Up to a Point: A Free Scotland Would Be a Hilarious Disaster

The Daily Beast ^ | 9-13-2014 | P. J. O’Rourke

[servo1969]

This coming Thursday the Scots will vote on whether to make Scotland an independent nation. And I hope they do because it will be a disaster.

I don

[kingu]

I don’t know... Seems to me that most of Scotland’s voters are thinking that this whole vote is about how to make the welfare spending be controlled locally rather than those silly limits imposed by London.

Gonna need a whole lot more lipstick to add another S to PIIGS.

[Scoutmaster]

The little ‘knife’ in the sock is the sgian-dubh. I’ve never had a problem with it pulling down my hose, but my hose are rather tight.

[Sacajaweau]

I’m waiting for Obama to say that golfing in Scotland has always been on his bucket list.

[Hulka]

Maybe. . .but you got to respect a people so barbaric and with such violent potential that the Roman Empire built a wall to keep THEM out.

Damn. . .

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

The only reason they built a wall to keep them out is because at the time there wasn’t anything up there that made it worth conquering and subjugating.

[DPMD]

And obama will have a location to work as a consultant once he’s through turning the US into a socialist paradise.

[Hulka]

Scots scared the Romans, that is a fact.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

The idea that the Romans couldn’t have conquered Scotland if it had had wealth and riches to make it more cost effective to invade and subjugate it instead of building a wall manned by a few auxiliaries is ludicrous.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Pretty funny.

Combined PING! and DANG!

[Hulka]

Yeah, you are right. Conquering the known world, regardless of cost, to have the Roman Empire rule all and they suddenly stop because, heck, it just ain’t worth it.

[sauropod]

.

[Albion Wilde]

The problem is that how can a government of hard leftists fund all of their welfare and freebies on a substance that they consider to be evil?

I know, right? What's the matter -- don't they have any snowy owls needing protection over there?

[Albion Wilde]

"Scotland was independent at one time. They can do it again."

Wasn’t that before the industrial revolution?

In the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, the southerners (Edinburgh and Glasgow) in cahoots with England devised a plan to "import" cheap labor from the Scottish Highlands by burning the fiercely independent and traditonal highlanders off their ancestral lands and into the tenements to labor, swelter and die. They confiscated weapons and forbid the wearing of the clan tartans as part of breaking them.

Here is a most fascinating and readable history of the Scots people:

Click:
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It

[Slings and Arrows]

The problem is that how can a government of hard leftists fund all of their welfare and freebies on a substance that they consider to be evil?

The same way that the Worker's Paradise of Venezuela does.

"The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution."
--David Horowitz, quoting unnamed SDS leader.

[Albion Wilde]

Hmmm, Ferguson is a Scottish name. Trouble is Fat Bastard has already been shot.

I see what you did there. LOL

[Slings and Arrows]

Would independence make them any less anti-Semitic?

No. They'll need a boogeyman to blame when things go to shite.

[Slings and Arrows]

He did misspell Dewar’s and Chanel.

And "Myers."

[CodeToad]

I bet the British said that in 1775 about us, too.

[Albion Wilde]

Preach it!

[Albion Wilde]

Well if they go independent bye bye nanny state. Scotland is one of the most socialist countries. Cradle to grave. Maybe it will be good for them to deal with an austerity package.

What is more likely to happen is a great rush of those with nothing left to lose southward to beg England for sanctuary and benefits. So England, Wales & N. Ireland will lose the oil and inherit the trash. You think we have a border problem? Just wait...