The reason a person from Islamic State is different than a run of the mill murderer or crazy person is that they are a large organized group with military grade weapons, rule over a sizable area of land, and revenue streams derived from the population they control.
Ignoring them and hoping the problem goes away is just ludicrous. We tried it with the Taliban, and they harbored and supported al Qaeda.
Looking through some of the comments you've linked, it seems the issue boils down to your interpretation of "scientific processes" as meaning the scientific method. But that doesn't make sense because learning about the scientific method is indeed part of scientific knowledge, which the law wants them to focus on.
The only reasonable interpretation is that "scientific processes" refers to actually doing science, like experiments and stuff, and "scientific knowledge" refers to learning facts about science, including stuff like "what is the scientific method."
If they wanted to ban the teaching of science, then the proposed bill would not talk about teaching science and having higher standards than international peers etc.
If you can equate Republicans with ISIS in your head then you are not being very scientific in your analysis either. Hypothesis: Republicans are like ISIS. Prediction: Republicans will go around beheading people they don't like. Observation: Republicans aren't doing that, oops, I was completely hyperbolic.
Everything you said has happened. You are describing "Manifest Destiny" -- look it up. We did take over and occupy as much of their land as we wanted. We said we have a right to expand all the way to the other side of the continent and we did it. If there are parts we didn't take, it's because we didn't want them.
What happened over the past 150 years, though, is that Mexico accepted their submissive position on the continent, and stopped fighting. If Palestine submitted, Israel would stop fighting them as well. The only reason ports are controlled is because terrorists in Palestine use them to smuggle in weapons... and btw, controlling the ports is not a blockade, check your facts. Ships can come in, ships can go out, fishing is done, etc... it's just monitored and controlled.
The Taliban is still alive and well in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan are constantly having "talks" with them. They still control large regions in both countries.
The Taliban's success in controlling territory let them establish revenue sources such as the opium trade, and provide cover and training camps for small groups like al Qaeda.
ISIS will be lucky to accomplish as much as the Taliban, but I guess it's possible. And now that Americans understand Islam and Islamic rule and Muslims living under Islamic rule a little better (i.e. the whole "winning hearts and minds" thing is utter bullshit, they aren't going to like us when we "liberate" them), it's unlikely that we'll be returning to occupy the territory and help them build up again.
I agree with you except for your Somalia reference. You don't know what you're talking about. If you think Somalia is "government free" (obviously the paradise bit was sarcastic), then I suggest you go over there and start a church distributing free Bibles.
See how long before the local warlord hears about you and shuts you down and murders you.
Yeah that's right, Somalia's problem is actually too much government, and too many competing governments... not lack of governance. It is very closely governed.
Many Muslims in the Middle East are proud of their history in math because they have been fed lies about the Islamic Golden Age.
The funny thing is, if you read about the political tensions in places like Egypt, you'll find that these Muslims have upset stomachs about glorifying pre-Islamic cultures by promoting them as tourist attractions.
They don't realize that the vast majority of the math they are deluded into thinking they invented was invented by pre-Islamic cultures.
It has to be more than that. They also hate America because we support Israel. If we stop supporting Israel, they'll still hate us because of our valuation of freedom of speech as greater than religion protection, thus we have youtube videos of people burning the Koran and using it as toilet paper. If we ban free speech, they'll still hate us because of our "cultural imperialism" -- you know, stuff like McDonalds and Coke. If we ban American exports, they'll still hate us because we're infidels... but they might leave us alone at that point because we'll be a worthless shithole.
Personally I'd rather just keep bombing them and carrying on our normal lives back here.
They want to de-emphasize "scientific processes" (whatever that means) in favor of "scientific knowledge" and to you that means they want to ban the teaching of science like ISIS?
Every country has border controls. Your argument makes as much sense as calling Mexico a "walled-in open-air jail" because they aren't allowed to freely come to the US.
Israel has a right to control its border, especially when its neighbors harbor and support terrorist groups.
You know that when Scotland was offered union and accepted it, it was bankrupt.
I did not know that, but having looked into it just now that's interesting. I had no idea Scotland ever tried to establish a colony, and it's remarkable that a country could come together enough to put 20% of their entire currency into one business venture.
It got wealthy as part of the union. So perhaps Scotland should pay large sums of money to the UK when it leaves for the privilege of being saved from poverty all those centuries ago?
See now that makes no sense. We were talking about assets and debts, and now you're talking about charging Scotland for the ability to become wealthier. How do you put a price on that that makes sense? If you're going there, you'd have to also charge to England the cost of the privilege of ruling them for so long. I think that's stupid and it makes more sense to focus on things that can be priced reasonably.
I don't see why talking about actual physical assets like oil and gas is "one of the most absurd set of arguments" you've seen, though if you conflated those easily quantifiable things with garbage like "the privilege of being saved from poverty" then I actually understand your confusion and frustration.
To whom? Foreigners who don't have the right to vote any more?
I'm sure you can explain if I'm wrong.. but yes... surely if you earn a pension in England and then leave you don't give up your pension? That's incredibly uncivilized. My mom is from Germany and worked there for a time before coming to America, but she gets her small stipend still. My grandmother lives with her and she receives her retirement income. Are you being serious right now?
OK, then I guess the English will just seize the funds and put them back into a general pot to help offset the shared debt that wasn't taken on board by those same foreigners.
Wow. Do you not understand that the national debt is not a shared debt for some random guy whose pension you want to steal? If I leave America today and move to Switzerland and give up my citizenship, guess what, I do not have to pay off my "share" of the American national debt!
Are you seriously this mixed up that you are confusing national debt with an obligation by individual citizens?
No I don't think we need to reinvade Iraq, I think we need to help the Kurds who have shown themselves to be the most moderate and practical force in the north of the country. The Kurds helped us in the 1st Gulf War, and we abandoned them. They were killed by the thousands by a vengeful Saddam. Now they're helping again against ISIS and are the most effective force in the region. And we're like.... ohh geee we don't know about giving them weapons, let's focus on helping the central government, because this artificial state with warring Muslim sects made so much sense on paper when it was drawn up by the British, let's keep it going!
To solve the ISIS problem, what I would do is give automatic weapons to every Christian, Yazidi, Kurd, and other members of religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq. And a few tanks and heavy machine guns to each of their villages. And set up a drone program in those areas. Then let them fight for themselves, with help at a distance from us (airstrikes, etc).
What you're not considering is that where you and I see sects, ISIS sees false Muslims and illegitimate rule. The area is not ruled by good Muslims, thus they are establishing a caliphate.
I'm not making this up, that is their stated aim. That's why I said "That's the stage ISIS sees themselves at" -- not because I see it that way.
I read the critique you posted, but really it's a critique of just one article posted on that blog, not the blog itself. I'm not even sure the critique makes sense for that article. I haven't read the article it's referring to, but the excerpts in the critique don't support the points its trying to make. For instance, look at the first claim, that the article is calling for a holocaust against Muslims. The author quotes another blog, not Gates of Vienna but Little Green Footballs, saying "At Gates of Vienna, an author referred to as “thoughtful” has a piece that lovingly describes the coming genocide of Muslims in Europe."
Note, not calls for, but describes.
And the critique has this quote from LGF (not from Gates of Vienna):
‘If violence does erupt in European countries between natives and Muslims, I consider it highly likely that people who had never done anything more violent than beat eggs will prove incapable of managing the psychological transition to controlled violence and start killing anything that looks remotely Muslim. Our unspoken conviction that we, in 21st-century Europe, ‘
[emphasis in the source, not mine... also, the abrupt end of the quote is as in the source, not because of me... also the extraneous single quotes are in the source... what I'm trying to say is this source is poorly written]
It seems pretty clear that this moronic author bolded that line and said oh look, they're calling for people to kill anything that looks Muslim, that's a holocaust.
Clearly that's incorrect.
That being said, I'm not familiar with the Gates of Vienna blog, so perhaps it's true they post radical viewpoints. That does not mean that everything they post is incorrect, and having looked at the article about the crusades, it's pretty accurate. Do you disagree? If so, I think it's more fruitful for you to share that disagreement directly, not link to a 3rd party blog filled with vague criticisms that hardly even make sense.
Wait, so the group that has taken over large amounts of land and imposed the laws that they want and believe in is LESS EFFECTIVE than the small terrorist group that hides in caves?
No. Almost no original mathematics was developed in Islamic countries. There was some, but the vast majority was simply transmitted by Arabic/Muslim scholars from earlier Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, etc sources.
Arabic numerals were developed in India and were called Hindu numerals. The reason we call them Arabic is we learned about them from a book written in Arabic, not because they were invented in Arabia.
Linear algebra is not required to figure out Islamic inheritance. The primary rule is that sons get twice as much as daughters, because men are worth twice as much as women. Here are some sample problems: http://www.deltacollege.edu/de...
It was not groundbreaking mathematics. I think you probably underestimate how advanced mathematics was in ancient times. And people like al-Kwarizmi -- from whom we get the names for "algorithm" and "algebra" -- did very little original mathematics themselves. His book on algebra, called "Calculation by Restoration and Reduction," was talking about a method known to the ancient Babylonians 2000 years before Islam existed.
You do realize that "gates of Vienna" is a reference to the Islamic expansion into Europe which was only halted at... Vienna?
Seriously the lack of education about Islamic history is astounding. It's an important religion and culture and you'd think people in this day and age would at least know the basics, like what the crusades were about!
The so-called Golden Age of Islam was still marked by harsh caliphate rule and Islamic expansion. Your example of al-Kwarizmi is someone in an area that had been taken over by the Muslims for 150 years. Do you think DURING the conflict that resulted in Muslim rule there was a lot of stability and promotion of the arts? That's the stage ISIS sees themselves at.
That is ignorant. The Islamic Golden Age coincides with Islamic expansion and the taking over of established, advanced cultures. Did you even read the Wikipedia article you linked?
Oh, unless you actually consider Islamic holy war to be a good thing. In that case carry on, but your characterization of ISIS as "the polar opposite of 12th century Arabs" is incorrect. You should be cheering them on, they are marching down the exact same path as expansionist Muslim armies of the past that you seem to esteem so highly.
I don't think oil is the only problem. Surely you have some compassion for the innocent people being destroyed in this conflict? It would actually be more merciful to nuke the whole area than to leave these poor Yazidis and Christians alive to see their daughters sold off as sex slaves.
By opposing "moderate" rebels, who are still actually hard-core Muslims (even heard this on NPR this morning, "who are the moderate rebels"), we support ISIS? Are you stupid?
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a bit too simplistic to... ah never mind.
That's a bit tricky because whose assets were they to begin with? If the UK says "If you want your North Sea oil and gas, you have to do so and so" then is that fair? Don't those assets belong to Scotland by right anyway? It's not like the UK (or anyone) created the oil and gas, so they have no claim on it in terms of debt.
But in principle I agree with you and Scotland should in my opinion take responsibility for some share of debt if it's determined that they benefited from that debt. I'm just not sure it will come to that. It seems entirely possible that through their contributions over the years of fish, oil, gas, usage rights for the military, etc, they have paid more than they received. If hypothetically that were the case, would you agree that instead of Scotland taking on shared debt, the UK should actually reimburse them and be in Scotland's debt?
Or would you be OK with all Scottish pensions being vaporised overnight because the UK still exists, so the UK will have the pensions?
It's the opposite of that, right? The UK still exists, so the UK owes those pensions. If the UK ceased to exist, then yes the pensions would disappear. Like when a company goes bankrupt and ceases to exist.
Scotland will find it very hard to raise the funding it needs in the markets if it goes independent, but that'll be because Salmond seems to think walking away from their share of the UK debt is a viable option at all. I expect that if they did that, they could tell lenders that was a one off and they fully intend to repay debts accumulated by the new country, and I expect that lenders would buy it (after all HMG will still pay off the old Scottish debt).
I don't understand how Scotland will be given any share of the UK debt. The UK will still exist, so the UK will have the debt.
In the 2 years before actual independence I'm sure there will be negotiations about the issuance of new debt obligations to repay the UK for their investments in Scotland, but that will be new debt, not a sharing of old debt. If Scotland refuses to pay, they would be breaking their obligation to the UK, not to the UK's creditors who have no relationship to Scotland.
Whether that obligation will even exist will depend a lot on how people view Scotland's contributions to the UK. They get a tiny proportion of revenue from the North Sea oil and gas, but in my mind it would be fair to count what they didn't get as part of their contribution to the UK. How do the numbers look then?
Many intelligent people looking at this from a rational perspective have concluded that the "sweet spot" for Scotland is staying in the union and having devo-max
What's the guarantee that will ever happen? I just read that the "vows" Cameron made to give more power and money to Scotland have caused quite a stir in his own party with MPs coming out and saying they'll vote against it.
basically getting it both ways, with lots of self-government combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK, as well as obviously ease of trade.
Is it net positive? Are you sure? There's a lot of misinformation about tax flows because the No side isn't counting a lot of stuff, such as export taxes, the full share of oil and gas revenue from the North Sea, and businesses headed in England but doing business in Scotland. The Yes side is saying once you count that stuff, Scotland pays more than its fair share.
As for ease of trade and other such issues, name a single beneficial issue that can't be solved by treaty instead of by British rule. It's a bit silly to pretend that if Scotland separates, they'll suddenly be a hostile foreign country with no ties to England.
If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain.
I think there will be short term pain, but Scotland will be better off in the long run as they gain control over their own resources. They should be a rich, high welfare state subsidized by oil and gas revenues. Like the Nordic countries.
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The reason a person from Islamic State is different than a run of the mill murderer or crazy person is that they are a large organized group with military grade weapons, rule over a sizable area of land, and revenue streams derived from the population they control.
Ignoring them and hoping the problem goes away is just ludicrous. We tried it with the Taliban, and they harbored and supported al Qaeda.
Looking through some of the comments you've linked, it seems the issue boils down to your interpretation of "scientific processes" as meaning the scientific method. But that doesn't make sense because learning about the scientific method is indeed part of scientific knowledge, which the law wants them to focus on.
The only reasonable interpretation is that "scientific processes" refers to actually doing science, like experiments and stuff, and "scientific knowledge" refers to learning facts about science, including stuff like "what is the scientific method."
If they wanted to ban the teaching of science, then the proposed bill would not talk about teaching science and having higher standards than international peers etc.
If you can equate Republicans with ISIS in your head then you are not being very scientific in your analysis either. Hypothesis: Republicans are like ISIS. Prediction: Republicans will go around beheading people they don't like. Observation: Republicans aren't doing that, oops, I was completely hyperbolic.
Everything you said has happened. You are describing "Manifest Destiny" -- look it up. We did take over and occupy as much of their land as we wanted. We said we have a right to expand all the way to the other side of the continent and we did it. If there are parts we didn't take, it's because we didn't want them.
What happened over the past 150 years, though, is that Mexico accepted their submissive position on the continent, and stopped fighting. If Palestine submitted, Israel would stop fighting them as well. The only reason ports are controlled is because terrorists in Palestine use them to smuggle in weapons... and btw, controlling the ports is not a blockade, check your facts. Ships can come in, ships can go out, fishing is done, etc... it's just monitored and controlled.
The Taliban is still alive and well in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan are constantly having "talks" with them. They still control large regions in both countries.
The Taliban's success in controlling territory let them establish revenue sources such as the opium trade, and provide cover and training camps for small groups like al Qaeda.
ISIS will be lucky to accomplish as much as the Taliban, but I guess it's possible. And now that Americans understand Islam and Islamic rule and Muslims living under Islamic rule a little better (i.e. the whole "winning hearts and minds" thing is utter bullshit, they aren't going to like us when we "liberate" them), it's unlikely that we'll be returning to occupy the territory and help them build up again.
I agree with you except for your Somalia reference. You don't know what you're talking about. If you think Somalia is "government free" (obviously the paradise bit was sarcastic), then I suggest you go over there and start a church distributing free Bibles.
See how long before the local warlord hears about you and shuts you down and murders you.
Yeah that's right, Somalia's problem is actually too much government, and too many competing governments... not lack of governance. It is very closely governed.
Many Muslims in the Middle East are proud of their history in math because they have been fed lies about the Islamic Golden Age.
The funny thing is, if you read about the political tensions in places like Egypt, you'll find that these Muslims have upset stomachs about glorifying pre-Islamic cultures by promoting them as tourist attractions.
They don't realize that the vast majority of the math they are deluded into thinking they invented was invented by pre-Islamic cultures.
It has to be more than that. They also hate America because we support Israel. If we stop supporting Israel, they'll still hate us because of our valuation of freedom of speech as greater than religion protection, thus we have youtube videos of people burning the Koran and using it as toilet paper. If we ban free speech, they'll still hate us because of our "cultural imperialism" -- you know, stuff like McDonalds and Coke. If we ban American exports, they'll still hate us because we're infidels... but they might leave us alone at that point because we'll be a worthless shithole.
Personally I'd rather just keep bombing them and carrying on our normal lives back here.
They want to de-emphasize "scientific processes" (whatever that means) in favor of "scientific knowledge" and to you that means they want to ban the teaching of science like ISIS?
Quite an exaggeration there, don't you think?
Every country has border controls. Your argument makes as much sense as calling Mexico a "walled-in open-air jail" because they aren't allowed to freely come to the US.
Israel has a right to control its border, especially when its neighbors harbor and support terrorist groups.
You know that when Scotland was offered union and accepted it, it was bankrupt.
I did not know that, but having looked into it just now that's interesting. I had no idea Scotland ever tried to establish a colony, and it's remarkable that a country could come together enough to put 20% of their entire currency into one business venture.
It got wealthy as part of the union. So perhaps Scotland should pay large sums of money to the UK when it leaves for the privilege of being saved from poverty all those centuries ago?
See now that makes no sense. We were talking about assets and debts, and now you're talking about charging Scotland for the ability to become wealthier. How do you put a price on that that makes sense? If you're going there, you'd have to also charge to England the cost of the privilege of ruling them for so long. I think that's stupid and it makes more sense to focus on things that can be priced reasonably.
I don't see why talking about actual physical assets like oil and gas is "one of the most absurd set of arguments" you've seen, though if you conflated those easily quantifiable things with garbage like "the privilege of being saved from poverty" then I actually understand your confusion and frustration.
To whom? Foreigners who don't have the right to vote any more?
I'm sure you can explain if I'm wrong.. but yes... surely if you earn a pension in England and then leave you don't give up your pension? That's incredibly uncivilized. My mom is from Germany and worked there for a time before coming to America, but she gets her small stipend still. My grandmother lives with her and she receives her retirement income. Are you being serious right now?
OK, then I guess the English will just seize the funds and put them back into a general pot to help offset the shared debt that wasn't taken on board by those same foreigners.
Wow. Do you not understand that the national debt is not a shared debt for some random guy whose pension you want to steal? If I leave America today and move to Switzerland and give up my citizenship, guess what, I do not have to pay off my "share" of the American national debt!
Are you seriously this mixed up that you are confusing national debt with an obligation by individual citizens?
Talk about an absurd set of arguments.
No I don't think we need to reinvade Iraq, I think we need to help the Kurds who have shown themselves to be the most moderate and practical force in the north of the country. The Kurds helped us in the 1st Gulf War, and we abandoned them. They were killed by the thousands by a vengeful Saddam. Now they're helping again against ISIS and are the most effective force in the region. And we're like.... ohh geee we don't know about giving them weapons, let's focus on helping the central government, because this artificial state with warring Muslim sects made so much sense on paper when it was drawn up by the British, let's keep it going!
To solve the ISIS problem, what I would do is give automatic weapons to every Christian, Yazidi, Kurd, and other members of religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq. And a few tanks and heavy machine guns to each of their villages. And set up a drone program in those areas. Then let them fight for themselves, with help at a distance from us (airstrikes, etc).
What you're not considering is that where you and I see sects, ISIS sees false Muslims and illegitimate rule. The area is not ruled by good Muslims, thus they are establishing a caliphate.
I'm not making this up, that is their stated aim. That's why I said "That's the stage ISIS sees themselves at" -- not because I see it that way.
I read the critique you posted, but really it's a critique of just one article posted on that blog, not the blog itself. I'm not even sure the critique makes sense for that article. I haven't read the article it's referring to, but the excerpts in the critique don't support the points its trying to make. For instance, look at the first claim, that the article is calling for a holocaust against Muslims. The author quotes another blog, not Gates of Vienna but Little Green Footballs, saying "At Gates of Vienna, an author referred to as “thoughtful” has a piece that lovingly describes the coming genocide of Muslims in Europe."
Note, not calls for, but describes.
And the critique has this quote from LGF (not from Gates of Vienna):
‘If violence does erupt in European countries between natives and Muslims, I consider it highly likely that people who had never done anything more violent than beat eggs will prove incapable of managing the psychological transition to controlled violence and start killing anything that looks remotely Muslim. Our unspoken conviction that we, in 21st-century Europe, ‘
[emphasis in the source, not mine... also, the abrupt end of the quote is as in the source, not because of me... also the extraneous single quotes are in the source... what I'm trying to say is this source is poorly written]
It seems pretty clear that this moronic author bolded that line and said oh look, they're calling for people to kill anything that looks Muslim, that's a holocaust.
Clearly that's incorrect.
That being said, I'm not familiar with the Gates of Vienna blog, so perhaps it's true they post radical viewpoints. That does not mean that everything they post is incorrect, and having looked at the article about the crusades, it's pretty accurate. Do you disagree? If so, I think it's more fruitful for you to share that disagreement directly, not link to a 3rd party blog filled with vague criticisms that hardly even make sense.
Wait, so the group that has taken over large amounts of land and imposed the laws that they want and believe in is LESS EFFECTIVE than the small terrorist group that hides in caves?
No. Almost no original mathematics was developed in Islamic countries. There was some, but the vast majority was simply transmitted by Arabic/Muslim scholars from earlier Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, etc sources.
Arabic numerals were developed in India and were called Hindu numerals. The reason we call them Arabic is we learned about them from a book written in Arabic, not because they were invented in Arabia.
Linear algebra is not required to figure out Islamic inheritance. The primary rule is that sons get twice as much as daughters, because men are worth twice as much as women. Here are some sample problems: http://www.deltacollege.edu/de...
Here's another take on it: http://intermath.coe.uga.edu/t...
It was not groundbreaking mathematics. I think you probably underestimate how advanced mathematics was in ancient times. And people like al-Kwarizmi -- from whom we get the names for "algorithm" and "algebra" -- did very little original mathematics themselves. His book on algebra, called "Calculation by Restoration and Reduction," was talking about a method known to the ancient Babylonians 2000 years before Islam existed.
You do realize that "gates of Vienna" is a reference to the Islamic expansion into Europe which was only halted at... Vienna?
Seriously the lack of education about Islamic history is astounding. It's an important religion and culture and you'd think people in this day and age would at least know the basics, like what the crusades were about!
The so-called Golden Age of Islam was still marked by harsh caliphate rule and Islamic expansion. Your example of al-Kwarizmi is someone in an area that had been taken over by the Muslims for 150 years. Do you think DURING the conflict that resulted in Muslim rule there was a lot of stability and promotion of the arts? That's the stage ISIS sees themselves at.
That is ignorant. The Islamic Golden Age coincides with Islamic expansion and the taking over of established, advanced cultures. Did you even read the Wikipedia article you linked?
Oh, unless you actually consider Islamic holy war to be a good thing. In that case carry on, but your characterization of ISIS as "the polar opposite of 12th century Arabs" is incorrect. You should be cheering them on, they are marching down the exact same path as expansionist Muslim armies of the past that you seem to esteem so highly.
I don't think oil is the only problem. Surely you have some compassion for the innocent people being destroyed in this conflict? It would actually be more merciful to nuke the whole area than to leave these poor Yazidis and Christians alive to see their daughters sold off as sex slaves.
By opposing "moderate" rebels, who are still actually hard-core Muslims (even heard this on NPR this morning, "who are the moderate rebels"), we support ISIS? Are you stupid?
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a bit too simplistic to... ah never mind.
Slicing up assets also means slicing up debts.
That's a bit tricky because whose assets were they to begin with? If the UK says "If you want your North Sea oil and gas, you have to do so and so" then is that fair? Don't those assets belong to Scotland by right anyway? It's not like the UK (or anyone) created the oil and gas, so they have no claim on it in terms of debt.
But in principle I agree with you and Scotland should in my opinion take responsibility for some share of debt if it's determined that they benefited from that debt. I'm just not sure it will come to that. It seems entirely possible that through their contributions over the years of fish, oil, gas, usage rights for the military, etc, they have paid more than they received. If hypothetically that were the case, would you agree that instead of Scotland taking on shared debt, the UK should actually reimburse them and be in Scotland's debt?
Or would you be OK with all Scottish pensions being vaporised overnight because the UK still exists, so the UK will have the pensions?
It's the opposite of that, right? The UK still exists, so the UK owes those pensions. If the UK ceased to exist, then yes the pensions would disappear. Like when a company goes bankrupt and ceases to exist.
Scotland will find it very hard to raise the funding it needs in the markets if it goes independent, but that'll be because Salmond seems to think walking away from their share of the UK debt is a viable option at all. I expect that if they did that, they could tell lenders that was a one off and they fully intend to repay debts accumulated by the new country, and I expect that lenders would buy it (after all HMG will still pay off the old Scottish debt).
I don't understand how Scotland will be given any share of the UK debt. The UK will still exist, so the UK will have the debt.
In the 2 years before actual independence I'm sure there will be negotiations about the issuance of new debt obligations to repay the UK for their investments in Scotland, but that will be new debt, not a sharing of old debt. If Scotland refuses to pay, they would be breaking their obligation to the UK, not to the UK's creditors who have no relationship to Scotland.
Whether that obligation will even exist will depend a lot on how people view Scotland's contributions to the UK. They get a tiny proportion of revenue from the North Sea oil and gas, but in my mind it would be fair to count what they didn't get as part of their contribution to the UK. How do the numbers look then?
Yeah that sounds great, but the editorializing along the lines of "this will be cataclysmic to the Scottish economy" is ridiculous.
Many intelligent people looking at this from a rational perspective have concluded that the "sweet spot" for Scotland is staying in the union and having devo-max
What's the guarantee that will ever happen? I just read that the "vows" Cameron made to give more power and money to Scotland have caused quite a stir in his own party with MPs coming out and saying they'll vote against it.
basically getting it both ways, with lots of self-government combined with a net financial income from the rest of the UK, as well as obviously ease of trade.
Is it net positive? Are you sure? There's a lot of misinformation about tax flows because the No side isn't counting a lot of stuff, such as export taxes, the full share of oil and gas revenue from the North Sea, and businesses headed in England but doing business in Scotland. The Yes side is saying once you count that stuff, Scotland pays more than its fair share.
As for ease of trade and other such issues, name a single beneficial issue that can't be solved by treaty instead of by British rule. It's a bit silly to pretend that if Scotland separates, they'll suddenly be a hostile foreign country with no ties to England.
If the UK breaks up, the whole of Britain will be worse off for it, but I suspect Scotland will take the bigger brunt of the pain.
I think there will be short term pain, but Scotland will be better off in the long run as they gain control over their own resources. They should be a rich, high welfare state subsidized by oil and gas revenues. Like the Nordic countries.