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Implications of Scottish Independence

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Another wee comment. Another opinion poll that came out today is not looking terribly good for the No camp. They're still ahead on the headline numbers, but only by 5 points, and if the DKs break more to Yes (as the polling evidence suggests they will) it becomes a borderline Yes win. Add in the expected 2-3% boost to Yes from the greater likelihood of Yes-leaning voters getting off their backsides on the day and actually voting, and no wonder they're flailing around with distraction fluff stories.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
It's OK for JKR to compare Yes voters to Death Eaters, or for Better Together to present a member of the Scottish shadow cabinet and political activist as "an ordinary Mum". It's "vile abuse" when the less restrained elements react to the former, and the perfectly rational elements simply point out the latter.
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A moment. If the following extract is what you mean, it reads to me that she is comparing the behaviour of "a fringe of nationalists" to the behaviour of "Death Eaters". (You will pardon me if I admit to having no idea what this means.)
The comparison is not with "Yes" voters in general.

I presume the individuals she refers to are essentially the ones you describe as "Mouth breathing morons", in which case you would seem to be in agreement about the people involved.
As for whether these people are real nationalists or 5th column unionists, I cannot say. There are, I feel sure, numpties on both sides.
JKR said:
"However, I also know that there is a fringe of nationalists who like to demonise anyone who is not blindly and unquestionably pro-independence and I suspect, notwithstanding the fact that I’ve lived in Scotland for twenty-one years and plan to remain here for the rest of my life, that they might judge me ‘insufficiently Scottish’ to have a valid view. It is true that I was born in the West Country and grew up on the Welsh border and while I have Scottish blood on my mother’s side, I also have English, French and Flemish ancestry. However, when people try to make this debate about the purity of your lineage, things start getting a little Death Eaterish for my taste. By residence, marriage, and out of gratitude for what this country has given me, my allegiance is wholly to Scotland and it is in that spirit that I have been listening to the months of arguments and counter-arguments.
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Rolfe said:
That's what's going on here.

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2014/06/12/spin-and-smear/

And there are some suspicions that the nastiest comments may be posted by actual No activists pretending to be "cybernats". Mainly though, it's absolutely fine when unionists call us Nazis (and not just Twitter trolls but Alistair Darling and other prominent politicians), but anything we say will be assumed to be "vile abuse".

When Susan Calman claimed to have been told by someone else that she had been abused on a blog post, she chose not to look for this blog post but deleted her Twitter account and went whining to the press. There was no blog post. There was no abuse. All there was, was a couple of people in a side conversation in a thread about a completely different BBC comedy programme (HIGNFY) remarking that they also found Calman's performance on the News Quiz singularly unfunny.

However, Gordon Brewer on Newsnight Scotland claimed to have seen this material, and to have judged it "too offensive to show on the BBC" (after 11 pm!). He then went on to attack the "cybernats" for this alleged "vicious attack" for which no evidence at all has ever been discovered. Nobody ever mentions the documented incident of someone tweeting Frankie Boyle's home address with the comment "He's Yes, kill him" or something similar.

It seems that the No side only have to claim something happened for it to become immutable fact and Yes is excoriated, but anything the No side actually does is brushed aside as normal robust debate and move on don't be a crybaby.

Rolfe.
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Soapy Sam said:
A moment. If the following extract is what you mean, it reads to me that she is comparing the behaviour of "a fringe of nationalists" to the behaviour of "Death Eaters". (You will pardon me if I admit to having no idea what this means.)
The comparison is not with "Yes" voters in general.

I presume the individuals she refers to are essentially the ones you describe as "Mouth breathing morons", in which case you would seem to be in agreement about the people involved.
As for whether these people are real nationalists or 5th column unionists, I cannot say. There are, I feel sure, numpties on both sides.
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No, this isn't the same thing. Her article is a carefully-worded attack on Yes supporters in general, with a few weasel words about a "fringe". She characterises the debate in general as "purity of lineage" and indeed as almost entirely ethnically-based, when this is simply not true.

Nowhere is there any acknowledgement of the huge ground-swell of civic nationalism campaigning for a Yes vote, including groups from all sorts of ethnic minorities (including English people!). All she can talk about is her fantasy island of "pure-lineage" ethnicity and how this is a Scotland she would deplore. In fact the absolute acceptance of anyone who lives here and plans to remain here for the rest of their life has been expressed widely and often in the Yes movement. It's an absolute hard-line article of faith with Yes.

All of us campaigning for Yes know that we are the "lunatic fringe" in the eyes of the No campaign. I'm a "cybernat" simply for writing these things here, never mind commenting on Wings (and other places before that). We often do the "I am Spartacus" thing, but it's true - there is no fringe of loonies they're criticising. When push comes to shove they're criticising Wings, Bella, NNS, Peat Worrier, National Collective, the Dug, Scot Goes Pop and all the rest of the online activists, and me.

Rolfe.
 
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Rolfe said:
All of us campaigning for Yes know that we are the "lunatic fringe" in the eyes of the No campaign. I'm a "cybernat" simply for writing these things here, never mind commenting on Wings (and other places before that). We often do the "I am Spartacus" thing, but it's true - there is no fringe of loonies they're criticising.
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Hold on..you're saying there is no loony fringe in the "yes camp?
Who then are the "mouth breathers " you mentioned earlier? These are all pro-union fifth columnists? Or are you of the opinion the "no" campaign has no loony fringe either?
 
Oh that's a new one on me. A bit lacking in subtlety I have to say.

Stu Campbell had his photo sent round twitter with a swastika drawn on his shirt and the caption "Herr Salmond's foot soldier".

Rolfe.
 
Of course there are some nutters spouting a Yes line. There aren't many compared to the online filth that comes from the No camp on a daily basis though - and the latter includes prominent politicians and journalists, not just some Billy No-mates with a computer in his bedroom.

Have you seen this? https://twitter.com/BritNatAbuseBot/with_replies

And for a wee sample of the BTL comments in the Telegraph (merely better spelled than the ones in the Daily Mail), see here.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...ists-too-afraid-to-say-no/#comment-1431846264

The point is though that the "mouth-breathers" aren't the ones being referred to when the accusations of "vile abuse" start flowing. Insofar as any specific fingers can be pointed, these relate to relatively unremarkable things posted by reasonable debaters. For example the couple of tweets criticising Susan Calman's lame comedy that led to a full Newsnight programme fulminating against the so-called vicious attacks that were somehow too offensive to repeat on air.

Unionists online are masters of the art of taking offence and turning to passive-aggressive posturing in retaliation. All criticism is now "abuse", apparently. Only this afternoon Iain MacWhirter issued a general plea for some squabbling parties to "grow up". He was immediately attacked by Margaret Curran for misogyny. Iain mildly pointed out that his exhortation was general, not aimed at women. Mags insisted that "everybody" included women and one thing that's horrendously misogynistic is to tell a woman to grow up therefore his tweet was insulting to women.

I mean you couldn't make this stuff up. But that's the sort of thing that gets on to the BBC as "Iain MacWhirter taken to task for vile misogynistic insults". OK it probably won't because it's Iain MacWhirter, but if it had been ordinary Jock McCybernat, the Daily Mail would be doorstepping him to expose this vile abusive creature being personally directed by Dictator Salmond.

Some of us are getting a little tired of it. So have a beautiful picture instead as a good-night present.

butterflies.jpg


Rolfe.
 
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I don't know who said what to Calman. In my opinion she's as funny as a dose of measles, but I accept comics keep their best stuff for live performance and I only ever saw her on TV, so benefit of doubt and so on.
 
There seem to be any number of the yes side who are willing to admit there is abuse coming from those on the yes side and to condemn it, but not so on the No side. I realise that my own inclinations to vote yes may be having an effect on my perception of this but I didn't see any condemnation for the abusive attacks on the Weirs from the No side wheraes there has been plenty such reaction from the Yes side as regards the attacks on J K Rowling.
 
Rolfe has suggested that criticism of the Weirs was mostly in the press, whereas criticism of JKR is primarily on the internet. It's hard to compare the two. I tried googling variations on the theme, but a very inconsistent picture emerges.
The whole concept of "Internet attacks" is a confused one. It's easy for the non 'Net savvy to suppose an "Internet attack" is some sort of hacking / denial of service intrusion. In fact, it is mostly just people posting stuff that is only read either by themselves or by reporters digging for dirt. Avoiding such an "attack" is as easy as not reading a book.*

*ETA-Not that this is any justification for posting such rudeness.
 
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Soapy Sam said:
Rolfe has suggested that criticism of the Weirs was mostly in the press, whereas criticism of JKR is primarily on the internet. It's hard to compare the two. I tried googling variations on the theme, but a very inconsistent picture emerges.
The whole concept of "Internet attacks" is a confused one. It's easy for the non 'Net savvy to suppose an "Internet attack" is some sort of hacking / denial of service intrusion. In fact, it is mostly just people posting stuff that is only read either by themselves or by reporters digging for dirt. Avoiding such an "attack" is as easy as not reading a book.*

*ETA-Not that this is any justification for posting such rudeness.
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I often think that much of the outrage over Net-based attacks are down to the fact that the general public are still catching up with the medium. Anyone who used Usenet newsgroups back in the day will attest that this sort of thing is nothing new.
 
Look, if I repeated what was spray-painted on the road outside the Irn-Bru factory some time in the 1970s (about the Pope), it would break the auto-censor. Are you seriously telling me you didn't see it? I was mainly appalled that it wasn't cleaned away immediately.

Rolfe.
 
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Ah, but that was in the bad old days of Unionism & Conservatism.
As we enter the bright new era of a greener and happier Scotland etc...
Anyway, any excuse to see old Mason Boyne again.
 
Rolfe said:
Too explicit. The power of the image is that you have to imagine what the butterfly is rising away from.

Rolfe.
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No. To be complete, the image had to show that the creation of a new nation state was achieved by separating and damaging another one. Otherwise you don't see the costs as well as the benefits.
 
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