Scots Begin Struggle For Independence:

As a proud Scottish-American, I wholeheartedly endorse Scotland's independence. Throw off the shackles of England once and for all!!!

 

Fascinating!!!

Truly, very interesting post.

I'm curious. How would you characterize the relationship between England and Scotland?

 

I don't know. Countries are nebulous things. There are a hundred different answers. Here's one from a well known Scots author:

It's SH**E being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the ****ing Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized BY. We're ruled by effete W*****s. It's a SH**E state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and ALL the fresh air in the world won't make any ****ing difference!

I'd rather that than all the self pity about how Scottish people are somehow victims. They are no more or no less victims than the rest of us.

Scotland's a great place. So is Ireland. But great people are those who widen their horizons and seek enlightenment. I'm Irish by descent, enough to get a passport, but the pathetic attitude of Irish people in Ireland towards the English is just now based on ignorance and chauvinism. It's amazing how quickly a spirited, noble and uplifting nationalism (Robert Emmet was a contemporary of Tom Paine, and a kindred spirit) can turn sour into Highlander's type of truculence and venom.

You know aside from English and Scottish you often have to look at how people of the same nationality look at each other. If you go to Kilburn in London you often hear about great emnity between the "London Irish" and the recently arrived Irish. To the surprise of many Americans there has always been the attitude in Ireland that once you've emigrated you're not really Irish any more. Many Irish people have told me this. The rejection is not explicit but it is there. You're seen as an outsider. And if you're the child of an emigrant, well they laugh at your claim to Irishness. Behind your back, once they've milked you for pounds or dollars.

My Dad taught me this, both his parents were Irish and his father Gaelic speaking, but when in Ireland the whole family was seen as an outsider because they had moved to London. These communities can be very incestuous. I have a relative who lives in Ireland, has done for twenty years, has a family and is well known in his community. He is regularly abused for his Englishness, in petty ways mostly. All four of his grandparents were Irish. At the same time many in the disapora in England who have been back to Ireland frequently, like me, end up refuting our Irishness - even though culturally it can never be expunged from us - because we see the Irish who still live there as been nowhere, done nothing dolts. We move on from the sentimentalism. We're English. Why do we want any association with that backward culture. Ireland: the sow that murdered her children, Joyce called it. We're Irish, maybe, but not of today's Ireland. We are exiles, as most famous Irish people have been. Our ancestors got up off their backsides and did something about the poverty and oppression. We went to see the world. We are not the same as those who sit about and whine about English oppression. As an anglo-irishman I'm very much with Mark Renton (quoted above) on that one. Kipling talked about the English at home as a "poor little street-bred people". That applies now to the Gaelic countries. In Kipling's time it didn't. Before we got on with shaping the world (and how we have!) or fighting heroically against the cruellest of tyrants. Now those at home just moan about the English. To paraphrase, you can take some Irishmen out of the bog...whilst others just like to wallow in it.

 

In fairness, the Scottish situation is complicated, and almost unique in some ways. The original union was formed as a result of their King taking the throne of England, and that twisted web of divided loyalties among both the population and the ruling classes makes a huge difference (the same could be said of Wales when the throne was taken by someone seen widely as 'one of ours', Henry Tudor). The same thing wasn't at all true of Ireland, of course.

Where were they in the 18th century? Well some of them were certainly supporting risings against those who had removed the 'rightful King' and the legitimate Scottish line! By the time modern 'nationalism' developed in Europe through the 19th century, those uprisings had been defeated, the 'loyalists' among the Scots had, for the time being 'won' (and deliberately imposed conditions which contributed to slowing any rise of the other opinions among the population), and the 'nationalism' which prevailed for a period was a kind of qualified 'British' nationalism in a period of huge British success and empire. It wasn't until after that empire really began to collapse that circumstances, and opinions, about national loyalties really began to change apace (and again very similar things happened in Wales, although it is still some way behind Scotland, and subject to an entirely different set of economic conditions).

The situations in other parts of Europe, where 'nation states' were being formed from former small fiefdoms around populations who broadly (but not universally, of course) shared a common culture and language, was radically different. Scotland (and Wales, to a lesser extent) had already been through that process centuries previously, and had already existed as a 'nation state' before the union with England. Totally different circumstances, so totally different results in terms of the rise in awareness and sentiment about 'nationhood' and what that meant in practice.

There are, no doubt, those who preach or seek to exploit purely xenophobic attitudes for political gain, but any assumption that secessionist views of the merits of national self-determination in Scotland and Wales are entirely or primarily driven by such fringe lunacy would be completely wrong. It simply isn't the case for the vast majority of people, or politicians, who feel that way - it's about 'localism' and 'democracy', and having their country run primarily according to the wishes of its population. Those are entirely sound principles and aims to have, whether or not people believe that independance is actually the best method of achieving them.

 

Mmmm..... so many things......Pray tell...can you name the Edinburgh man who was a leader in the 1916 rebellion? Well you make so much of your Irish ancestary when necessary I wonder if you'd know?

I can understand your reluctance to discuss Torture and rendition and genocide of so many nations in very recent history.

Mmmm....and your reluctance to discuss the famous neurotic drunkard sodomite and murderer of Englishmen Welsh men and Scots.....not forgetting the Irish....you local hero Churchill!
Yes this I understand!

And your reluctance to discuss the stealing of the English nations assetts by those you hold in high estem...the French and German aristocracy!

But I or the Scottish nation cannot be held accountable for your rogues!

Now as for drugs..... bLiar mentioned when he was in office there was ten million pounds recovered from laundered drug money...pity he never mentioned it was British banks doing the laundering! There is now one very rich solicitor in the Cayman Islands!

I work with English people and have no difficulty in seeing an individual who is either an asset to the project or a hinderence...but I judge on merits unlike your good self! But YOU need to get past the bigotry and perochial attitude.

Have a nice day

Regards
Highlander

 

Very interesting. Thanks for the knowledge.

 

Trainspotting! A line from a drug addict in a film is how you choose to depict all the Scottish people Well, that sets your scene.

Junkies coming off do tend to feel victimised. However what you say has some truth in it. Much of it has already been spoken about in this thread. The Union was not a free choice, wealth was not invested in Scotland and due to this Scotland has possibly the highest emigration in the world. The highlands and Islands had their resources routed and some Americans now talk of the clearances as 'genocide'. A simple way to look at it would be that the Scottish people do not feel they are properly represented by Westminster. That dates from the Union when our elites wanted a Federal Union and the common people rioted for weeks. To decide to take what was a very good line from a drug addict and represent that as the entire Scottish people shows a desire to present a degraded misrepresentation of them.

again what is this? I like you but I think you are crap??

Scotland is not Ireland. I am by descent half Irish and half Scottish and was brought up in Scotland. Scotland has a large Irish population but not as large as her English one as a report I put in recently says. Again you are saying things which have no relation to reality but at best are a stereotype. It does not matter whether the stereotype is Jews, Muslims, Irish, English or Scot's, it is taking a negative description which may or may be not be true and plastering that on a whole people. It is what we call racism.

Just as there was before WW2 when Britain changed its immigration laws to allow more Jews to enter. Jews who had been here for some time and had created their own culture were not keen to have the new ones here. I can think of a very easy reason why there could be this difficulty. The Irish in the UK have long suffered from the worst prejudice. 'No Blacks, No Irish', would be the sign on boarding houses before we introduced laws to stop such racism. Because of this in general there has been a strong tendency among the Irish to stick up and fight against racism wherever they are in the UK. In Ireland however they only very recently got immigrants and have, so I hear, had some trouble dealing with the new racism. That would not go down well with a people who have built their community on standing together with others who are oppressed. You need to understand that if something is happening there is a reason for it. I was on a Glasgow Celtic site some time ago when they were discussing the EDL and Muslims. The people on the site were saddened, sickened even by some supposed English/Irish who came on and expressed support for the EDL. Like it or not Irish who have been living for some time in either Scotland or England will have built their own culture based on their own experiences.

culturally you are not Irish if you were not brought up there. You have a different background. If they were being politically correct and keeping their eye on tourism and American investment they would act with surprise and interest to hear all about it. The thing is that after Scotland, Ireland probably has the biggest emigration in the world and though coming on a trip may be really exciting to you to find your roots, they have people knocking on their door every day wanting to know if every which person lived there 300 years ago when they just want to get the tea ready.

My Mum came from Dublin and also spoke Gaelic. As a child we would go there to visit the family. Always a warm welcome. I can't speak about your father's experience but I suspect it may refer to what I spoke of above.

Every community can be incestuous. It is called rape. My God you do hate the Irish.

Just more stereotypes to express more Irish hate. You do realise this post is not on Ireland, however much you may hate it, but on Scotland. Certainly the refuting of Irishness is a new one to me.

again this thread is not on Ireland.

Well good for you. I am beginning to understand why you are not popular back home.

You know what, the term self hating comes to mind. I think I have rarely seen it so strongly put but be aware this thread is not on your own people, the Irish, who you stereotype and belittle and hate so much, it is on Scotland's independence.

 

Hero, you missed the feted Scottish enlightenment... and the deftly concealed little bit where "English" exploits are directed by quiet Scots, who cringe as self-aggrandizing loudmouths run at the front shouting about how great they are. It's hideous and the sooner it's history the better really. England has lost touch with Scottish culture and has no idea what is important to Scots. The UK is a white elephant, England is heaving with all kinds of social problem we just don't have any involvement in. It's not working, Hero...over...out of touch....archaic....

 

That's a good idea if Scots will receive independence.

 

Of course that comes from a different perspective. The Scottish Enlightenment was the basis of Scottish domination of the Empire. Britain was led by Scots and English. Scotland was no more oppressed than the rest of the Union hence the lack fo Scottish nationalism in history. Don't you think that says something? There was no Scottish nationalism until the Empire started to decline. Scotland, like Liverpool and Belfast didn't used to be so poor. Glasgow was one of the cities claiming to be second city of the Empire. I don't decry Scottish achievement - quite the opposite. It was at the heart of British global domination. It was good and bad, like all things in history that took us forward. My point is that this new "victim" Scotland is a myth. The evidence is that unlike other small nations struggling for freedom, Scotland was happy to be in the Union. Of course if you would like to point out the strong nationalist movements in Scotland in the eighteenth and nineteenth century then I will change my mind.

 

This is from Irvine Welsh, a fine Scottish author who put these words in the mouth of his book's hero. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Your vulgarization of this quote shows beautifully that you have totally misunderstood the context.

I am not against devolution of power to elected assemblies.

Nuance.

Drivel. Generalizations about culture are not racism. And as an Irishman, racially and politically I claim the right to criticize my kin. It is an Irish tradition anyway.

Yes it is another type of Irish culture. All these observations are correct and my experience too.

I said this. But I am also part of the Irish diaspora and therefore Irish. There is not one monolithic type of Irishness. But I was brought up in an Irish Catholic household, surrounded by Irish people, educated at schools full of people from the Irish diaspora, educated early about Irish history and Irish literature. I am not Irish like someone brought up in Ireland and I rarely claim to assert my Irishness. But I am Irish, as I am English. That's just a fact.

You miss the point. Now I think you are deliberately doing this. Of course we have always been welcome in Ireland. Occasionally they will even patronize me and talk about my Western blood. But we're saxons in their eyes really. And occasionally this comes through.

Disgusting. Incestuous is a figure of speech as you well know. It does not and in the context I said it did not refer to rape.

I do wonder at the Ireland you claim to know. Try reading some Irish literature if you want to know what I mean. Start with Patrick McCabe or Brian Moore.

The post is on nationalism. You could read Terry Eagleton on Ireland as well. Saying that your ancestral home is a backward place is not to hate it. It is to recognize it. Pretending that it is some sort of paradise is no sort of "love". What do you think has been happening in this theocratic State for the past hundred years?

Yes you said. It is about nationalism. I shared my experience of nationalism from the perspective of another Gaelic country. I am clear about Ireland. I don't have some misty eyed illusions about it. This is pretty much the same as most Irish exiles I have met in Europe. It is a hundred per cent opposite from the people in Boston and Baltimore who dream of some land of leprauchauns and fairies.

 

Connolly.

Do you want to ask me a hard question?

The Irish Trades Union Leader from Liverpool perhaps?

The rest of your post is the ususal drivel Highlander. I don't know why you bother with such garbage.

 

Sad delusions. As if the UK will be impacted severely by the loss of Scotland. The UK is a global power. Scotland will be as significant as Denmark. Denmark, however makes better cop shows.

Where does all the myth of English aggression come from? Scotland was united with Britain in 1707 by an Act of its own Parliament. There was no invasion. No troops crossed the border. There was no colonization. The agents of Union were all Scottish. There was more coercion in the inclusion of California in the USA and more cold cash logic in the Lousiana or Alaska purchase.

What is interesting is that it was the progressives of the time, the Whigs, who later went on to form the bulwark of those supporting the American Revolution, that supported the Union, with the Tories on the side of the separatists. Indeed, under Cromwell in the seventeenth century, Scottish representatives had been for the Commonwealth of Britain, had sat in the British parliament voluntarily and had petitioned Charles II on the Restoration to maintain the Union of the Parliaments but Charles had rejected this and expelled them from the Westminster parliament. The Scottish elite were caught up in the Darien affair, which had left them without money and power, and they looked to England as a source of this. There is a considerable case to be made that the Scottish elite saw a union with Britain as in their and Scotland's interests and that they were right to do so given the wealth that eventually flowed from the British Empire into Scotland.

This is what actually happened. Scottish feudal lords may have agitated Scottish public opinion against Union, but the emerging bourgeoisie in Scotland was emerging to play a powerful role in the Empire of Britain. Elsewhere in the world it was precisely this bourgeoisie that was clamouring for liberty, in England, Ireland, France and America. There was not Scottish nationalism in Scotland because nationalist movements like those in Ireland, Italy and Germany were led by the emerging bourgeois liberal class, which as Marx described, was splaying a most "revolutionary role" in transforming the world from one of backward agrarian destitution to one of commercial development and scientific progress. In Scotland nationalism was not needed for the Modern Age to develop in Scotland. Where nationalism was needed it was led by this new radical class of bourgeois (Cavour, Garibaldi, Emmet, Robespierre, Paine). In Scotland this class was making money, building the Empire and developing an Industrial Society. Why? Because the English bourgeoisie was the most advanced elite in the world at the turn of the eighteenth century.

From this side of the Industrial Revolution the great Scottish entrepreneurs and imperialists may look like oppressors, but in their time these were the class that developed the modern industrial society which sets Britain apart today from much of the third world, or Russia and China for that matter. The political conditions in Scotland were much more friendly to this class of Engineers and Adventurers than in say Ireland (where a moribund aristocracy weighed down on an occupied people - occupied by Scottish colonists that is). Instead of as elsewhere these people would overthrow the elite and the rulers (ie in America), this group of people in Britain was gradually gaining the upper hand over their enemies the Tories, who represnted feudalism, hostility to the emerging Indutrial Revolution, reaction and decay.

You can tell this by visiting the great Scottish cities and seeing how much they resemble the great English imperial cities. Scotland was a wealthy place, as was England. The wrongs and injustices suffered by the mass of working class Scots were not inflcited by England, but by the Scottish bourgeoisie, just as the English proletariat had to fight their own masters. Thus even the struggle of workers for rights developed along unionist lines and nationalists were not generally welcome in the Scottish labour movement. The Scottish bourgeoisie gave the Scots progress and a standard of living amongst the highest in the world.

Scottish nationalism is a perfect example of patriotism being the last refuge of the scoundrel. Now the imperial dream has withered, the Scots want out. It really is of little consequence. Except to the people of the Orkneys and Shetlands of course, who may very well insist on taking a quarter of this Scottish oil into their own independent statelet.

 

It is a line from 'Trainspotting', It has widely been misused by people who hate the Scottish people to define them all as you did.

so? That does not justify your antipathy.

You believe you were being subtle in your disparaging of Scottish people?

Well this just shows how much you are unaware of things. Stereotype misconceptions are the very bases of racism.

There is a difference between criticism and outright bigotry.

But you only saw that as a reason to hate the Irish. You come over as one of the EDL supporter types. The Glasgow Scot's/Irish do not hate the Irish.

and yet that is what you presented. A stereotype of a hateful, incestuous, small minded people who you were beneath you and who you had disowned.

so?

I already said your culture was not Irish.

How come? You stated that you had refuted being Irish. That the Irish were the most hateful people on the earth and you wished nothing to do with them.

No I am missing no point. I do not agree with you and find your anti-isrish racism as repulsive as I find any other.

Unable to take banter perhaps? What 'Western' blood?

How the hell would the Scottish Irish be seen as 'saxons' by anyone. Can you not see that in everything you just see stereotypes. It is hardly surprising if people give that back to you.

No, I do not live in your world where you call entire nations 'incestuous' .

So what are you referring to - though you should take this to another thread. Your hatred of the Irish is not the subject of this thread. If you are going to reply you need to start a new thread 'Why the Irish are the scum of the earth' perhaps.
.

Better to deal with real life. You claim the Irish are incestuous. Now you are saying you meant something else. Now you want people to read Irish literature. So I think your view of Ireland is based on reading some literature and then stereotyping that onto the people of Ireland to created a hateful, untrue image that you can then present to the world in the hope of propagating hate and myths against them in just the same way that other people do about Jews or Muslims. It is a well worn path of xenophobia. You obviously are too young to be aware that the English were at this long before you got started and have, unlike you, learnt not to be racist against the Irish. They never did however, lump the Irish and the Scot's together which you were attempting to do.

No it is not. This post is on Scottish struggle for Independence. Nothing about Nationalism. Being Nationalist is a completely different issue to wanting Independence and you should educate yourself on the difference and in particular the difference between the situation in Scotland and the situation in Ireland when it became a separate state. May not suite your ingrained prejudice and justification for hate so much but it would be dealing with reality not distorted unromantic cultural racism.

Oh does he present the Irish as small minded, hateful incestuous people like yourself?

Pathetic. Saying that your ancestral home is a place of small minded, ignorant incestuous people who are so much beneath you so much that you are so embarrassed by you that you have refuted your background is hate. I believe with you it is adolescent self hate and it is pretty sickening. It comes from books, stereotypes and a feeling of superiority. Your stereotyping is so bad that you even tried to stretch it onto Scotland and 'celtic' nations. Your views are one of the most disgusting and obvious racism I have seen on forums anywhere and the fact that you claim to be an Irish person doing this makes no difference to that. As I said 'self hating;. You are simply picking up on English ingrained hatred of the Irish which never fully left and wanting to say you hate them more than anyone else, you can see English racists hate them and you justify you are better than them because you left. Hatred and prejudice and stereotyping are however always the sign of the small minded not superior person.

You were no more simply being critical than anti muslim extremists are only talking about Muslim extremists and not trying to create hatred of all Muslims. You are a self hating Irish. No doubt you have come up with some of the prejudice there still is towards the Irish and this is your attempt to say, 'not me' rather than fighting that prejudice.

No I did not. I have already said this thread is not on Nationalism.

You haven't even talked about Nationalsim which is another thing which is not the subject of this thread.

As I remember from what your grandfather told your father on his experience. He had a bad time. You then try to suggest that his experience which may well have been caused by his poor personality, represents the whole of Ireland instead of your grandfather and not only that, still represents the whole of Ireland 2 generations on and further to that will also somehow represent Scotland and I imagine also Wales, it also being what you would see as a 'Gaelic' country.. You do not know the beginning of anything except xenophobia and English supremacy.

 

Scottish independence campaign has stalled

Alistair Darling has claimed that Alex Salmond's campaign for Scottish independence has stalled at the starting line after a poll found that only a third of Scots want to leave the UK.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/25/scottish-independence-stalled-alistair-darling

 

Polls leap about. http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/01/independence-salmond-poll

The decision will be made after people listen to discussion. People cannot come to a decision on this until they know what they are voting for.

 

Trainspotting is a book by Irvine Welsh. I read the book before I saw the film. It is a work of literature of some quality. Widen your horizons. It's written by a Scotsman and these words are put in the mouth of his novel's hero.

I don't seek to justify it. I am just pointing out how irrelevant this part of your contribution - which I largely agreed with - was to my antipathy. Keep up now.

Well not really. But more subtle than your view that it is only acceptable to mindlessly eulogize people and that any other approach is "racist".

This just shows how faulty your logic is. The bases of racism are not the same as racism. Not in the slightest. Generalizations are not the same as stereotypes. People write about culture all the time where generalization is necessary. If you were perhaps to live and work in a culture different to the one you were born in, as I do, you would know that it is necessary to understand these generalities to survive.

I frequently discuss such generalizations about "Western" culture, "European" mores, "American" style of communication, and "Chinese culture" with all sorts of people without any of them squealing "ooh, you racist". This is how we, who live in the big wide world away from sad parochial villages and been nowhere, done nothing people, make sense of the world. We read books about how Confucianism has shaped the way Chinese people think without feeling racist in the slightest. We feel enlightened, even if we conclude that there is much reactionary and oppressive in such feudal thinking and that this has stunted cultural development in China in many ways.

It is a smallminded and shallow analysis to bleat "racist" at every analysis of a nation's history, culture and modus operandi that isn't fawningly sycophantic and obsequious.

Meaningless abusive drivel

Ah, now you just resort to lies and ad hominems. I see that you have surrendered.

There was no implication of paedophilic rape in what I wrote, but you chose to infer that there was.

So, I'm Irish, whatever you say.

Just because you say it, don't make it so.

You know I didn't say this. Clearly you prefer infantile falsifications of my argument rather than to deal with it properly.

I am indifferent to your blustering outrage. Easy catcalls of racism from a perspective that offers nothing but arselicking sycophancy and sentimentalism. My take on Ireland is no different from that of many Irish authors, whom I referenced and you, in your dep appreciation of cuture and racism, have undoubtedly never heard of. Why don't you read Joyce on what he said about the Irish. Ever heard of him? Is he a self hating racist as well?

Clearly the comment went right over your head. There was no banter. You have no idea what I am talking about.

You've lost your way again. There was no "giving anything back". In Ireland I behave as a foreigner. I am of the Irish diaspora and of the Irish nation in that I have Irish nationality according to Irish law, but I am as foreign in Ireland as a Yorkshireman is in Cornwall.

It must be very boring being prohibited from discussing nations, cultures and races on the bassi that you will be accused of bigotry unless you squeak with platitudes and false flattery.

.

The deceit in this line is very clear. The contribution I make is about nationalism. I think the vapid and vaccuous world that you prefer to mine is there for all to see.

I'm Irish. My grandfather faced the signs "No blacks, No dogs, No Irish". I need no lessons from you. I learned about the Black and Tans from my grandmother. I have been to Ireland many, many times. I point to literature as clearly your experience of Ireland is limited and these are common reference points which conform my own experience. You know this, because it is clear from my posts. But you prefer deceit and misrepresentation to argument. I don't lump the Scots and the Irish together. I lump nationalists together. If you want to go sniffing out racism, sniff out the racism that comes with nationalism. Sniff out the xenophobia that prefers walls to neighbours. Sniff out those who want to isolate themselves away out of cowardice and fear. Scottish and Irish people made the world. I am proud to be of Celtic descent and culture but that does not blind me to ist deficiencies and it certainly does not tempt me to drone on like a slavering kissarse. You pour scorn on Irish literature. But you should try it. Try Wilde, Joyce, Beckett, Yeats, Behan, McCabe, Moore...even when these were nationalists they were also world figures and none of them would have whimpered on grovellingly about the saintly Irish. They, as I, understood deeply the ugliness and evil that lies within Irish culture, as well as its beauty and glory. If all this passes you by, which clearly it does, you would do well to pick up a book and gain some insight from those giants of art and literature that make Ireland a land of scholars that rarely mock the written word in the philistine and rotten way that you have done here.

Ah so you want to make an argument! At last! What is your argument? Well here it is:

"Campaigning for independence has nothing to do with nationalism."

Ooh. Well, it's a new one, I'll give you that. But I'm afraid, despite your attempt at being patronizing, your argument is far from self evident and needs some elaborating.

You could start by explaining why the Scottish Nationalist Party is the main party campaigning for independence when all the others will settle for devolution.

It will be fun watching your argument disappear up its own arse.

Don't you have any other lines?

 

A sick and slanderous rant. Try argument over slobber.

Now you have me as an islamophobe. Well if you have no arguments just make it up. I'm sure you have already called me an anti-semite (or as good as) somewhere else). It seems that you are really losing the plot now. And breaking the TOS.

Yes, I look forward to you explaining how the Scottish Nationalist Party are being untrue to themselves by campaigning for independence!

This is really pathetic. Try studying. Political movements for independence have always been described as nationalist by historians and commentators for decades.

Yawn

Now you want to insult my grandfather! Well he fought the British in Ireland, the fascists at Cable Street and died in WW2 fighting the Nazis. I think my granddaddy was a good lad. You insult him all you like, it's only a reflection on yourself. He was also dismayed at the collaboration of Irish nationalists - that is those seeking independence for the six counties - with Nazi Germany. I think his is a good lead to follow. Your masterpiece of cultural commentary, literary appreciation and historical insight...not so much.

 

personal insult.

Look at your quote/ You are not being honest.

Quit the projection. That is exactly what you have been doing and what I have been criticising you for doing..

well point it out because I am unaware of it. Yet another personal attack as each answer has been so far.

Personal attack 4

Does not change the reality that you were not being honest when you say that dissing the Irish as incestuous, ignorant, beneath you and people who you feel spremly superior about is nothing to do with Scottish Nationalism - nor is this thread on Scottish Nationalism.

All you are describing is your usual tendency to ignorantly go by stereotypes. Again I suggest you are projecting and would do better to study yourself rather than just throw another generalisation and/or stereotype. You will notice if you do do some study that it is known that the SNP itself is a liberal nationalism, that means no more nationalistic that the concept of State as is the UK, France, US and so on. The issue is whether the people of Scotland believe Independence is the best choice. The State of Scotland will be inclusive of all the people who are resident at the time regardless of place of birth or ethnicity. Further it, unlike England, will have a written constitution which guarantees the human rights of all the people.

4th or is it 5th personal attack in this post.

Not at all. You used to your grandfather to justify attempting to spread hatred against the entire people of Ireland. The basis of your reasoning for why they were such a contemptible people was that your father could not get on with them, Any social scientist would also have to consider that the problem which your father faced was due to his character not due to all the people of Ireland.

and like I said, the history of the Irish in the UK has been to fight prejudice wherever they find it so it would not be surprising if he had not done this. However you gave as supporting evidence for your thesis that the Irish are contemptible, incestuous people his experience in Ireland.
Here is what you said

It remains that his experience in Ireland is as likely or even more likely to have been caused by his own personality rather than anything else. You basically have based your whole cultural racism argument against the Irish on hearsay.

Now I am going to get some fresh air and enjoy the sun.

 

Your whole response to my argument has been one almighty personal attack and casual accusation of racism ad hominem. In doing this your arguments (let's be kind) have demonstrated hostility to Irish culture (in your dismissal of irish literature as anything worthwhile) and a thesis that any commentary on any culture that is not obsequiously sycophantic is racist. Not content to insult me, you have decided to insult my grandfather. And yet your arguments have done nothing, nothing whatsover to support the only argument you actually made in this, which was that

Seeking Independence is not nationalism

It seems you are going to avoid explaining this utter garbage

...and dodge the question as to what the word "nationalist" is doing in the title of the main party seeking Scottish independence.

It has been highly entertaining to utterly demolish such feeble attempts at insult and abuse. You threw your last stone and ran away. Well done!

 

You see there you go again making your generalisations based on your imagination. My daughter who was about 13 at the time it came out bought Trainspotting and then gave it to me to read. There is no need to imagine you have some kind of superiority if indeed you did read the book. However the quote you gave is something quite different. The question is would I remember that quote all these years ago from reading the book and the answer is no. It's a good quote and it does say something but if you are expecting me to believe that you particular remember that link from reading a book whenever rather the reality that it is plastered all over the internet and has also become used to present a twisted view of Scotland by Unionists or in your case people who abhor, to use your word 'celtic' countries, then you are wrong.

[video=youtube;29-LRuuqFT0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29-LRuuqFT0[/video]

well I don't believe not being racist is small minded, quite the opposite.

Now I could certainly give criticisms of Ireland myself and unlike yourself I do not consider myself Irish having not been brought up there and not chosen to have citizenship. However what you did was simply hurl unfounded abuse based on your feeling of now being 'English' and your stated feeling of superiority to what you call 'celtic' people. There is no talking your way out of it so you may as well admit to it.

I beg to differ. There is indeed a difference between criticism and outright bigotry.

my genuine opinion. That is the only place where I have come across hatred from the English/ Irish to the Irish and it went with support for the EDL and Islamophobia. I have never in my life before heard someone degrade a whole nation in the way you have. However they did not give a care for Ireland. I wondered if those are the people you commune with. When a person starts to use racism/cultural racism against any people generally it is not long before they do against others. You clearly did against the Irish, and the Scot's and Welsh as an addition.

Interesting paedophilia had not even entered my mind so stop saying what is not so. But you did call all the people of Ireland incestuous among rest of your insults.

clearly as I was asking a question, I was not saying anything.

You yourself have said it. You yourself have made quite clear how superior you are to the culture which the people in Ireland inherit.

That is not true. You did say you refuted being Irish.

http://www.politicalforum.com/western-europe/228976-scots-begin-struggle-independence-43.html

 

I think the quote from you above shows quite well what you are like. Like I said I believe it is self hating. I do not consider myself Irish and feel free to criticise where I see problems but have no need to debase and ridicule. I do not hate them or feel a need to distance myself from them. My Mother was Irish. I have loads of relatives in both North and South and you have degraded them all...and like it or not that is racism. You know not one of them but you have tarred them all with your life experience and your own hatred.

well it is a bit difficult to know how you come to your opinion then if there is nothing to base it on.

I have not lost my way. I simply responded to the words you put on line. Why do you even go to Ireland when you hate it so much?

Of course though I do not think you have a passport and if you are relying on your grandfather it may not be just given. I have an absolute right to a citizenship for £150. Millions of people do.

Now you see you are really taming it down. Now the situation you give is no different from someone who has left the place of their ancestors and returns to find they no longer belong. That did not require you to present the Irish in the manner in which you did.

Discussion is fine. Criticism is fine. Bigotry is not.

.

Personal attack after personal attack. No you have not been discussing Nationalism with me except one point. You have been discussing your hatred of Ireland and the Irish Irish.

.

Indeed. In all your stereotyping you lump together. The SNP are a social/democratic party. They have no relationship to European far right 'Nationalist' parties and by 'lumping them together' you present misinformation as you do again and again with all your generalisations and stereotyping.

 

How much trash can one person write? Let me count the ways. I imagine no superiority to anyone who trashes the book Trainspotting or the screenplay, as you did. The superiority of one who values Welsh is clear from the artistic quality of Welsh's work. It is by far his best. Your first reply to me trashed it as a worthless work that could not be relied on for any insight. Moreover, apart from trashing the film, you dismissed the rant as something reflecting a drug addicts degeneracy rather than the actual thoughts of the author put into the mouth of his hero. Now it seems you have changed your mind and the book/film does have some merit to you; even the rant. So there you go...changing your argument when it is put under the slightest of pressure. In this case, wise move.

All you can do now is to call me a liar for saying I read the book. Well there's no answer to that. Your argument is now well and truly in the gutter. I suggest you stick to what I cited it for originally, now that you have decided it has some merit, and desist from the personal abuse.

It's nearly your only tune, yet another personal attack that I am racist. This infantile abuse is the best you have?.

There's no talking my way out of your lie, no!

You cannot point to a shred of evidence that I pointed to my superiority to Celtic people. This is a lie. It is a very inept one too seeing as I regard myself as Celtic and have made this clear over and over.

It's the same tune in a different key. Vey, very boring. It's nothing more than wind and (*)(*)(*)(*). Your opinion. Nothing more. No argument, evidence or insight. Once again.

Personal attack that I am a fascist. Out of nowhere. Why not call me a mass murderer as well. It would be as relevant. It might break the monotony of the dreariness your posts are now bringing.

Worthless drivel. Empty abuse. Getting very boring now.

I described Ireland as being an incestuous place. There is a very wide usage in the English language, which can be picked up by reading books, where this word clearly not used in a sexual context but to describe chauvinism, inward looking relationships, nepotism and similar phenomena.

A dictionary definition would be : (of human relations generally) Excessively close and resistant to outside influence.

There. I have spelled it out to you. The word incestuous clearly having a non sexual meaning.

It was very clear from my theme, arguing that Ireland is an inward looking place, that I was using the word in this context and not accusing Irish people of shagging their sisters. But either you are strangely unaware of the extremely common non-sexual usage of the word, or you choose to slanderously misrepresent my views as accusing Irish people of having sex with their siblings. It was a really disgusting misrepresentation of what I said. But what is more you went further. You accused me of suggesting that Irish people "raped" their family members. I can only recoil at where your imagination has taken you on this one. Incestuous rape is usually a pedophiliac thing; sexual incest between adults is not usually "rape". You therefore introduced the paedophilia with your insertion of "rape" into your slanderous falsification of my position. It was you, in a filthy and disgusting way, who introduced this violence and deceit into the conversation. Go back and read what you wrote.

Rhetorical questions are assertions. Another example of deceit in your posts. Really now...on the unlikely assumption that there might be one increasingly bored person reading this now you have de-railed the thread, do you really think they are that stupid?

Another lie. And you just keep repeating yourself. Very boring.

I talked about Irishness being an ambivalent thing that operates on many levels - citizen, descendant, member of the disapora, resident... I accept that the complexity of this argument may have eluded you. Maybe I should try and explain more clearly. On the other hand...maybe not. You know very well what I mean.

 

Cheap and empty personal abuse calling me racist again. The rest...who cares? This sentence is boring and uninteresting, offering no insight, argument or wit.

Millions of people are Irish according to the irish government. Being Irish is not determined by possession of a passport. A passport is evidence. But you are Irish if you are Irish, passport or not. This is clear from the Irish government's own definition. If you have one Irish grandparent (and I have two) then you are Irish. Full stop.

Me taming it down? I presented the Irish in the same way that Irish artists have represented Ireland. There is of course the element you describe. There is a Frog in the Well aspect to what I am saying. You missed it. To you it was "racism". I think this sentence here just shows the whole limitation of your response - the shrill shriek of racist to anything but the most fawning sycophancy.

I think this is the most obvious lie of all.

Where did I "lump together" the SNP with "far right nationalist parties"? The accusation that I did so is just a lie.

You are determined to argue the ludicrous and absurd point that seeking independence is not nationalism. This is an incredible piece of dross. But it leads you to characterize all nationalism as "far right nationalist parties". I have never said anything remotely close. This is only your view (and interestingly that of the leaders of these far right nationalist parties). If anything - and this is the first time I have commented on these institutions - they are better described as fascist or Nazi organizations, having hijacked the term "nationalist" from moderate parties like the SNP. It is you that goes along with their agenda, that they are not fascists but are merely "nationalists". The FN, BNP, and other European far right groupings are fascist parties and allowing them to sanitize their odious beliefs by association with the long tradition of "nationalism" is to collude with them, wittingly or unwittingly. I can only assume that you have built yet another slander on a premise based on colossal ignorance of the meaning of "nationalism". That is the most charitable explanation.

On the other hand I accept the definition which is mainstream and has been used commonly for hundreds of years. The Scottish Nationalist Party is a nationalist party. An argument that by saying this I am accusing it of being like the Front National or the BNP is disgusting, groundless and deceitful. I don't like nationalism, but that doesn't mean I think it is the same as fascism. If one is interested in the ideas on this subject instead of just the process of slandering and abuse, it is clear that I have talked about nationalism in other posts on this thread - entirely characterized by such movements seeking independence - in the historical context of seeking self determination. Through this I have referenced Cavour, Paine and Emmet and asked where the Scottish emancipators were in these times. These people were nationalists...and great heroes and historical figures. They were not fascists or anything to do with Marina Le Pen or Nick Griffin. To suggest that Griffin and le Pen are 'nationalists" (just because they say so) is to collude with their lie.

My whole point - if you could desist from the venomous hatred you might see it - that there is a flip side to the nationalism which is chauvinist, inward looking, resistant to the world and regressive, is a point made over and over again by Irish writers. It is a theme that if anything has been flogged to death in Irish culture. Far from me being isolated, hateful, uniquely prejudiced, a more valid criticism of what I say is that it is hackneyed and has been done to death as a theme within Irish culture itself. Although to make that argument you would have to be familiar with Irish culture and find value in reading Irish authors, a pastime which from your earlier post you have stated to be without merit in offering any understanding of Ireland. But if you has an appreciation of what Irish people and artists say about their ancestral home you would see how quintessentially Irish such a point was. For me this is the flip side of nationalism, the danger for Scottish "nationalists", that what on the one hand can be a genuine yearning for freedom and self determination, on the other hand is a negative, inward looking meanspirtitedness. This is not confined to Ireland. Chinese nationalism has ingrained an ugly selfishness and disdain for foreign-ness that leads to isolationism and is used by disreputable politicians to ratchet up oppression by appealing to bigotry. This doesn't mean Sun Yat Sen wasn't a great hero (and nationalist) of China. It merely points out the flip side.

Nationalism to me has had its day. This is a liberal internationalist perspective. Whether it is ignorance, intellectual weakness, malevolence or anything else that prompts the shrill cry of "racism" from those who don't like vigor in their arguments, I don't care. Those communities that turn in on themselves and are driven by hatred, jealousy, resentment or trying to blame others for their ills, will fail in tomorrow's world. There are strong undercurrents of all those things in Scottish nationalism, as expressed by the Scottish Nationalist Party.

 

It is a neat and disreputable trick, when attacking someone in an underhand way to accuse them of doing the same thing, in order to detract attention away from what you are doing yourself. At best it successfully conceals one's own actions. At worst it invites the reaction from others "a plague upon both your houses". It is clever, but it is always malicious and deceitful. Your post above is a fine example of this technique.

Here, however, is what you said to me when we first met on this thread, before I had addressed a single word to you.

Just endless abuse. No argument. Just personal abuse.

And after that it was just an endless tirade of "racist, racist, racist, racist..." with which you de-railed the thread.

Try argument.