I'm not afraid of the truth, nor am I afraid of breaking up the world order, which sucks as far as I'm concerned, anyway. Smaller countries with more responsive leadership and greater individual liberty sounds good to me.
Give me liberty, or give me death!! Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer
Hey JL, you're no Patrick Henry!
Here is a column by Bret Stephens (he is more Jewish than you) that may make you curb your enthusiasm...
Memo to Wannabe Bravehearts
William Wallace should stay in the 13th century.
By Bret Stephens
Sept. 15, 2014 7:12 p.m. ET
Not for nothing did Robert Lansing believe that the idea of the "self-determination of peoples" was "a phrase . . . simply loaded with dynamite." Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State, mostly forgotten today, was a man ahead both of his president and his time.
As chief of the U.S. delegation to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Lansing had looked on uneasily as the peacemakers—Wilson most enthusiastically—cavalierly carved out new nations from the wreckage of fallen empires. National self-determination, in Wilson's optimistic view, would advance the cause of liberty, adding cultural, ethnic and linguistic freedoms to the civic freedoms of democratic states.
Or not. The creation of these states "would raise hopes which can never be realized," Lansing warned. "It will, I fear, cost thousands of lives. In the end, it is bound to be discredited, to be called the dream of an idealist who failed to realize the danger until too late to check those who attempt to put the principle into force. What a calamity that the phrase was ever uttered!"
In that paragraph is written the history of every thuggish national "liberation" movement that would follow, from Algeria and Vietnam to Zimbabwe and Gaza. Self-determination promises freedom in theory but exclusion in practice. It replaces the right of the individual with the right of the group, the faraway colonial power with the local despot. It substitutes myth for history, identity for individuality, "narratives" for facts. It is a doctrine of convenience for local elites who want to wrest power from distant elites.
And it sets a precedent.
In his 1993 book "Pandaemonium," the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that nations are almost endlessly divisible into smaller entities. In 1919 Yugoslavia was conjured into a single nation; today, after several bloody wars, it is six. The cause of an independent South Sudan was dear to Western hearts for many years, but now that South Sudan is independent it is at war with itself. Will anyone there be better off should the competing Dinka and Nuer tribes form their own independent states? Don't count on it.
Nations are not the irreducible unit of political identity. Within a nation there are regions, provinces, tribes, faiths, factions, clans. And then it's every man for himself. "The central idea of secession is anarchy." That's Lincoln, in his first inaugural address.
Which brings me to Scotland.
No English army will march on Falkirk should the Scots vote "Yes" in Thursday's referendum. Both sides will be at pains to say whatever needs to be said to soothe financial markets and begin setting the terms for a Czechoslovak-style velvet divorce. If there are any coups, they will be of a strictly parliamentary kind—against the two Downing Street toffs, David Cameron and George Osborne, who lost Great Britain in a fit of absent-mindedness.
But note that even before Thursday's vote, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is already arguing that Wales, too, would be well-served by breaking up with England. The current Welsh first minister is against a referendum, but that could change at the next election. Northern Ireland already has been largely, if uneasily, self-governing since 1998. One secession encourages another. Once Britain has been reduced to its smaller parts, Flanders and Wallonia, Corsica, northern Italy, Catalonia, the Basque country and even Bavaria may follow. A European Union of 40-odd states? People will inevitably be tempted to ask, why not?
The better question to ask is: Why? Very occasionally, small countries can be great countries, boutique states with reputations for excellence like Switzerland, Singapore and Israel. More often, small countries are merely insignificant countries; petty in their politics and limited in their horizons. Think of Slovenia, Slovakia and soon, perhaps, Scotland.
And sometimes small countries are dangerous countries, because they are militarily aggressive (Serbia), or financially irresponsible (Greece), or inviting targets for outside meddlers (Cyprus, Moldova or the Baltics) or consumed by internal rivalries that overspill national borders (Bosnia) or in the grip of an illiberal leader (Hungary). It's no accident that World War I started where it did: The incomprehensible squabbles of the periphery quickly become the tragedies of the core.
A Scottish vote for independence doesn't necessarily portend all—or any—of this. And it would surely mean less if Europe were in a better way economically, and were it politically able to accommodate Scotland into an overarching European superstate of regions. But Europe is not in that kind of shape. Should the Scottish economy implode five or 10 years down the road, as Ireland's or Portugal's did, neither Brussels nor Berlin will be bailing it out. And London won't either.
Some Scots may imagine that by voting "Yes" they are redeeming the memory of William Wallace. Maybe. The other way of looking at it is as a vote for medievalism over modernity.
Memo to wannabe Bravehearts: The 13th century wasn't all that fun.
