Wow! These deceitful propagandists bamboozling the Scottish people are the side you support!?!
Whether Cornwall is a country or not has nothing to do with the Scottish situation. You can give words whatever meaning you want, like Humpty Dumpty in Wonderland. But the English people, the Scottish people, and even Scottish Unionists disagree with you. You suggest that the unionists are propagandists deceiving the Scottish people, if perhaps for the latter's own good; but even though I oppose the unionists, I wouldn't carry my hostility so far as to attribute such cynical duplicity to them.
Can you believe they're lying to the Scottish people about the union being the best place for a "proud nation", yet still think they're right? Should you not be insisting that they say: "Scotland is no more a country than Hampshire, so cut out this nonsense about independence"?
Gosh, this is a strawman argument in a number of different ways. Where shall I start?
Well firstly, I don't "support" the No side of this debate. While I do personally hold the view that both Scotland and the rest of the UK would be better off if Scotland remained within the union, I certainly don't have any emotional attachment to the issue (as the word "support" clearly implies). A number of people on this thread - me included - have tried to help you (and others) understand that our primary goal in participating here is to try to have a decent debate about the issues, and that by no means entails or implies taking a partisan position. The fact that most of the ridiculous rhetoric and embarrassing economic illiteracy is being displayed by those who do hold a partisan "Yes" position in this debate is merely coincidental
Secondly, yes you certainly can give words any meaning you want. I could term myself Emperor of India if I wanted. It doesn't make it factually so. And by the same token, anyone who refers to Scotland as a nation is of course perfectly at liberty to do so, but it's not factually true.
Thirdly, you use the word "deception" in a most pejorative way, and in a way that was absolutely not implied in my post. The use of the word "nation" does not imply deception, even if it's factually incorrect.
And that leads onto the fourth point: having built that particular straw man, you then accuse me of some sort of hypocrisy (having of course already made the incorrect assumption that I am emotionally attached to the "No" position) in "believing" the side (i.e. BT) that is using "cynical duplicity". Utter nonsense all round, I'm afraid.
And last (but by no means least), you entirely misunderstand and/or misrepresent my argument about nation/province/region in your final paragraph, by inventing a false equivalence. You suggest that I am arguing that Scotland has no right to seek independence
because it is not a nation (note, not a "country") in its own right. Entirely wrong. I believe that Scotland has every right to seek independence from the UK - self-determination is a cornerstone of modern democracy. If Cornwall (for example) sought independence, I would have no problem with them holding a referendum and the UK Govt honouring the result. Of course, there's such a poor case for Cornwall to become independent from the UK that such a referendum would never succeed - but if the majority of Cornwall inhabitants ever DID want to break away, they should be allowed to do so.
So you're totally wrong about the structure of my argument on this issue. For clarity, I'll repeat my position once again: Scotland has the right to self-determination, and if the majority desire independence from the UK, then this should be enacted (though I don't think it's in Scotland's best interests - but that's a whole other matter). And
entirely aside from that, Scotland's status as of right now is that it is a region of the sovereign nation of the UK (just as England, Northern Ireland and Wales are also). It has exactly the same status in international law as Bavaria within Germany, or Corsica within France. But just as Bavaria or Corsica could, if they wished, secede from Germany and France respectively, so could Scotland from the UK. The difference, of course, is that Bavaria and Corsica both surely realise how stupid and detrimental it would be to declare independence. In Scotland, that realisation seems to be being partially buried under an avalanche of nationalist/anti-English rhetoric and chip-on-shoulder nonsense.
