FREEDOM!!!! [3]

Same here, MP's dont tend to send their own children to war. They target the lower classes for recruitment.

recruited, not forced. Soldiers get paid, its a job. Its not 1918 any more you know.

halfwise wrote:Actually if the people just took their money and disappeared with it, it would theoretically make no difference.  Both the money in and out is proportional to the number of people: think of it as keeping your own bank account, but all the money is just pooled in the bank.  If people leave, your money is still there.

The problem is that just like a bank, the money you put in doesn't just sit there waiting for you to take it out.  It collects interest, which is supported by investing.  Bigger banks can do better investing with more money to work with.  Countries aren't banks, but the idea that stuff is being done with the money is the same, and a bigger country will be more stable against economic perturbations.

So the question is, is 6 million people big enough for economic stability?

thanks for explaining it Halfy, thats kind of what I meant to say but didnt know how to explain. It seems risky without a buffer of 60 millions of peoples contributions.

The pension issue has been discussed a lot up here.
The SNP say we need to attract extra folk through immigration- the numbers are perfectly feasible, but it requires independence because it requires control of immigration.
Right now with immigration set by an immigration hostile Westminster whichever party gets in power we are losing people we should be keeping.
A good example of this is from our universities. There are a lot of overseas students come here, we have very good world renowned universities, we educate the Royals, not Englands big two UNi's.
But once our overseas students graduate, instead of being scooped up by local companies, and we have a lot of quality work in the oil, gas,, renewables, research and development sides of things, we have to kick them out of the country under Westminster rules. Its a complete waste of talent that we just educated. Someone else gets the benefit of that educated person, and their taxes.

why do you have to kick them out?. If they have jobs nobody gets 'kicked out' certainly not EU immigrants. and many Tier 1 and Tier 2 workers from non EU countries can get long term visas if they are sponsored by their employers.

Thems the immigration laws. Once they graduate they have to leave the country.
EU citizens dont count as they are covered by EU freedom of movement, but we get a lot of students from outside the EU too.

And the immigration laws in general, largely in response to UKIP have got tighter. And making them even more tighter and letting even fewer in the future is paying well to the English audience, its the opposite of what Scotland needs, we are trying to increase our population through immigration.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:So that had to change. Hitler came up with the wheeze that you didn't slowly march your army into a neighbour, you went right through it at speed and wiped out the resistance before it got stared and replaced the infrastructure as you went and destroyed the defences.

Hey now, Hitler wasn't the first person to think of doing that.



(Not that I am in any way trying to imply that there is a moral equivalence between Hitler and Sherman.)

Also worth noting is that in the long run, neither of them succeeded in the whole "wiping out resistance" thing.

Sherman's motivations were a little different. In large part he was trying to make the war bad enough that public support for it would crumble: it was more than just ripping out infrastructure support. Hitler wanted to ensure he could continue the war by ending resistance, while Sherman wanted to end the war by reducing support for the resistance.

Obviously there were a lot of differences and like I said, I'm not trying to suggest there was a moral similarity between the two, but my point was that the techniques and strategies of total war began decades prior to WWII (though that was certainly where they were taken the furthest).

Both wanted to destroy resistance within certain areas, though.  The fact that Hitler's motivation was to free up troops to continue conquering and Sherman's was to end the war and return to the status quo is sort of beside the point IMO.  I also think it worth noting that, while Sherman's drastic action probably helped wrap up active hostilities in the South, the complete failure of Reconstruction (in part due to guerilla/terrorist activity by former Confederate soldiers) made his victory more than a little hollow. Not that that was Sherman's fault necessarily -- he tentatively tried his hand at land distribution during the last months of the conflict, while post-war Union leaders turned a blind eye to the perpetuation of the institution of slavery in all but name.

I wasn't at all trying to take away from your basic point: Sherman (re)introduced the concept of the fast moving army to modern warfare. The militaries of the world had been working so hard to become centrally directed cogs on a giant chessboard that they had forgotten how to fight like Mongols, or Hannibal, or Alexander, or....

Well Cameron paid us Scots a visit yesterday, well he paid a visit to a room full of his rich CBI friends and said some stuff about the Union.
Thing is no one listens to Cameron here for so long as he thinks this sort of manner of conducting himself is appropriate.
But coming up here, making a speech at us, and then leaving again before anyone can ask any questions, is the epitome of what is wrong.
He refuses to take part in debate with Salmond, he refuses to speak directly to the public, he doesn't even meet the public, he just comes up here every so often, talks at us from the safety of a room full of allies, then leaves again.
He is the Prime Minister supposedly of all the UK, he needs to engage if he want anyone to pay him any heed.
The way he is doing it now is only helping the YES vote.

Upper level politicians always talk to the choir. Bush was famous for it, but they all do it.

Technically its nothing to do with the English, its for the Scottish to vote, we dont have a vote, therefore he has to tread a fine line between being too involved or not. Basically he cant win. Someone is bound to have a go at Westminster for not being hands on enough., someone is bound to moan if he goes to Scotland every 5 minutes.

I dont actually give a shit but, I wonder what is creeping thru the Queens mind over all this ? What little secrets & schemes have been thought up in her rooms ? Bargaining & working this or that out ? Has this stabbed her emotionally thru the heart ? If all goes ahead & Scotland becomes a country to itself, the flag will have to be altered for a start.

If Scotland does get Independence its going to cause divisions and bad feeling for generations. But its highly unlikely.

The Queens stays head of state Azriel. She gets to keep Balmoral and Holyrood Palace so she should be ok with it.

Heard on Have I got news for you:

Sean Connery has a tattoo on  his arm that reads "Scotland forever."

He had the words "I'm leaving..." surgically removed.

The No campaign put out this ad, meant to scare women voters into saying NO-



Unfortunately for them it has been trending under the hashtag- patronizinglady, with feminist groups in particular appalled at the portrayal of Scottish women stuck in her kitchen who only go on things 'aff the telly' and only makes decisions based on zero facts and some sort of female instinct about her children. If they had shot this in black and white it could have come from the 1950's!
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Here are some of the responses doing the rounds-

Douglas Alexander seems to come from the Salmond school of patronizing.

A little tidbit form the BBC that highlights another reason Westminster as so keen to keep hold of us, despite telling the rest of the UK the lie we cost them money-

'In 2012 (the last year for which figures are available), 26.1% of the electricity generated in Scotland was exported to the rest of the UK.
Last year, the industry regulator Ofgem warned that spare generating capacity in the UK could fall to 2% by 2015.
Without Scottish generation and Scottish renewable energy, the spare capacity margin across the GB grid would already be in negative figures.'

So the lights may go off in England and Wales on Independence Day, but not to worry, you can always buy the 26% surplus from us.

How do you know the lie about costing money is by Westminster and not the Scottish spin doctors?

Because the NO campaign doesnt make any sense if Scotland is subsidised by the rest of the UK.
Every single Westminster party are shoulder to shoulder- Labour and Tory are standing together on the same platform, in Scotland, to try to persuade us to stay in the Union.
What so we can leech of you and cost you money for even longer?

Why would all the major parties do that? This should be their opportunity to cut their losses, make a saving at a time when the economy needs savings, and improve the lot of RUK.
The other give away of course is that when Cameron and co do come up here they tell us a different story than they do the rest of the UK.
Cameron himself says 'of course Scotland could be a successful independent country, the question is should it be?' They dont even pretend to make the argument we are subsidised up here because our news reporters would tear them to shreds with the facts.
Its the same reason Darling never once made any such claim in either of the debates.

This is a bit worrying.

A Scotland referendum No campaigner Jim Murphy has accused the Yes campaign of "sinister" street mobbery after his tour visits were disrupted by crowds.

Labour frontbencher Jim Murphy described the abuse as "sinister".

He said his last 12 No campaign meetings had been disrupted by hundreds of "co-ordinated" individuals throwing eggs and hurling abuse.
Mr Murphy has been staging a tour of 100 towns in 100 days with weeks to go until the referendum vote takes place.
He told Sky News: "I don't mind heckles, do you know what I don't mind people throwing eggs, that's just a dry cleaning bill that's neither here nor there.
"Instead of turning up and crowds of people on all sides, I would turn up and there was an organised mob of yes supporters facilitated through the Yes Scotland organisations, through websites, through Facebook and other social media.

"This is co-ordinated, it's sinister and there have been times, across the period, [there have been] hundreds of people involved in it.

"These are people intending to disrupt and silence undecided voters on street corners so they cannot have their say."

There is a fair amount of spin on this story.
The groups involved are grass roots organisations, not officially part of the YES campaign or organised by them.
And passions run high, lot of celtic passion about over the debate and unfortunately things can get heated. No one was hurt, he had an egg chucked at him, occupational hazard for an MP.
Yesterday a pro Union group kicked a YES supporter in the face from the platform, knocking her to the ground.
Better Together are not to blame for that either. No more than the YES campaign are for the Murphy incident.