Scottish Independance, anyone?

The voting has started!

Will the UK continue, or will Scotland try and blaze its own path in the world?

Truly the tension is rising!

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Can you feel the tension?

What is in the ECHR that you think is so unwise? The prohibition of torture and the death penalty? The guarantees of privacy and against race/sex/lgbt discrimination?

The ECHR is trying to cover too much in too much detail, for a hard to change constitution. They need to focus on the most important core principles. The US Bill of Rights were the 10 things that the founders thought were the most important at the time distilled down to about 1-2 sentences each. Since then 5 "rights" amendments were added: #13 slavery & #14/#15/#19/#24 race/sex discrimination (They got a bit wordy on #14).

Torture and the death penalty are both covered by #8 "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." One sentence. This one sentence has allowed considerable flexibility as societal norms have evolved. Torture is now considered cruel. The death penalty is allowed but it's use is far more limited than was true in 1789. By adhering to the KISS principle, changing standards on what cruel punishment is have been incorporated into US case law without requiring the difficulty of a constitutional amendment. And while the exact definition of cruel has varied over the centuries, the core principle that cruel punishment is wrong has never changed and should never change.

Michael Everett wrote:The voting has started!

Will the UK continue, or will Scotland try and blaze its own path in the world?

Truly the tension is rising!

...

...

Can you feel the tension?

Actually, yes. The US media is finally covering this issue with the intensity is deserves.

Tenshinai wrote:

Zakharra wrote:The Constitution is not a 'useless piece of paper' or irrelevant.

Really? Then why is it essentially possible for anyone who can pay good enough lawyers to get whatever they want out of it?

Oh right, archaic wording, and lawyers can always OVER TIME figure out new ways of abusing a rule.

And since the constitution is obviously Holy Writ, then whatever the lawyers twist it into, must by default be correct...

Yeah well, that kind of circus antics is why it´s probably even worse than useless.

If we find out that a part of basic law can be abused here, it can be fixed, something that has happened several times. When language change so that the wording of law becomes strange or potentially wrong, it can and will be changed.

USA has totally tossed this out, made it effectively impossible. It may very well have made plenty of sense when it was written, oh i have no doubt about that, but i´m also pretty sure that if those who wrote it saw how it´s being abused NOW, they would cry.

Zakharra wrote:A constitution should be solid and hard to change, not something that can be altered on a whim or because the politicians follow 'current trends' or some such crap like that. If you have a country that has a constitution that is easily changed, you have a country that is weak and will be easily swayed one way or another and easily fall to evil politicians.

Riiight...
So, how´s your country doing lately with all the spying on everyone in the rest of the world?
Started any wars by using lies and exaggerations recently?
Torture doesn´t violate any constitution does it? Nah, just human decency and minimal standards of civilisation.

Yeah, that little paper worked so well...

If it wasn´t so tragic it would be hilarious.



Good people doesn´t need a book or a piece of paper to tell them what´s right or wrong.

In fact, it has been shown that 1 month old babies shows a very strong sense of morality.

No need to be snarky about it. It's its solidness that gives it enough strength to be a foundation of law. It isn't easily changeable at the whim of mobs and politicians; despite your attitude, those rules HAVE been enforced and people held accountable. Getting a good lawyer isn't a sign that the Constitution is corrupt or outdated and the wording isn't archaic either. It's legalese and ANY good (ie skilled)lawyer can argue in legalese well.

It also doesn't prevent starting of wars or keep politicians from lying, so I'm not sure of your claim there that it's a bad constitution. Spying on other countries isn't something the Constitution forbids or condones, neither does starting wars and torture is a very fluid definition (some people would say not giving prisoners all of the comforts of home and three square meals a day is torture, they'd say imprisonment is torture..). You seem to be throwing any and everything on the wall to see if it sticks in order to claim our Constitution is outdated and too rigid and you prefer one that is easily moldable and can change at a whim (I think you would like the Solarian League's Constitution where it's not what's written that is important, but what modern thought and use makes it (ie the view that the part on secession not being valid anymore even though it is written in as a part of the Constitution for example). You seem to want something that is easily done, yet at the same time can be changed at the whim of politicians and the trend of the day.

Well, we'll see what the result is tomorrow morning.

Interestingly, it would appear that the idea of devolution isn't exactly new:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-29048884

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1913/may/30/government-of-scotland-bill

So, hardly earth shattering! The outbreak of WW1 also stopped Irish Home Rule being enacted. It would make an interesting WHIF exercise to imagine what British politics would have been like.

Although I'm no Labour supporter, I do think Gordon Brown should have been in charge of the No campaign from the start, one of the best speeches I've heard from him:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/scottish-independence-watch-gordon-brown-4275811

It takes a big man to ride herd on a big man. Perhaps Brown should go to Holyrood and take over from that weegie housewife, Lamont.

Mike.

This should hopefully be non region specific:

http://labourlist.org/2014/09/gordon-browns-barnstorming-speech-in-defence-of-the-union/

Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J39bBV7CBJk

WARNING: 13-14 minutes long.

Mike.

Michael Everett wrote:The voting has started!

And now it is over!
Yep, the polls have closed and it's all over bar the counting.
No more politicians posing and pontificating.
No more aggressive advertising.
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We just need to wait to find out how bad the upcoming Scottish Civil War is going to be.

Zakharra wrote:You seem to want something that is easily done, yet at the same time can be changed at the whim of politicians and the trend of the day.

Funny how you keep throwing that around, when i have said nothing of the kind beyond the fact that such a document needs the ability to change. At all.

Zakharra wrote:(I think you would like the Solarian League's Constitution where it's not what's written that is important, but what modern thought and use makes it

Ooh, nice attempt at slander and insults.

Extra funny because that´s essentially how your own vaunted document is being used.

And maybe you should ask RFC where the idea of the Solarian constitution comes from?

Zakharra wrote:(ie the view that the part on secession not being valid anymore even though it is written in as a part of the Constitution for example).

I guess you´re not aware that the argument of lapsed law has been successfully used in USA a fair number of times then?

Which is of course fortunate as otherwise, there´s a large number of old laws never properly unmade that would make probably a third or more of the US population continual lawbreakers.

Zakharra wrote:and you prefer one that is easily moldable and can change at a whim

Again with this unfounded claim. You really seem to think this is a truly damning thing.

Even though it´s just a strawman argument that you made up.

Zakharra wrote:those rules HAVE been enforced and people held accountable.

Really? That´s BIG news then, when were the trials held?

Zakharra wrote:Getting a good lawyer isn't a sign that the Constitution is corrupt or outdated and the wording isn't archaic either.

The document isn´t corrupt, the way it is used most certainly is.

And yes it most definitely is both outdated and uses archaic wording.

The problem about the wording is mainly that modern people like you, doesn´t even see that the wording IS oldstyle, written based on a culture you probably wouldn´t even recognise.

Oh it´s legalese as well, that just makes it worse.

And when you can find things in a document that has no relevancy any longer, well duh, of course it´s outdated.

How about 7th amendment specifying the sum of 20 dollars as a threshhold?

Or what about article 1s rule against anything forbidding slavetrade?
Yeah, what a wonderful thing to be proud of!

Zakharra wrote:Spying on other countries isn't something the Constitution forbids or condones, neither does starting wars and torture is a very fluid definition (some people would say not giving prisoners all of the comforts of home and three square meals a day is torture, they'd say imprisonment is torture..).

Quick with excuses there. Making a joke as an excuse for torture, marvellous show of the superior morals your wonderful piece of paper instills in you.

And you miss the obvious, your own argument is that the constitution doesn´t forbid it, so then it´s ok. Talk about abusing the poor thing. Like i said, those who wrote it would cry if they saw how it was used nowadays.

Michael Everett wrote:

Michael Everett wrote:The voting has started!

And now it is over!
Yep, the polls have closed and it's all over bar the counting.
No more politicians posing and pontificating.
No more aggressive advertising.
.....
....
...
..
.
..
...
....
.....
We just need to wait to find out how bad the upcoming Scottish Civil War is going to be.

So far, looks like sanity has taken the upper hand...

Scotland voted to stay in the UK http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-29270441 BBC reports, "With the results in from all 32 council areas, the "No" side won with 2,001,926 votes over 1,617,989 for "Yes"."

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