Union and Secession and Identity

http://lordsoftheblog.net/2014/02/02/leaving-a-union/#comments

“franksummers3ba
10/02/2014 at 3:57 am
Lord Soley,

It would be a tedious process difficult to prove to your readers or yourself to show my family connections over millennia to a sizable number of crucial uniting and dividing number of processes of creating and dissolving unions. I think clearly there can be unintended consequences. While it does not seem likely Europe and a separate UK would go to war in a generation it might happen in bit longer time. Clearly the UK benefits from the ties to the great diversity of human and other resources in Europe and the UK.

Perhaps your compatriots who want to leave wish it for many reasons. However, the chief may be a concern about where this is all headed. Clearly the European Common Market has evolved a great deal and is headed in certain direction. My Acadian ancestors migrated to the New World and abandoned their deep network of roots as an existing society around La Rochelle because the modern era was destroying the union of Languedoc–”Paix(s) des Coutumes” and Languedeouil –”Paix(s) des Lois” which was how they saw France. After much bloodshed it seemed the way to preserve who they were into the future. They and my ancestors who may or may not have been qualified to be in the Cincinnati sought independence from a British Empire which was centralizing after a great victory in the previous world struggle against France. The failed attempt to achieve an independent Confederate States of America attracted my ancestors and their friends because it seemed the only way to preserve a recognizable facsimile of the future they intended when they joined the Union. In my case this theme goes much further back in time.

You are I believe of a party and ideology which seeks broad and global change and adaptation most of all. I do not mean you are always reckless or ill-advised. But if you wish to communicate with those who wish to leave seek to answer how the changes they foresee can be true to the reasons their ancestors in ideas, beliefs and blood agreed to the unions in the first place.

Whether I could have been a great success if I had behaved very differently I do not know. But at nearly fifty I seem to have paid a high cost for certain choices of priority but feel I had little choice. I would imagine the relevant groups you are addressing feel much the same way. For them a real risk of ceasing to be Scot or British is not endurable if they can do anything to stop it.”

Greece is a tiny shadow of what it once was for centuries but it emerged from total eclipse as a political unit. Israel with Hebrew as an official language is another such miracle. The world evolves continually and its maps evolve continuously. I cited the Ukrainian revolution in an earlier status update and wish that nation the best as it struggles forward. The truth is that Western Ukraine has a larger portion of its heritage who are of old Greek diaspora stock from the Byzantine Empire mixed with Slavs than the Eastern Ukraine. But Ukraine’s western people are more likely to be Greek Catholic Uniates with Rome or Roman Catholics while the East is more Orthodox in Union with what is left of Christian Byzantium through Russian Orthodoxy or elsewhere. But they are more Ukrainian than anything else and have a nation together. On my Facebook list I am honored to have had (and still seem to have thought there names do not tag here) some of the leadership of the Sons of Confederate Veterans such as Michael Givens, Chandler Givens, Tom Hiter and Frank Powell III. They have a fraternity which allows differing views on how independence relates to current Confederate heritage and I do not know what their personal view are, but members do support the USA while it endures. The Scots would keep the British Monarch as Queen of Scotland which she already holds as a title.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/26/us-scotland-independence-salmond-idUSBRE9AP0CL20131126

So what would the issues be? Well, here are some raised rather well.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/constitution-committee/news/scottish-independence-lord-hope-and-prof-mclean/

“Likely questions
Areas the Committee are likely to cover with the witnesses include:

What legal principles should govern negotiations for Scottish independence in the event of a “yes” vote?
Is the timetable of independence by March 2016 realistic? What impact will the timing of the UK general election in May 2015 have on this timetable?
What legal measures would be needed to allow negotiations to take place?
Who would negotiate for the remainder of the UK and to whom should they be accountable?
What would happen if the two negotiating teams could not agree on an issue?
What would be the status of the 59 MPs for Scottish constituencies in 2015–16?
What impact would Scottish independence have on the work and membership of the UK Supreme Court?”

I post this rambling discussion to stimulate thought and inform. But not to make too much any single part of it.