Smidgey

I'm curious as to how a question can possibly be untrue. The answer to a question can be (but we wont know that until you actually give one ). Perhaps you should practise what you preach.

You are the one who is misrepresenting my position (in fact, you are completely making it up out of thin air). You would make an excellent politician. Sophistry of this magnitude is only welcome amongst their ranks.

Now, can you please provide a quote where I was openly hostile to this view.

How about the post I'm replying to right now for starters? It's one or two up from this one, shouldn't be hard to find.

Read up.

Ah, so it's perfectly acceptable for you to make up my position but not for me to make up yours? I love how easy it is to set up a trap for you Cassie.

Tell me, if Scottish voters said no, would England have to abide by that judgement (let's assume Scotland voted 60-40 no-yes and england voted 49-51 no-yes)? Otherwise what would be the point in such a referendum?

Note: This is an innocent question just like the Irish 'rights' question. Maybe this time you would like to give it an answer rather than making a massive post about nothing? Maybe you would like to also answer the original question whilst you are at it rather than calling it irrelevant. You make think so, but I obviously didn't - otherwise I wouldn't have asked it.

Obviously such subtle things as 'analogies' are lost on you Cassie.

I would like you to quote where I made this misrepresentation. An actual quote in quotation marks please. I never misrepresented your position once. I asked you a question to try to understand your position. The two are quite different. You attacked my understanding of the English language above, yet you don't even know the difference between a question and a statement. Let alone your poor understanding of analogies. Not going well is it Cassie?

I'll treat this as a retreat on yours.

If you can't follow the discussion Cassie, don't get involved.

P.S. If you want people to offer citations or actually be civil, perhaps you could extend the olive branch by answering peoples simple questions with a 'yes' or 'no' in the first place.

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How vain is man, who boasts in fight the valour of gigantic might!

-Georg Friedrich Händel

BonnieDundee

Well firstly I'd be able to get English citizenship if it were independent even without my Cornish mother and due to blood so it is my business. Secondly I don't support the EU regionalisation. I support all the UK being regionalised but not by the EU, I want to leave the EU.
The English should have a say on England not Scotland, that is absurd.

What is funny about this? I fully support that. I want Scotland regionalised. My Scottish blood is only marginally Scottish it is more Lochaberian.

__________________
"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-Bruce Schneier

How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; build your own cabin and p*ss off front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey

Leopold Kohr.

Frith

Smidge - 1

cassie - 0

This thread is providing an excellent show and tell lecture for both aspiring litigators and their clients. Unfortunately for the English the Scots have a lawyer who is going to win the case because he is running rings around the English argument.

This is not good for the English side, but it does reveal quite clearly why the English keep losing their arguments and the Scots are consistently beginning to win theirs. The English obviously need to engage lawyers who are up to speed with how to win arguments and influence people. I agree with Smidge that the underdog's lawyer often makes a good politician as he spends a lot of time preaching to the converted and blinding the opposition, for what it's worth in these situations, with his gung-ho intellect, or rather pretensions to this.

However, in a world of people, and lawyers, who can tell a question from a statement and a subjective opinion from an objective one, as well as stay with the current in terms of analogies, the lawyer turned politician tends to come undone and often drowns in his own ineptitude. Look what happened to the lawyer Blair. He got away with murder simply by putting his hands in his pockets and grinning like a schoolboy whilst signing away his country, and everyone loved his little beaming behind. Had he been fighting for his country's survival in a court of law faced with opponents well versed in all three of the aforementioned capabilities, Mr Blair would have lost his case for destroying Britain with the people's consent.

Perhaps it's time politicians were made as accountable as other professionals must be. If the gung-ho lawyer wins and his case was strong simply because his opponents were weak then the defendant will find himself back in the dock over and over and the lawyer will inevitably lose credibility over time. Even Blair lost it as a politician with the same tactics.

But logic and rational argument, plus the rule of law seem useless in a courtroom such as this thread (note: a metaphor), where barrages of insults take the place of rational debate and the accused is anyone who doesn't agree, not with the plaintiff or the accused but with the solicitor.

Alas, the dupes of the world. It serves them right in some ways and in others it just makes things worse for those who can see all one thousand glittering orbs.

Cassie will respond by saying I have added nothing of value to the thread. But he would be wrong. I have added an allegory to the case for England. Those with only two eyes will see, those who are blind will be illuminated by a thousand mirrors before they use their own insight and capability.

cassie

You wouldn't, by any remote chance, have anything useful or informative to say which is relevant to this thread?




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Frith

Scotland is going to be the mouse that ran up the elephant's trunk. England is going to be the veterinarian who advised the elephant to balance a piece of cheese on the end of its tusk, take two sleeping tablets and call Gordon Brown in the morning.

Britannist

Then you must not vote for or imply that you might support the europhile Liberal 'Democrats' (as you were in another thread) - for the Liberal Dims are just the political arm of the EU in the UK who seek to destroy our ancient Pound and dissolve Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England into the EU Superstate.

Britannist

A thread about the above poll was opened by me a couple of weeks ago in the English Democrat section of the forum.

The poll confirms rising feelings of English national identity in England which is very much to be welcomed.

England must have her own referendum on setting up an English Parliament to match the powers of the Scottish Parliament.

England is the only part of the UK never to have had a referendum of her own - it is time the voice of the people of England was heard.

Failure to give England equality with Scotland within the UK will result in support for the Union of the UK in England falling further.

cassie

Well, it can be but it's obviously a concept beyond your reach. You might start to gain an insight by re-visiting your understanding of 'untrue'! Remind me, which question did you pose relevant to "Scotland - Independence Referendum moves closer"?

I have never claimed to answer ALL questions, especially those I regard as irrelevant and, even more so, when they are just plain silly! For example, Does my alleged failure to answer some of your questions get your goat? and Does that really make you feel hard-done-by?

You have a penchant, unfortunately shared by too many here, to digress and to reduce threads to trivia!
More generalisations! I suppose citing an authority is making it up out of thin air as far as you're concerned.

I note that you do not dispute my assertion: "I appreciate that, as a Scot, you are hostile to that view."
Can't be bothered. I've adopted your generalised approach - read up,
Can't be bothered, if you can't be bothered to re-state it. Ever heard of 'Copy & Paste'?
Agreed!
It's all in your mind, son!
In common with many others, you seem to approach the subject of referenda with a number of assumptions. Unless Parliament enacts particular provisions to the contrary, referenda are merely a means of attempting to ascertain collective opinions on particular important public issues, with which to inform its subsequent actions. The results are not binding on Parliament unless, as I have already stated, the legislative arrangements make them so in any respect. [One provision Parliament might make as a feature of such a referendum is that another would not be conducted on that issue for (say) twenty years.]

Consequently, it is a matter of political judgement as to how particular outcomes will be treated. One of the shortcomings in your question is the failure to postulate the turnout in each ballot which may well determine what Parliament would do. I can only respond to your theoretical question in general terms. I would expect any question concerning Scotland's position to be primarily affected by the ballot in Scotland. In the example you give, I would not expect Parliament to take any action if only because, although there have been numerous examples in history of annexation, I cannot recall one where a nation was expelled!

However, two things would flow from such a referendum: (1) Scotland would probably be left in no doubt about what England thought (this presupposes a clear cut result); and (2) England (and Wales, for it ought to be excluded either!) would have had equality of treatment. Were the question to be about England's position, I would expect both Scotland and Wales to be included in such a referendum.
Subtleties are not appropriate to such matters. Your analogy omitted to specify the kind of 'vote' France would have: whether it would be in the context of EU Ministers voting or the EU Parliament or a series of referenda throughout the EU. Obviously, you didn't think it through. As you said above (albeit it facetiously) I would make an excellent politician - well, not entirely, but certainly so in some respects, I believe!
Seems to be going OK to me! Why do you ask?
When you ask a question such as: "When did you stop beating your wife?" it misrepresents an individual's position. Accordingly, here are the quotes you demand: "Does that really get your goat Cassie? Does stuff like this really make you feel hard-done-by?" and " . . .your obsession (c.f. the Northern Irish 'rights' thing that you posted)."
If it pleases you!
You've shifted onto other ground now! Since you insist, I'll respond to your original accusations in kind. For convenience, here they are:(1) See above.
(2) In the absence of particulars, I dispute this!
(3) I dispute this, see the evidence above.
(4) My conclusions are based on what you post here.
You might care to take your own advice, instead of trying to send me on expeditions to discover what you are supposed to have said or meant!


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Frith

Nah, it's still Smidgey 1, cassie 0.

A question can't be "true". Truth can only hope to be declared by verification and that does require an answer, and a method. A question isn't a claim. It isn't even a statement. It isn't a premise because it isn't a statement. It's just a query. Queries lead to answers that can be validated to be held as truth. Smidgey stated that and so has the upper hand. Or maybe you know of a situation where a query is a truth and can enlighten us dark age folk.