"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Friday 19 September 2014

Six of one and half a dozen of the other

I am a long time separated from Scottish politics. I imagine anyone who took the trouble to register intended to vote. So 84.6% turn out was not extraordinary.

If I have to give an opinion, or even if I don't, I think the vote was obviously for certainty.

Scots are essentially practical.It would be like trying to remove salt from water. I've no doubt every Scot believes they could manage their own affairs better. But they also recognize U.K. government services and finances are inextricably intertwined.

The  referendum was like asking people  to buy a pig in a poke.

Would I  have to have a Scottish passport to come and go freely as I do now?

Would I be a foreigner in London where I lived for eleven years,my husband was native and my oldest sons were born?

Would I pick up extra citizenship or lose one?

There may be more Scots and children of Scots  with U.K. status living in different parts of the aodld.
Would they have lost that if Scotland separated.

Maybe I should have had a vote.

My heart would have said yes . The practical would have said no.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The end result appears to be a relaxing of the reins due to the concessions offered. Probably a good thing for all concerned.
Sorry there was no chance to discuss it on the blog. Muddy waters and all that. Someone would have tried to male it an election issue here.

Anonymous said...

I don't know where the idea came from to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote on the referendum. Remembering myself and my friends at that age, we just thought we were mature.

Anonymous said...

Andy Murray waded into it near the end & he is no teen-ager. I think he will survive but he got hit with thousands of angry twits.

Anonymous said...

The media are claiming that the younger voters were almost all in favour of separation. I'm not too sure how they can prove that since it was supposedly a secret ballot. Certainly the photos showed teens for both sides.