the welfare state. By the time the Scots came to hold their referendum a couple of years back, all the stirring Braveheart balderdash was hopelessly corrupted by calculations of which sugar-daddy - London or Edinburgh - was likely to heap the biggest bennies into your sporran. A welfare mentality is fatal to nationalism. It's why Quebec "separatism" is fundamentally unserious. And, if Northern Ireland ever decides to bolt the Union, it will have less to do with the Wearing of the Green than with the Welfare of the Green (or, more precisely, the combined welfare appeal of the Green and the Blue with Yellow Stars, Dublin and Brussels).

[captain_dave]

Past time for US to leave Nato

[Verginius Rufus]

So President Buchanan could have prevented secession if he had introduced welfare (Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Servants).

Of course the payment for each slave would have been 3/5ths as much...