Independence - how would you vote?

[Bula Bairn]

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/alex-massie/2013/08/the-closing-of-the-nationalist-mind/

Better together because.....?

[AberdeenBud]

Fair play to the No side, though. They've done a very good job of somehow convincing people that absolutely nothing is going to change after 2014. Still, No voters can't say they weren't warned.

Hopefully the Euro elections next year will be a timely reminder.

[Swampy]

It's a problem for any side in any debate when they're trailing persistently and significantly in the polls. Inertia wins the day.

The article makes a point of mentioning 'good faith' argumentation. I'm now waiting to hear why it's important to Reynard and the Spectator that the Yes camp brings its A-game and greets all-comers with kisses and cuddles at all times. What possible investment can they have in a positive Yes campaign?

We have a phrase for this kind of mendacious hand-wringing: concern trolling.

[Swampy]

Hopefully the Euro elections next year will be a timely reminder.

I guarantee you the following outcome right now from the No voters on here:

'lol European elections are toytown elections, they don't matter, it'll be alright'

*wait 5 minutes*

'lol the SNP did badly at the European elections'

*wait 5 minutes*

'lol the European elections don't matter, don't worry about UKIP, we'll be fine in the EU'

*wait 5 minutes*

'lol the SNP were outvoted by UKIP in [insert constituency], the wheels are well and truly off'

*wait 5 minutes*

'lol Salmond's wife is old'

Bookmark it.

[Swampy]

Just to go back to that Spectator article one last time: my reading of it is that Alex Massie managed to shoehorn a bit of actual analysis into his usual Scot-baiting (fun exercise: go through his blog archive and do a ctrl+F for 'tartan' on each page. Draw your own conclusions), and the analysis was:

1) A currency union might be 'sub-optimal', according to what is 'merely a hypothesis'.

2) Posters on a pro-independence blog are likely to be fervently pro-independence.

And this is what passes for sober, enlightened commentary on Planet Union, is it?

On point 1, neither Massie nor anyone on here has actually taken issue with what the Wings article says on this matter. I'm not holding my breath for them to do so.

On point 2... I'm not altogether sure that Wings has taken on the role of official campaign manager for the Yes camp. To my knowledge there are lots of people out canvassing and campaigning, and whether or not they operate identically to be Wings... well, I doubt Massie could tell us, since he wrote this article without mentioning them even once.

Be sure to join us next week when he deplores the lack of Hibs supporters on Jambos Kickback (and probably calls them porridge-gobblers as well.)

[T_S_A_R]

Of course it's the problem. But you said this was indicative of 'supporting the union', which is the part I'm questioning. Voting for the status quo is not the same thing as supporting the union. There is a world of difference between gnashing, bitey unionists (maybe, generously, 20% of the population) and people who are happy just to go with the flow.

edit: this, incidentally, is why I think the Yes side should be making a bigger deal of the fact that things are going to change in the event of a No vote as well as a Yes vote. The UK is about to enter very, very uncertain waters as far as its EU membership is concerned, for example.

there is obviously a difference but on the day of the referendum they are all ticking the same box so it's irrelevant. other than the zealots on both sides (and i think it's far less than 20%) it's simply a case of pros and cons mainly relating to financial matters for most people and at the moment the cons are (understandably) well ahead in the debate.

the yes campaign have to do far more to win than the no which might seem unfair but that is the nature of this debate. at the moment i think the yes campaign are having a nightmare, they have to convince people that an independent scotland can and will be better but i don't see much evidence of it. the talk about constitutions this week is a move in the right direction but to win they surely have copy the super positive obama 08 campaign (bullshit though it was). judging by how vanilla holyrood has been with the snp majority and the campaign so far i don't think they have it in them to do that.

i don't think the uk will leave the EU. if there is a vote the polls are pretty close at the moment and big business is for retaining membership. in the unlikely event the vote happens i think it will be a hat trick for vested interests: no to AV, no to independence and yes to EU membership.

[T_S_A_R]

The article makes a point of mentioning 'good faith' argumentation. I'm now waiting to hear why it's important to Reynard and the Spectator that the Yes camp brings its A-game and greets all-comers with kisses and cuddles at all times. What possible investment can they have in a positive Yes campaign?

We have a phrase for this kind of mendacious hand-wringing: concern trolling.

he's not talking about the yes camp.

he is talking about bat shit mental cybernats.

[Swampy]

he's not talking about the yes camp.

he is talking about bat shit mental cybernats.

"Namely, that many cheerleaders for independence spend as much and quite probably more time congratulating themselves on their sagacity than they do on talking to people who do not already agree with their views. (A glance at the comment sections on leading independence-supporting website confirms this: they provide as good an example of confirmation bias as you could ever hope to discover. There’s little debate, little meeting of minds in these places. They are cathedrals frequented only by True Believers.)"

'Many', 'quite probably, 'glance'... if we leave these blaring klaxons of warning politely to one side for the moment, can you explain why this is even slightly relevant?

"These pro-independence posters keep posting pro-independence things on a pro-independence website!"

"These football fans keep posting about football on a football website!"

edit: rather than being rhetorical I'll just say my opinion on the matter - he's conflated message board posts with the 'Nationalist' cause writ large because it is (appropriately enough) tasty morsels for clapping seals like you and Reynard, and it's also a good opportunity for him to yet again showcase his limited arsenal of anti-Scottish tropes.

[AberdeenBud]

there is obviously a difference but on the day of the referendum they are all ticking the same box so it's irrelevant. other than the zealots on both sides (and i think it's far less than 20%) it's simply a case of pros and cons mainly relating to financial matters for most people and at the moment the cons are (understandably) well ahead in the debate.

the yes campaign have to do far more to win than the no which might seem unfair but that is the nature of this debate. at the moment i think the yes campaign are having a nightmare, they have to convince people that an independent scotland can and will be better but i don't see much evidence of it. the talk about constitutions this week is a move in the right direction but to win they surely have copy the super positive obama 08 campaign (bullshit though it was). judging by how vanilla holyrood has been with the snp majority and the campaign so far i don't think they have it in them to do that.

i don't think the uk will leave the EU. if there is a vote the polls are pretty close at the moment and big business is for retaining membership. in the unlikely event the vote happens i think it will be a hat trick for vested interests: no to AV, no to independence and yes to EU membership.

Why take the risk and allow to Scotland to be dragged into an antagonistic and hostile relationship with the EU, when you can vote for an Independent Scotland to be a proud, committed, and responsible European nation?

As amusing as UKIP are, it needs to be remembered they are basically a bunch of reactionary bigots who are currently polling at 12% nationally, and up to one in four voters for the European elections. Their support in Scotland is thankfully negligible.

[T_S_A_R]

"Namely, that many cheerleaders for independence spend as much and quite probably more time congratulating themselves on their sagacity than they do on talking to people who do not already agree with their views. (A glance at the comment sections on leading independence-supporting website confirms this: they provide as good an example of confirmation bias as you could ever hope to discover. There’s little debate, little meeting of minds in these places. They are cathedrals frequented only by True Believers.)"

'Many', 'quite probably, 'glance'... if we leave these blaring klaxons of warning politely to one side for the moment, can you explain why this is even slightly relevant?

"These pro-independence posters keep posting pro-independence things on a pro-independence website!"

"These football fans keep posting about football on a football website!"

edit: rather than being rhetorical I'll just say my opinion on the matter - he's conflated message board posts with the 'Nationalist' cause writ large because it is (appropriately enough) tasty morsels for clapping seals like you and Reynard, and it's also a good opportunity for him to yet again showcase his limited arsenal of anti-Scottish tropes.

i would assume that massie receives a lot of correspondence from the loopier cybernat fringe which is probably why he has mentioned this on his blog. i'm not sure if it's relevant to the independence debate but we have spoken about confirmation bias before and it's interesting. surely you can see that there loads of people on the likes of wings over scotland and some on here (i don't mean you or xbl btw) that have lost touch with reality in this debate? a guy linked me to an article the other day that suggested using singapore and hong kong as models for an independent scotland's future currency ffs.

a lot of these people are probably going to end up looking like karl rove the night romney got beat.

[H_B]

Cool, what are they? This thread tends to bog down around the same topics and modes of conversatiom precisely because only Yes voters tend to put down on screen why they think its a good idea. Ive comitted my own ideas and reasoning several times. I'd love to hear why the union is so good and have asked several times of No voters in good faith. I'm still waiting

Well thats not true.

Ive previously told you why im voting No.

[Swampy]

i would assume that massie receives a lot of correspondence from the loopier cybernat fringe which is probably why he has mentioned this on his blog. i'm not sure if it's relevant to the independence debate but we have spoken about confirmation bias before and it's interesting. surely you can see that there loads of people on the likes of wings over scotland and some on here (i don't mean you or xbl btw) that have lost touch with reality in this debate? a guy linked me to an article the other day that suggested using singapore and hong kong as models for an independent scotland's future currency ffs.

a lot of these people are probably going to end up looking like karl rove the night romney got beat.

If he receives this correspondence why didn't he use it in the article? He used some Tweets, then he used Wings comments. If there was really this barrage of 'loopy' missives wouldn't that illustrate his point perfectly?

He's decided to take a kick at the Nats for poor debating, and picked their own patch as an example of it. It is precisely analogous to hand-wringing about the lack of Hibs posts on Kickback. It is concern trolling, and the supposed Unionist elite on here is buying into it (probably because they like the Scot-baiting that Massie specializes in, to be fair.)

That said... I agree with you that there are people who are absolutely convinced that Yes will win, and that as things stand they are in for a shock of Rovian proportions. (That's not me saying that things can't change, but anyone who actually looks at the polls with something resembling a critical eye knows that if the referendum was tomorrow the vote would be around 57/43 and the opinion polling even worse for Yes.)

[renton]

Well thats not true.

Ive previously told you why im voting No.

I did think about a caveat because I think you had, but I wasnt confident about representing those views accurately. I recall your internationalism ( a belief on a world without borders, but if so why is the UK an important part of that rather than Scotland on its own) I also recall you thinking that you personally would be worse off and tbat you thought Holyrood was a waste of time. Forgive me if im wrong, its not a deliberate misrepresenration of your views.

[Baxter Parp]

 

that a currency (and likely fiscal) union with rUK where we are the weaker partner and at the mercy of the whims of c***s like cameron and osbourne is sub optimal.

 

to me that is a big reason not to vote yes. it is obviously difficult to debate with any certainty but this is the weakest area for the yes campaign.

Is the possibility of a "sub-optimal" element of independence really a good reason to vote no when the benefits of independence are so great? For a start we get to choose how we spend our money instead of c***s like Cameron and Osbourne.

[Frosty]

If the difficulties cannot be overcome how is it the best option for Scotland?

Er - if the other options are worse.

[Shuggie_Murray7]

My impression of this thread:

[Frosty]

When did this happen? What are you on about? Presumably you have some sort of basis for this claim?

You went through a stage of muttering darkly about civil unrest in the event of a no vote - I recollect Swampy basically telling you to button it.

I suspect this is what HB has been alluding to also when talking about your civil unrest.

[Baxter Parp]

Er - if the other options are worse.

I believe that he's pointing out that the difficulties are surmountable. There are solutions to most problems, after all.

[Frosty]

I believe that he's pointing out that the difficulties are surmountable. There are solutions to most problems, after all.

Herpes?

[Baxter Parp]

Herpes?

Try to avoid snogging hookers.